Speaker 1 (00:01):

Welcome to practice Omatic, where doctors and practice owners share business, lifestyle and marketing stories all well, guiding you to more patients. Here's your host, Zach Britton field.

Zack G. (00:15):

All right, guys. Welcome to the show today. We have Dr. Krista Wallace with us. She runs a, uh, veterinary clinic that specializes in exotic small animals. She's been in practice for 21 years, um, uh, in a suburb of Kansas city. So welcome Dr. Krista, how are you doing today? Alright, awesome. Well, um, Dr. Chris has got a, uh, interesting story where she spent some time, uh, working, uh, for other, for other businesses and then ended up going into private practice. So tell us a little bit about what you, you know, what your plans were when you got out of vet school.

Dr. Crista Wallis (01:08):

I was pretty stupid when I got out of vet school. It's like a deer in headlights. They've taught me how to practice medicine now for four years, and then they say, go do it. And we fumble around for a little bit, but I, I, my first job was in a college town with another doctor and I was pretty much left by myself my first year, which made me rethink, what did I do for the last four years? Was this the right decision? Because I had to work a ton of hours, like a lot of newly, um, you know, vets that go out there. Uh, we, we get overwhelmed with the amount of work that we have to do, and that was me. And so I really questioned did I pick the right profession? I was so stressed out, you know, I didn't have any business really, or life skills that were taught to me in, in vet school. And it was the first time I had to make life and death decisions by myself. And so I was really thankful. I had a, a wonderful support staff, uh, in my first job. And I left that job after a year and did some relief work in the Kansas city area in which I partnered with two other doctors. And we opened Monticello animal hospital, which is where I've been at by myself now for the last 20 years.

Dr. Crista Wallis (03:03):

No, when I graduated in 2000 Kansas state university was one of the few teaching hospitals that even offered a business class when we graduated, but that was it. It was just one business class in the four years I was there. That was it. And it was very compacted and very quick. So we weren't really given any kind of skills other than here's how you practice medicine. Uh, we weren't given any skills on, these are the different things that are out there in our profession. These are different ways that you can apply yourself. You don't just have to be a practitioner. Um, most of us, we were ready to graduate and didn't want to go on to specialize and do internships and residents. So yeah, you're kind of thrown to the wolves and, and we just didn't have a lot of experience.

Zack G. (03:59):

Tell me, I mean, I want to dive into that a little bit. Tell me, tell me what it was like when you, when you opened the practice. I mean, was it, were you just having massive anxiety about actually growing the business and like what to do and how to promote it? And I mean, what, what was that moment like?

Dr. Crista Wallis (04:20):

You know, I'm like a lot of vets we're type a personalities. We're perfectionist. I think this is a really bad combination for veterinarians in general, but it's good for people who are just trying to challenge themselves. So I wasn't really afraid of the challenge per se. I was in a place in the Kansas city area where I really didn't have to market my practice. We were in a new, newly growing area. My partners kind of knew that that was going to happen. And I knew that people in this area would grow and they would need a vet. And so my focus was on building a quality staff that could work together and really just building quality and doing quality medicine for the clients around me. And I knew that word of mouth would get out and hopefully people would just start coming in. And I'd say the first two years it was mediocre. And after that, it just has kind of elevated every year since then.

Zack G. (05:33):

Um, how difficult was it to get the right staff finally in place? Cause I know that can be difficult. I

Dr. Crista Wallis (05:42):

Think that's the most challenging part of my job. It's not the medicine. I'm humbled by practicing medicine every day and all this stuff, I don't know in regards to that, but I think not having the skillset or the business background to hire the right people and to train them appropriately. Um, all of those things where we're not given those skills in vet schools. So, um, as a business owner, it's something that I had to develop over the years and learn how to do. And it's probably the hardest part of my job. Um, building a team and building a cohesive team and a team that wants to, uh, work every day and, and work with the same mindset as everybody else. So I think that's the hardest part of my job as a business owner is building the team and finding people nowadays just to come to work every day is a very difficult task. I think most of us small business owners are finding those of us in the service industry have a difficult time getting people to come in and work.

