{"id":1668,"date":"2023-02-03T01:04:09","date_gmt":"2023-02-02T15:04:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/software.covetrus.com\/apac\/?p=1668"},"modified":"2026-09-29T22:17:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-29T12:17:12","slug":"the-opportunity-more-revenue-the-gap-missed-charges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/software.covetrus.com\/apac\/veterinary-insights\/article\/practice-solutions\/the-opportunity-more-revenue-the-gap-missed-charges\/","title":{"rendered":"The opportunity = more revenue. The gap = missed charges."},"content":{"rendered":"

Did you know that practices, on average are losing up to $100,000 plus per vet per annum<\/a>? This is a scary number when you consider the Cost of Living (CoL) crisis and the tight reins we should all be having on our costs, and it\u2019s all down to missed charges at the vet practice.<\/p>\n

With such a significant revenue loss, many articles and research suggest that it\u2019s down to human error and unintentional behaviour or habits. Our minds are conditioned to think that an occasional invoicing mistake or a missed charge won\u2019t mean much, but cumulatively, it\u2019s a whole different story. Added up over time, it can result in thousands of dollars of revenue lost for the practice.<\/p>\n

Whether you\u2019re out in the field or performed an x-ray in-house and simply forgot to add it to the bill because you\u2019ve been so busy flitting about from room-to-room, missed charges seem to be a common mistake down to the nature of a busy vet practice.<\/p>\n

The 10-20% missed charges gap<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

The DMV360<\/a> and Today\u2019s Veterinary Business<\/a> articles suggest from a study that \u201con average, hospitals were failing to invoice 17% of their diagnostic charges. Other commonly missed charges include fecal exams, injection fees, recheck exams, ultrasound-guided cystocentesis and blood draws.\u201d<\/p>\n

It seems that veterinary practices are missing out on between 10-20% of their annual revenue which could be thousands or millions in lost revenue! Once again, in the CoL crisis, it seems a no-brainer to tap into this area as a high-priority project where you can have both short-term, quick wins and longer-term yields.<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s Veterinary Business suggests running a simple internal invoice audit. In addition, by doing things like comparing medical records to invoices or analysing your income-to-expense ratios by category, you can see potential missed charges over a certain period of time.<\/p>\n

Plug the gap and fix your missed charges issue with veterinary software technology<\/strong> <\/span><\/p>\n

By using the power of practice management technology (PMS) such as Ascend<\/a>, our cloud-based PMS, you can do several things to resolve the missed charges issue:<\/p>\n

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  1. Take advantage of automated bi-directional integrations such as linking records to products and pricing, all whilst automatically emailing or messaging the clients to ensure they are billed properly.<\/li>\n
  2. Utilise built-in templates such as our Estimates function (see our 1-min example video below) which streamlines your workflow processes and ensures consistent charging throughout the practice, again with automated emailing, eliminating any heavy administration.<\/li>\n
  3. Go paperless and use predictive data management. By having your records fully up-to-date and using Ascend\u2019s intelligent thinking, record management and patient file data are kept scrupulously up-to-date, meaning there\u2019s no redundant data and thus easier to communicate and send charges to the client. It also reduces the manual effort required in the billing process. Less time is spent on administrative duties or record finding!<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n