The MPV Annual Fees Survey is the most popular survey that MPV Consulting offers. Each year it is typical to have from 350 – 450 practices participating. As a participant you will enter your fees and charges for a variety of products and services.

Once these are collated each of your specific fees will be compared directly to industry averages and you will receive a report for each item that will compare your practice performance to industry averages and your sub-cultural profile groups.

The Annual MPV Fees Survey is offered to all veterinary practices and managers in Australia. It has been developed to assist veterinary practice managers in determining what fees they should charge for their professional and retail services. Industry standards are a recognised methodology of individual businesses determining where they stand amongst their peers. This survey is divided into a variety of fee items and six profile groups to represent the following:

1. A broad cross section of typical fees charged by all major veterinary groups
2. Profile groups that provide meaningful demographic comparisons to participants

MPV Consulting has attempted to include individual fees as well as complete procedural fees so that managers can compare their theoretical fees as well as their application in a practical situation. Once compiled, these crucial statistics are benchmarked against other practices that are of similar profile groups whilst still maintaining confidentiality of practice data.

Example 1

Example 2

The beauty of a survey such as this is that there are many benefits on offer with no risk at all. It does beg the question ‘why would you not participate?’ Some of the benefits of participating are:

1. Stimulates owners/managers to address their fees at least once per annum
2. Will help you maximise profits
3. Allows you to set fees in a more businesslike manner
4. Identifies what value other veterinarians place on their services
5. Will confirm your market position within the veterinary community
6. Clearly identifies your pricing strengths and/or weaknesses
7. Collective wisdom may be helpful in valuing your services
8. You will most likely change fees in a positive direction when survey results are distributed

You will be required to complete worksheets with the fees that you charge for various products and services for your veterinary practice. These fees will be a broad selection of items that cover examples of all areas of fee charging and will include: commonly charged individual fee items, total go home cost for selected complete procedures, marks on a range of merchandising and medication items.

A recent new innovation for the MPV Annual Fees Survey is the introduction of the MPV Index of Common Fees. The purpose of the index is to allow participating practices to see how they have performed in the overall scheme of things. It operates in a similar manner to how we measure the All Ordinaries Index in the stock market. This will allow two main advantages:

1. You will see from year to year how the fees have grown generally within the industry
2. You will see how your practice index value has compared overall to the industry index

It is evident that the MPV Annual Fees Survey has become a catalyst for many participating practices to examine and adjust the fees that they are charging. Because it is a low cost option and it is done annually you may choose to use this fees survey as part of your regular management process in updating your fees. Of the practices that MPV Consulting has spoken to 100% of them changed at least some of their fees as the result of participating in the survey.

Did you know that:

1. The pricing of products and services is the only aspect of your business that will generate income
2. When the pricing of any service is incorrect then the mistake will be duplicated repeatedly until such time as the fee is corrected.
3. Because many costs in veterinary practice remain relatively fixed a small change in fees will result in a disproportionately higher level of change to profit. For example: if your practice operates on a 30% profit before vet salaries and wages then a 10% increase in fees will result in a 25% increase in profits (assuming all else remains the same)
4. Conversely, if you under charge by only 10% then you will make 33.3% less when you put a days work into your practice.

It pays to get your fees right!

Each participating practice will complete a profile that identifies the type of practice that they operate. Your practice will receive an accurate result based on comparison with other practices of similar profile. Comparison will be based on:

1. All veterinarians
2. State
3. Practice type
4. Regional location
5. Size of veterinary practice
6. Type of practice management software used
   
   

The results of these surveys are useful as a historical reference. It is for this reason that MPV Consulting has now made available the facility to email results as a pdf. This means that you will be able to store your results on your computer and refer back to these when ever you like.

MPV Consulting recognises that both the integrity of MPV Consulting and the ongoing participation of veterinary practices are totally dependant on the maintenance of strict rules about data confidentiality.

All surveys performed by MPV Consulting come with an assurance of confidentiality for individual clinic data. Individual clinic data will only be viewed by MPV Consulting staff or persons directly associated in the actual physical act of data collation for survey results. No information of any individual clinic will be supplied to any source other than the specified contact for each clinic. Should any survey involve sponsors or supporters, this will not, and will never, include any form of access to any individual clinic information without written permission of that clinic.