Zack G. (06:52):

Do you find that [inaudible], it's just something that's kind of a temporary spot?

Dr. Crista Wallis (07:05):

Aye. Both. I've had people that just needed a job. And then I've had people who have been with me for 12 plus years who love what they do. Most people who come to apply, of course love animals. Um, and they're interested and curious about the profession, like any medical profession though, there's burnout and it's not all puppies and kittens every day. There's a lot of heartache that goes on and learning how to deal with that. Um, some people can handle that. Some people cannot, and I think this is an industry that's really geared towards the multi-tasker. You have to be able to multitask to work in a vet hospital, um, in order to be successful.

Zack G. (07:57):

Yeah. Gotcha. So do you wear every week? Okay.

Dr. Crista Wallis (08:05):

Ton of hats. I, I wished I didn't, I wish I had enough staff to divulge some of these hats. Um, but I would say it kind of ebbs and flows over the years. When I have enough staff, then I don't wear as many hats. And when I don't have enough staff, I wear all the hats. So, you know, I've warned, you know, when I first started, I was the practice manager and the receptionist. Um, I was the doctor, I was the technician some days. So in the beginning, you're, you're doing all of the positions. And then now that I have built out a staff, um, I don't have to do all those other positions. Um, yeah. And [inaudible]

Zack G. (08:50):

Working alongside you as the primary provider.

Dr. Crista Wallis (08:55):

I am a single practice owner, really. So it's just one doctor on, but I have including kennel, attendance, I have about 12 staff members. So you're, you're the,

Zack G. (09:11):

The, the single doctor and you're able to carry 12 additional staff, but some of them are generating revenue and boarding and other stuff or rooming perhaps.

Dr. Crista Wallis (09:22):

Yeah. Yeah. We have a groomer. Um, we've got, uh, three kennel attendants that take care of the pets in the hospital. And then we have two registered technicians. I've got a full-time receptionist and a couple part-time reception. Yeah. So

Zack G. (09:40):

Now you're now you're pretty well supported. Yeah. That's awesome. So tell me, how did your practice, how did your practice function through this pandemic? I mean, what, how did it, how did that affect you fairly Kansas?

Dr. Crista Wallis (09:58):

Yeah, so I was so lucky that five years ago I went to VMX, which is the vet conference in Orlando. And they had a brand new, innovative track that they did that year. And I decided I was going to go listen to what they had to say, where our profession was heading in the future. And the very last course was about remote care. And their idea was to send a technician into the home and get feedback that way. Um, and so the technician would be in the client's home, she would relay the information to me and, and I would give, or my recommendations back, this really intrigued me because I knew that we had started doing telemedicine on the human side. So I really started to research human telemedicine and what they were doing and what they were seeing, what was the negative feedback? What's the positive feedback.

Dr. Crista Wallis (11:02):

And I really played around with this idea and did my research for about a year. And I said, you know, this is where our profession is going. Whether we like it or not, we will be in that same position. So I started playing around with telemedicine, virtual care. I tried a lot of things. I failed in a lot of things because I'm not a technology wizard. Uh, but I was still, you know, attempting to give my clients what I felt like they wanted. And when I first started, I thought that they wanted to see Dr. Wallace on the camera and they wanted to zoom with me or FaceTime with me. And, um, it would be great. Well, I got zero takers on the live video consults. Nobody wanted me to see their house or their messy hair where they couldn't get the cat out from underneath the bed.

Dr. Crista Wallis (12:01):

And so it was kind of an epic failure in the beginning. And then I realized that clients love to text, and this was my bread and butter. And so I started using, uh, an asynchronous text platform and I've tried many and I settled with, um, that to pet their, their platform. And so I was already set up with my clients for several years, doing virtual care prior to COVID hitting. So when COVID hit and we had, we were forced to do curbside medicine Mo we didn't miss a beat. My clients already were set up. They already knew how to contact me. They already knew what our protocols were. That was one thing that my staff didn't have to worry about is learning a new form of communication. And how do we work this out? Um, how are we going to keep in contact with the clients? So we were so, so lucky that we had already started it prior to COVID. We didn't miss a beat. We didn't take a dip in any kind of revenue. We were still as busy as ever and post COVID. We've just, it's just grown exponentially because of all of the animals that came into our facility, everybody went out and bought more animals during COVID. And so now the industry is seeing this influx of pets to take care of them. We don't have enough staff. Sure.

