How Equine Veterinarians Can Balance Efficiency With Client and Patient Care

This article originally appeared in the Spring 2026 issue of EquiManagement. Sign up here for a FREE subscription to EquiManagement’s quarterly digital or print magazine and any special issues.

Ambulatory equine veterinarians are expected to do it all … and do it well. These busy doctors must bring all necessary equipment, supplies, medications, and staff to each appointment and demonstrate excellent bedside manner and customer service. They’re also expected to maintain a tightly packed schedule that often has them driving all over the map. With this kind of setup, efficiency is vital. Losing time and running behind can make horse owners feel rushed or keep them waiting, which is detrimental to the client experience and cuts into both the practice’s profit and the practitioner’s time. In contrast, an efficient workday boosts productivity, enabling practitioners to meet client expectations, provide timely patient care, and maintain a predictable schedule that supports a healthy work-life balance.  

The Inefficient Nature of Ambulatory Work

The industry-standard work setting for a small animal veterinarian is a climate-controlled, well-lit clinic staffed with credentialed technicians. An administrative team handles scheduling and billing. Equipment, diagnostics, medications, and a laboratory are all within arm’s reach. Best of all, the patients come to them, not the other way around. With solid systems in place, small animal medicine sets its doctors up for success in delivering high-quality patient and client care while maximizing everyone’s use of time. 

In select scenarios, equine practitioners (typically specialists) can benefit from a similar clinic setup. But for the bulk of ambulatory horse doctors clocking hundreds of miles each week just to reach their patients, achieving all three goals—quality medicine, good customer service, and efficiency—sometimes working entirely on their own, can feel daunting. For this article, we’ve gathered efficiency tips and best practices from successful, seasoned ambulatory equine practitioners. 

Proactive, Strategic Scheduling

When she left her associate position to start Mid Coast Equine, an ambulatory practice in Waldoboro, Maine, Caitlin Daly, DVM, initially expected to cover a large service area. But she listened to a mentor’s advice and ultimately chose to offer her services to a significantly smaller practice area to protect her efficiency. For her general practice patients, Daly drives at most one hour and 15 minutes. For sports medicine work, she’ll travel upward of two hours each way, with increased distance farm call fees. 

Daly tries to be very proactive in her scheduling. “If I have an appointment request for seasonal wellness work in one area, I will reach out to my other clients in that area to see if we can get them on the same day,” she says. Each client pays their normal trip fee, with the call fee split for owners at the same farm.

“When someone contacts me with an appointment request, I’ll often offer a spot a few days past the first available spot in my schedule because it will contribute to a more efficient workflow,” she adds. “Unless they have a scheduling conflict, they’re usually happy to take it. This is more efficient than asking a client, ‘What day works for you?’ as leaving it open-ended is detrimental to geographically efficient scheduling. What I’ve found to be more helpful is to ask, ‘Do you prefer a morning or afternoon appointment?’ and ‘Are there specific days that do not work for you?’ I can then take that information and find a mutually beneficial day, with much less back-and-forth ­communication.”

Jesslyn Bryk-Lucy, DVM, cAVCA, owner of Leg Up Equine Veterinary Services, an ambulatory equine practice in northern New Jersey, has a similar approach to her calendar. “I do set expectations about availability and scheduling so that things make sense geographically. Most clients are understanding about that, but some choose to use another veterinarian who may be able to come sooner. That does not bother me,” she says. “I would rather have them get good service and me protect my time rather than bend over backward to make an appointment that will ultimately barely break even financially and strain my time.”

Technician Utilization and Efficiency 

“I find the most efficient setup for me is to have one trained, dedicated technician or assistant,” notes Bryk-Lucy, who, in addition to managing her own ambulatory practice, is a professor of equine studies and the resident veterinarian at Centenary University’s equestrian center in Long Valley, New Jersey, where she manages the health of approximately 85 school horses. 

“At the university, there are plenty of student helpers, but they themselves might not be efficient because of their different levels of experience and training,” she says. “Teaching takes time, and efficiency suffers. Similarly, in my private practice, when I need to educate owners, efficiency also suffers. However, it is important to prioritize student and client education when needed.”

Ambulatory practitioners come to accept that certain areas of practice are just not efficient. For Daly, that’s acupuncture and chiropractic care. “It’s how you schedule and combine these services with others that can increase your productivity,” she says, often choosing to place such procedures on days she does not have her technician. “However, if I’m doing those services at a farm where I am also doing wellness or lameness work, I will provide those (chiropractic or acupuncture) services while my technician is prepping for or cleaning up from another service.”

Beyond increasing her own efficiency, Daly sees giving her technician more responsibility as a way to enhance their career growth and satisfaction. “A technician who just drives you around and holds horses is completely underutilized and likely incredibly bored,” she says. “I also think that you, as a veterinarian, can only be as efficient as your technician is skilled. In my opinion, they don’t necessarily need the training of a licensed technician, just enough in-house training to understand how you, as the individual practitioner, like to approach things.” 

