[AlotOfReading]

Clinics are facing severe labor shortages. It doesn't matter what the demand is, because they have a limited supply of veterinary care to give. My partner's clinic recently became corporate-owned because they simply could not hire new vets to be able to take new clients. Any days off any vet took had to be covered by one of the others on their "weekend" or the clinic would be forced to shut down.

Like other forms of healthcare, people want to take care of their pets properly and that makes demand relatively inelastic. If one clinic isn't taking appointments, they'll go to another even if the prices are 20% or more higher, especially if that one is more convenient to access. Once they're there, they'll usually stay for a long time.

[snapetom]

Agree with the demand elasticity, but I'd like to add something about higher prices. It's been studied in the industry very well that you can't have good care without higher prices and "things." It's just not possible, and people that say their vets are "good and cheap" are just fooling themselves.

As an example, prior to certain surgeries, my wife offers drug A to the clients. It adds to the cost but increase the chance of survival. However, drug B is not an option because studies have shown in increases survivorship by 50%. She bakes it into the cost of the surgery and refuses to do the surgery without it. Clinic down the street offers both drugs as options, bringing the base cost of the surgery down.

So now she has a reputation of being expensive vet. If she offers drug b as an option, patients die more frequently and she has a reputation as a bad vet.

She'd much rather have the reputation as an expensive vet.

[whimsicalism]

Maybe it would be better if they charged more and paid their vets more so that there were actually enough workers to help people's pets? If that's what PE is doing because the local owners are too afraid to raise prices, more power to them.

[snapetom]

Higher prices == worse Yelp reviews. You then get a reputation for being expensive, and Yelpers warn people to stay away.

This is an emotionally charged industry where 99.9% of the customers have no clue what goes on business-wise behind the scenes. Yelp has been a curse, giving voice to these people.

[jacksnipe]

But why can’t local clinics get new vets? Because they can’t pay them enough, because they don’t price gouge?

[AlotOfReading]

In addition to what snapetom said, there are about 4400 annual vet jobs and 3200 new grads. Someone is going to miss out.

Graduates who want to make money will go to commercial or fisheries operations, which pay better overall. We're in the bay area, one of the highest-demand regions in the highest-demand state. There aren't many people left to compete over. Corps are currently offering 5-6 figure sign-ons and bonuses in our area. Even if the salary can be matched and they accept, there's still the tech shortage snapetom mentioned. Those people are often commuting from places like Tracy to have reasonable housing costs and many have simply left the industry entirely. You can raise salaries, but there's still only a limited number of people with RVT licenses.

[wolverine876]

> there are about 4400 annual vet jobs and 3200 new grads

So why isn't supply increasing to meet demand?

[AlotOfReading]

I have absolutely no idea why they haven't increased the number of residencies available (not a field I work in), but the process to become a vet is similar to other medical specialties. There's a limited number of slots available annually, and the number of slots is lower than the number of people retiring, let alone accounting for industry growth.

[lotsofpulp]

>There aren't many people left to compete over. Corps are currently offering 5-6 figure sign-ons and bonuses in our area.

They simply are not offering enough money. If 5 to 6 figure bonuses do not work, then they should be increasing pay to high 6 figures or 7 figures. I would be surprised if 7 figures does not solve their supply issue.

[snapetom]

It's not as simple as hiriing vets. It's having techs to support the vets. Minimum, you need two techs to support a vet, ideally three. Many states require techs to be licensed and have at least AA degrees, so you're paying for an additional 2-3 educated people plus the vet.

Of course, the "ideal" rarely happens, the point is, with every vet you add, issues of juggling staff, scheduling, and turnover skyrocket

[bombcar]

I'd assume it ends up being that once the company owns all of them it can assign vets to whichever office needs "coverage", jack prices, and raise salary somewhat, too.

To be fair to the companies, they do usually work to "maximize vet time" where they hire or outsource the other stuff the office does so the vet is spending most of their time vetting instead of paperwork and office work.