Zack G. (13:40):

Actually feeling kind of overwhelmed. It sounds like right now. Wow. Absolutely. Then what does it cross your mind to bring another doctor on the staff? Or what does that look like?

Dr. Crista Wallis (13:56):

Yeah, I think the majority of the hospitals in our profession are growing and, and we have, uh, an insurgent of need for vets. And I think everybody's looking for another vet it to work in there. There's several, I have several clients

Speaker 4 (14:14):

Right now. It's not

Zack G. (14:15):

Easy find good people or they have to move in. It's complicated.

Dr. Crista Wallis (14:19):

Yeah. Right. So,

Zack G. (14:26):

So a little bit of a deep dive on how the texting thing physically works. I mean, what, how do you, how, how, how, and I'm asking you this question, because I actually have had other conversations, other episodes of this show and other client conversations where there's, there's actually some resistance to tell him to telemedicine. So I want to learn more. And I think people that listen would like to more, how does that specifically work with the client, like initiated and how does your, you know, at the beginning of a diagnosis or triage, or what functionality does that place specifically in the, in the relationship and, and of course the care for the animal.

Dr. Crista Wallis (15:10):

Yeah. So I've been doing this for a while and, and there's a lot of myths that are floating around, out there about telemedicine and tele triage and virtual care in our industry. And, and that's all they are, are myths. There were some fears before I started doing telemedicine, like there's no laws or, or regulations in regard to telemedicine in our industry. So, you know, I don't want to get myself in trouble. Um, I don't want to have my license taken away. What can I do? What can't I do there really wasn't a lot of guidance when I started. And so that's a big hurdle that a lot of people are afraid to get started because of that. But now we're moving kind of at lightning speed and things are changing, um, in our states to develop these programs. Um, other myths were, you know, people were afraid that, well, clients just won't come in the hospital anymore.

Dr. Crista Wallis (16:14):

If they can get ahold of you, you know, by texting, they just you'll never see them. But actually in practicing it, I've noticed I have more contact points with my clients. So before I may be, we're seeing them twice a year, if that, now I talked to them six to seven times a year, and those six to seven times generate more revenue for me. And it's also touch points for me and my staff to educate my clients and keep them up to date on the care of their pet. So it's actually done the opposite. And then, you know, a lot of people think, well, we just don't have time to implement this. We don't have time to learn this new technology. And, you know, our clients have been getting free advice for years and years and years, and they're not going to pay for it.

Dr. Crista Wallis (17:09):

Well, I'm here to say I've done it for years. I've had not one client complaint and I've not had one client complain about paying for my advice. So when we started using it, we weren't going to say, okay, you can no longer get in to see the wizard, um, which is, you know, imperative here in Kansas. So we wanted to say, okay, we're going to keep our protocols the same. So if a client calls in and needs help, and let's say, I made a list for my staff on all the things that can be used with telemedicine and then a list of all the emergencies that we can't do via telemedicine. And those pets would have to come in and we give them an option. Hey, um, would you like to speak with Dr. Wallace directly? Um, and you, and you can send her a text with pictures and videos and she'll get back to you today.

Dr. Crista Wallis (18:11):

Uh, her phone call log is several days out, but your other option is to leave a message for the technician and she can give you a call back, which would you prefer? So the first thing we did was we gave our clients an option. You can still do it the same way and leave a message for the technician. Or you can go via telemedicine and talk directly with Dr. Wallace, first of all, fee. And I would say we get about 50, 50. Okay. But now it's, it's tilted a little post COVID, um, about 60% telemedicine, 40% leave a message. So it's, it's starting to change and all they have to do, we have an app that's a pet. The, the wonderful thing about that to pet is they brand my hospital. It's not their app in the app store that the clients go to it's Monticello animal hospital look up. So it's like

Speaker 4 (19:12):

Fully white. So they know

Dr. Crista Wallis (19:14):

Me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So they know me, it's my app that depends behind the scenes. They just give me the technology and make me look good. And then that app is mine to do with what I see fit. And they will submit a chat and they just text their problem. A lot of times I'll ask them to send pictures or videos, and it all starts out as a triaging case. Right now I'm just gathering history, data, looking at the pet, trying to figure out what the problem is. And if it's something I can treat and diagnose and send meds, then I will. But if it's not something I can treat, I will form a game plan with that client as to when we can either set up an appointment or a medical drop-off, whether it be that day, the next day or later on in the week.