Daly describes the steps she takes to optimize technician utilization for efficiency throughout the workday: 

• Before the workday starts, create a three- to five-task to-do list for your technician. Sometimes we do things that don’t require the technician’s help. A task list allows them to stay productive during this downtime.
• Drive yourself to your first call while your technician enters all medical records and billing for the day ahead. Even if you have to add charges or make adjustments at the farm, this will greatly reduce your computer time during the appointment. 
• Utilize your technician to enter payments, upload lab work and diagnostic imaging to medical records, and email copies to clients. Flagging conversations with a color code specific to your technician helps them quickly identify which emails they are responsible for. 
• Review with your technician how you’d like an appointment to flow before arriving at the farm, so you can hit the ground running as soon as you step out of your truck.
• On your way home, write down a task list of what must get done to close out the day. Do what you can to help, but don’t be afraid to attend to personal matters while your technician wraps up. 

“Let your technician do technician things while you do doctor things,” Daly says. “With proper training, a technician can perform a TPR, prep a patient for a dental, clean and examine a sheath, pull up medication, scrub and prepare limbs for joint injections, check the efficacy of an anesthetic block, take foot balance radiographs, and dispense medication to a client. Your technician doesn’t have to work directly alongside you 100% of the time to work for you. Get more done in less time by dividing the ­workload.”

The Client Experience

A concern with prioritizing efficiency is the risk of sacrificing patient care or customer service as a result. “Make sure you are not giving the client the impression that you are rushing,” Daly cautions. “One of us is almost always engaging with them. If I’m in the truck writing my notes, my technician is in the barn conversing with the client. Hiring a helper who is conversational and knows how to engage with clients is super important.”

“I do think there is a difference between being efficient and rushing,” Bryk-Lucy adds. “Clients feel when a veterinarian is rushing, and I believe that leads to the perception of ‘depersonalization of care.’ Even if I am crunched for time or stressed about the next appointment, I try very hard to make sure I do not appear to be hurrying, so that the client is ­comfortable and happy with the appointment.”

The patient is also susceptible to the effects of a practitioner noticeably pressed for time. “The horse is 100% going to pick up on your energy,” says Daly. “You’ve got to take a deep breath. If the majority of patients are being difficult in one day, it’s likely not them but rather the energy you’re bringing into the ­appointment.” 

Daly says she’s gotten much better at telling people she doesn’t have time for extra requests. “Saying, ‘I want to make sure we have enough time to look at that carefully and not feel rushed. Unfortunately, I don’t have enough time in my schedule today. Can we come back on ___?’ comes across a lot better than agreeing to do something, shoving your resentment down, and having it leak out through your facial expressions and tone of voice,” she says. “We are allowed to say no; it’s how we say it that matters.” 

For Bryk-Lucy, the decision to add a client or service to an existing appointment versus coming back another day is situation-dependent. “I do set expectations with clients who ask to be squeezed in last minute,” she says. “I will emphasize that they need to have the horse ready and that I only have a certain amount of time. If it makes sense to do it and it will be more efficient to get that appointment done while I’m at the farm, even though it is a surprise, I will do it. If it’s something that is too involved and will slow me down for the rest of the day, and it makes more sense to come back, I will explain that to the client.”

Survey: Clients Value Communication, Service

In 2012, an American Association of Equine Practitioners (AAEP) survey of more than 6,000 horse owners, trainers, breeders, and farm managers provided valuable insight into the qualities people look for when choosing a primary veterinarian.  

The Top 5 most important factors were: 

1. Availability to come on-site. 

2. Good at explaining diagnoses and treatment recommendations. 

3. Taking time with clients’ horses and not rushing during visits. 

4. Available to respond to emergency calls 24/7. 

5. Demonstrating sincere compassion for the clients’ horses.  

Overall, “owners place the most importance on finding a veterinarian who is available to them and takes their time when working with their horses,” the survey concludes. A more recent survey confirms these findings, listing quality of care, quality of service, interpersonal skills, professional attitude, and transfer of knowledge as some of the most relevant components to client satisfaction in equine veterinary practice (Elte et al. 2021). 

Final Thoughts

“Efficiency is multifactorial. There are so many things that go into it and situations that can destroy it,” Bryk-Lucy says. “There are also some appointments that I know are just not going to be efficient. Lack of efficiency is physically and mentally draining. But if I know I’m heading into a notoriously inefficient appointment, it helps to manage my own expectations. I’m always striving to be as efficient as possible to maximize the time I can spend with family and friends while giving my clients and patients the best care possible.” 

Related Reading

• Maximizing Veterinary Technician Utilization in Equine Practice
• Affording New Paradigms in Equine Practice
• Setting Rational Fees for Veterinary Care

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