Dr. Crista Wallis (20:11):

And then this allows me to, you know, talk with the client about what I'm going to do in the hospital, what tests I want to run, what the cost is going to be. So all of that's taken care of which makes when they drop the pet off so much more efficient because the tech knows what she needs to do to get the stuff done, and we can get them in and out. So it really has helped with the efficiency in the hospital. If I do have to see the patient and it's goes from a triaging case to an end when

Zack G. (20:46):

They come, it's really, you know, all the actions, because there's already been this triage that's been done virtually. Yeah. And I think it's important to note that you're also sending photos and videos if needed that that's an important thing. I think, I think people don't, you know, I've definitely heard in some of these other conversations that people, you know, other doctors are concerned that they can't like, you know, just use the example of like a limp that the doctor can't really see the animal move, you know, but you're saying otherwise, it sounds like it's effective.

Dr. Crista Wallis (21:25):

Yeah, I have absolutely. I have a lot of limping cases. So the client, you know, sends me the history and I say, okay, I need you to send me a video of your dog walking around the living room. I give them specific instructions, um, you know, try to get about a minute of video and they send it to me. And I evaluate that. So I've got the age of the pet, I've got the breed. I know the history of this dog. It might be an obese 12 year old golden retriever that I have dealt with before in the past that has had arthritis. And I'm looking at the limp and, and they're not on pain meds. So I can triage that situation and feel comfortable about it versus taking, you know, before we used to take the phone call and the client would call in and say, doc, my dog broke its leg.

Dr. Crista Wallis (22:20):

Um, I'm going on vacation in 20 minutes. I'm on my way up. Okay. Now we have to stop what we're doing in the hospital. We're preparing for an actual broken leg. Cause we're taking their word that they know what they're telling us. The dog comes in and it's a torn, okay. It's not a broken leg, it's a torn do claw. But if I had tele-medicine in those instances, I could have solved that problem online without disrupting the hospital staff and, and giving that client peace of mind. So there are things that we can do within the app. And I do want to preface this by saying, I think the biggest myth and the pushback we get is, well, you can't do a physical exam online. You cannot do a full physical exam. Tell, tell me how you handle that. Tell me how you handle it. That's absolutely true. We cannot do. We cannot put our hands on the pet. We cannot listen to their heart and lungs. And what they need to understand is virtual care was never meant to replace the physical exam.

Zack G. (23:37):

You, you, you said that very well, that that, uh, it's not to replace in person care it's to add to in-person care. And it sounds like to add to your practice too, in terms of, I think the other thing that's important to note, because we do one of the things that I'm a big advocate of is increasing client touch to strengthen the client, uh, hospital relationship, if you will, or the client provider relationship. And, and, you know, one of the biggest complaints that we've seen on the client side is that, uh, there isn't enough communication, or I don't hear from the dire. I don't, you know, so when we get involved with a practice, one of the things we start working on is lots of, you know, email auto-responders and, and lots of extra communication and, and up emails after the visits, you know, so that we can get feedback and make sure that they understand, you know, what the next steps are or whatever all that is. But it's along the same lines of what you've said, that, that this telemedicine has really ramped up from maybe one or two times a year to six, seven plus times per year, that you're interacting with, with a family and their animals, which seems like a much better way, just from a preventative medicine standpoint, that if you're having more interaction with your doctor and we're less likely to cut quicker, to head off problems that might, um, you know, grow and become worse problems, you know, health problems.

Dr. Crista Wallis (25:11):

Yeah. I use my platform on a daily basis just for client education. I have made a video library of different conditions, or I'm talking about flea and tick prevention or heartworm disease. And I can capture these little videos and send them in the chat feed to my clients. And the nice thing about this is that they can play that over and over and over again, they can show their family, their friends, and they have that, you know, that they can use that anytime they want. And we use it a ton for post-surgery. So I have my discharge instructions and I'm talking to the client like I'm talking to you and I'm giving them ideas, you know, and things that they need to look for post-surgery and clients, absolutely this stuff up, they love this, and it doesn't take any time at all to build just a small library, you know, pick 10 things that you want to, you know, talk about with your clients and have those available to use in your chat feeds. Um, anytime that you want or push notification,

Zack G. (26:26):

I think that's great. You know, you're hitting on something that I recently different other practice, which was, we did an FAQ page and started working on FAQ videos and a lot. And it really was the same conversation. It was 10, you know, the 10 sort of, you know, topics or questions that they were getting and, and or that they feel like the staff is repeating every day, you know, until everybody's just exhausted. But what you've done is the next step. Once you've done that, you know, library of content and educational resource, but, but the, but being able to send it by text message directly, like in a, I guess, a blog, you know, like kind of a broadcast is the even better way to syndicate it. You know, you're, you're actually proactively sending this stuff out.

Dr. Crista Wallis (27:15):

Yeah. It's personalized medicine. You know, if we have a client that has dropped their pet off, we, I record every exam that I do in the hospital. I just prop my iPhone up, I press record and I'm talking to the phone, like the client's there with me and they're watching me manipulate their pet, do an exam and give them shots or whatever it is we're doing. Or I incorporate my staff and I have my technicians do a video on how to give the Guinea pig oral medicine. And they make a little video for the client so that the client can watch that when they pick their Guinea pig up. So I try to incorporate all of the staff to build the bonding with clients. And again, these are just short one to two minute videos that we send in our chat feeds.

Zack G. (28:06):

I think, I mean, I think that's just phenomenal. I'm, I'm learning a lot right now. Cause I like to pride myself on having a lot of cool ideas for, you know, this type of stuff, which is relationship building education and building authority like in your market, you know, this, this is the kind of stuff that sets you above all the other competition as a reliable authority and resource for all of this, you know, information about how to take care of, you know, especially exotic pets, your, you know, from my experience at that's usually, well, one doctor takes that on and I'll mark it and everybody else is doing cats and dogs, you know, does that sound about right?

Dr. Crista Wallis (28:46):

Yeah, it is. But with exotic SIM particular it's for, that was one of the reasons why I wanted to do telemedicine was because of all the stress that is surrounds transportation of exotic animals. And this way I can see their set ups at home, they can send me pictures and then we can go with, you know, you need to change this in the environment or that, and it's really helped with my exotic clientele as well. But I think the second biggest reason was Dr. Google. I didn't want my clients going on the internet and typing in Dr. Google when they can come to me for all their, they should think of their doctor, their veterinarian first. And that's a, that's an awesome point unless we give them that, you know, unless we give them that outlet and say, oh, well, Dr. Does this, let me, let me go see what she has to say, then they're going to go to Dr. Google. So you have to provide this form of communication.

Zack G. (29:51):

I like that. So you're, you really recognize that there's a threat to your authority, which is just the greater internet V you know, and whether that's good information or not is a whole nother discussion, but, but that you're in order to insulate yourself from that threat, you you've gotten in front of the whole issue by making sure that these resources available for your clients so that they know they can come to you first, and they're gonna find what they need and not come up short, which is where they start turning somewhere else. And, you know, from a relationship standpoint, it's like kind of they're straying, you know, to, to other information sources, maybe other doctor's offices. And you're kind of losing them at that point, I think is what you're, w that's what I'm hearing. Yeah. That's, I mean, this is a great story. I mean, this is, this is, so tell me, um, you start a website to help other offices sorta get into telemedicine. I think you're a TA. Tell, tell me a little bit about that.

Dr. Crista Wallis (30:56):

Yeah. So when I started, you know, doing telemedicine, there really wasn't anything out there. There wasn't any place to go to get information. Um, there, I was kind of on my own, there were a handful of other veterinarians doing telemedicine. So we would exchange stories and how are you doing it? And what are you using and what works for you and what doesn't. And we kind of all fumbled through that time period, and then COVID hit. And then, then people started taking notices to what we were doing, but right before COVID hit in December, 2019, I thought, you know, there's other vets out there that are thinking the same way that I'm thinking and they're looking for help. So I just, you know, put up an informational net, you know, website that that's can go to and just get some basic information on how to start and how to charge it and what platforms are out there and what are the laws and regulations and how did I, you know, start my telemedicine journey. And I put that out there, which was nice because that was right before COVID hit. And since COVID has hit, our industry has taken notice. And now we have other organizations within our profession that are providing, um, guidelines and tools for other vets to start using telemedicine. So that's really nice to see that there's more information out there for

Zack G. (32:36):

That. So where can we find the website that you created?

Dr. Crista Wallis (32:43):

Well, I have two different, um, websites. The first one is the virtual care consultant.com and that's my actual consulting website. And you can get ahold of me there to help other practices if you're wanting to implement telemedicine, or you're not sure what platform to choose, or you know, how to get this started in your hospital. That's kind of what I'm there for. You know, you can shoot me an email or, um, and ask your questions. The other website, the informational is the vet virtual care info, net.com. And that it has been up for quite some time. And like I said, it it's just general information about telemedicine. Right.

Zack G. (33:32):

Right. Well, that's, I mean, those are two great spots for people to start. If what do you think, um, I mean, for, for a single practitioner or even a multi practitioner office, what do you, what is the first steps that they need to take in your opinion, just to launch telemedicine as an offering at, at the practice.

Dr. Crista Wallis (33:56):

Yeah. I think that you have to take some time and thought before you jump into it, because if you jump into it and you don't know what you're doing, kind of like me, you're going to make a lot of mistakes like I did. So I'm trying to help people not make those mistakes. I think the first step is to figure out what your, why is, why do you want to provide telemedicine to your clients? Or what problem are you fixing with them? For some people, it may be a work-life balance, like they're in the hospital all the time, and they want to be able to, to leave work sometimes without the guilt, um, for that was part of it for me. Um, some of it, yeah, some of it is, you know, an exotic practitioner wanting to see, you know, more in depth of what the patient is doing at home.

Dr. Crista Wallis (34:55):

Um, I do a lot of fearful and anxious dogs. So being able to triage them at home and not bring them in is very helpful. So first you have to figure out why what's the passion behind bringing this modality into the hospital. And then you need to sit down with your staff and discuss it and find out if a they're on board with it. And will they take the, uh, it just takes a little bit of time in the beginning and some elbow grease, you know, to get it up and running, but you want your whole staff to be on board with this, or even just one champion in the hospital. That's willing to take this on because once they see how it is, everybody gets on board and the end, it's a no brainer. So I think taking the steps to talk about it first and put the plan and action, and these, this is why we want to do it. This is what everybody's role and responsibility will be in regards to the virtual care platform. And then you go and you pick your platform that you want to use. And with the platforms, he kind of got three categories. You can do it yourself. Like I did in the beginning, which for me, I'm not a tech wizard and it was a disaster.

Speaker 4 (36:16):

Well, probably true for a lot of functions. That's probably true

Zack G. (36:18):

For a lot of folks. There's like, there's a lot of moving parts with this. Yeah.

Dr. Crista Wallis (36:24):

There are, because you, you have to have cybersecurity. You're exchanging medical information. If you're doing it via zoom or email or face time that stuff's not protected. So you have to keep those things in mind. Then you've got, you've got your telemedicine companies or telemedicine platforms. And that's all they do is just the telemedicine aspect. And a lot of them are really great. I mean, this is great technology. They've really built out the telemedicine platforms to include, you know, live video consults to asynchronous text platforms. And that works great. If that's all you're looking for is just that component for your hospital. That's a great choice. And your third one is the all-in-one communication platforms. Like I chose with the vet to pet platform. And this is where my clients, all of our communication is in here from emails to appointments, to push notifications, to telemedicine, to ordering prescription and refills online. It's all in one place so that my clients don't have to download a bunch of different apps to get ahold of me. They just download the one for my hospital. I got

Zack G. (37:43):

It. I got it. That's that sounds phenomenal. It sounds like your clients are very happy. Like you said before, it sounds like it's working for everybody.

Dr. Crista Wallis (37:50):

So I think once you pick that platform, then you come up with your own protocol. And for me, I like to start small and build up. And I also like to not change my in-house protocols very much. So we didn't really change a whole lot. As far as clients calling in needed help. We just added a new option. You can now text Dr. Wallace and speak with her directly, or you can leave a message for the tech. And so we really didn't change our protocol. We just added a new feature to it. And then we D you know, assigned who was going to do, what do you have?

Zack G. (38:33):

Kind of like an add on question. Do you have some of these interactions that are, that are hosted and handled completely by your technicians? Or are they all going through you?

Dr. Crista Wallis (38:44):

Yeah, so we kind of, you know, since I'm a single doctor practice and I don't have a ton of staff, we kind of share that responsibility. So on the days I'm that she's not there. I will monitor the chat feeds on the day she is there. She will monitor the chat feeds. And if I need to get involved, it's not something that she can handle or, you know, she can't diagnose and treat. She will just let me know that, you know, Susie Thompson's dog, uh, is in the chat and I need to jump.

Zack G. (39:19):

I see. Okay. So, and then, which is great because if there's a handoff and you're not in the office, you technically could handle it from anywhere.

Dr. Crista Wallis (39:26):

Absolutely. I can be in the hospital or not in the hospital and still have access to my clients, as well as my staff. It's all documented for me within that chat, which again, saves me time at the end of the day, when I have to put it into the medical records, I just export everything into the medical records and I don't have to rewrite anything. Cause it's all right.

Zack G. (39:48):

So let me ask you the other hard question. Do you feel like, because you're so accessible, this is now invading your time away from the office?

Dr. Crista Wallis (40:02):

No. You know, to my surprise, this is kind of funny. I would say 80% of my clients. Okay.

Zack G. (40:12):

So far so good in terms of respecting normal boundaries of work.

Dr. Crista Wallis (40:17):

Right. But having said that if I want after hours and I do extend my after hours chat feeds to about eight o'clock every night, you can set your, this is the wonderful part about telemedicine. If you don't want to take virtual consults at the end of the day, in the evening hours or on the weekends, then don't, don't open your chat fields to that time. If you do great, you can. And I do, because I've done it for so long that I can handle an asynchronous chat in a, in an average of seven. And I have solved that problem for that client or given them action steps to take. And it gives them peace of mind. So it's not really taking up a lot of my time outside of work. And I'm still there for my clients. People think, oh, you know, you're going to be inundated with all of these.

Zack G. (41:19):

Yes. It's, it's legitimate. I mean, we all feel a little overwhelmed by communication in general. So that's why I asked the question, but it sounds like for you, you figured out how to, you know, make it work and your clients know

Dr. Crista Wallis (41:33):

Well, yeah, if I go to a ball game and I want to be present at that ball game, I'm going to turn my chat feed up for a couple hours. And then my clients, if they're trying to contact me, it will say Dr. Wallace is unavailable at this time. So I don't have to take it if I'm busy. I want to,

Zack G. (41:50):

How, how long in general, w you know, would be the, like the length between somebody submitting a chat and your sort of minimum response time is like 12 hours, 24 hours, or how does that typically work?

Dr. Crista Wallis (42:08):

We, I pretty proficient at this because I've been doing it for a while. And the way we have it set up in our hospital is it's not scheduled. I don't have scheduled virtual care. It comes in naturally throughout the day. So I'm checking the chat feeds in between my appointments over lunch in between surgeries at the end of the day. And I, the response time is within an hour or two. And usually it's amazing.

Zack G. (42:37):

So, and that's probably why you're, I mean, that's probably why the response has been so good because that normally, I mean, that, that's probably one of the biggest selling points for this whole, you know, paradigm, if you will, new paradigm is that, you know, the re you can respond and work with a client pretty rapidly where in the past, they might've had to wait two, three days or even a week for an appointment. And, you know, it just seems so much more efficient for everybody.

Dr. Crista Wallis (43:04):

Yeah. And just because I'm doing it that way, and I have more of a natural flow, um, you know, throughout the day you can have scheduled telemedicine consults, you can market it and say, the doctor will be available today from eight to noon, or, you know, be available on Monday, Wednesday, Fridays, or be available certain times of the day, uh, to connect with clients via telemedicine. So you can, you know, triage it that way. And you can have your staff tell clients, you know, specific times that the doctors are available. If you want to do a more regimented schedule, uh, for your virtual care.

Zack G. (43:46):

Wow. Well, I think it's a ton of good info. I mean, this is just a T this is the first on, on the vet side. You know, we've worked with a lot of offices, uh, and human medicine where, you know, this has been going on, but on the vet side, this is probably the best a Testament and a logical, you know, sort of proposition for all of this. And I just think it's phenomenal that you've had such good success. And then of course, the sort of wind blew in this direction with the pandemic, which opened everybody up to being even just more accepting to virtual everything, which is, which is great. So it kind of got the last, you know, the resistance washed out, you know, and I think everybody realized that this is a good tool for a lot of things. Now medicine's one, and in this case, you know, mean, it seems like it's just working out phenomenal for you. So, um, let me, let me wrap it up with one last question for you. How, how do you see things going forward now with the reset from the pandemic and normal business and kind of everything adding up what's the next 12 to 18 months look like for you there at your practice?

Dr. Crista Wallis (45:02):

Yeah, I mean, I think most practices are doing like a fusion type of medicine where you're still, we're still offering curbside medicine. We've the funny thing is, is we've always offered curbside medicine before was a thing. Um, we've always offered drop-off, you know, for our clients, if they were busy during the day and their pet was sick, they could drop the pet off. So we've always had that option for our clients and we will continue that into the future. Um, but I think more clinics will be doing that as well as seeing in person visits and then, you know, incorporating virtual care into that package. However, that looks like for, for that particular clinic or hospital, you can gear it and customize it to your benefit, however you see fit. And that's what I love about virtual care is that it gives a little bit of leeway to each hospital and practitioner to use as they feel comfortable and, and want to connect with clients. But I will say those that who don't adapt, who don't start using technology and new forms of communication, we will lose our customers to the online giants. We will lose them to chewy. We will lose them to Amazon and Walmart. And why, because the clients will have access from home.

Zack G. (46:37):

Yeah, that's it. You know what, that's, that's the best place to leave this whole conversation that, you know, for small business owners like yourself and other doctors out there that are doctor, owner, provider, owner, you're right. There's a big invasion of, of corporate acquisition going on with veterinary officers now, which is, you know, there's good and bad to all of that. That's a whole nother conversation, but you're absolutely right. If you want to defend your practice and you want to maintain your authority position with your clients and in your community, then this is the kind of stuff that you just need to face up to and get integrated into your practice. Even if it's a small starting point, that's still better than just pretend ignoring the future sound. Right.

Zack G. (47:26):

All right. Well, I want to thank you Dr. Krista for spending this time today and explaining all of this. This is, you know, really valuable information and a pleasure for me to talk about, because, like I say, I've, I've been, uh, on four sides of this conversation. So to get your side, uh, is just, uh, really illuminating. And I think it's something that a lot of people, uh, need to hear. And, uh, I just want to thank you for your time. And then again, tell us, tell us your website, where people can go to get the, get help from you if they needed, if they want to get started with us.

Dr. Crista Wallis (48:06):

Yeah. So they can find me at the virtual care consultant.

Zack G. (48:13):

All right, Dr. Krista, I'm so happy you came and spent some time with us, and maybe we'll get to check back with you again. And, and when we're further away from this pandemic wash out and see how the norm normal ends up. Exactly. Sounds great.

Speaker 1 (48:32):

Thank you for listening to this episode of practice Omatic, subscribe to the podcast. So you don't miss any future episodes for additional help and resources for your practice. Visit Zack greenfields.com to connect with Zach. Visit Zach greenfield.com/zg.