Thinking About Opening a Second Veterinary Practice? Here’s What You Need to Know
Opening a second location can be an exciting (and stressful!) business endeavor for any veterinary practice. Adding a second hospital is a reason to celebrate your success and an increasing demand for services, but it can also introduce operational challenges that affect your team, clients, and bottom line.
Expansion isn’t for the faint of heart, but choosing the right professionals and tools to support your journey can help ease the process. Here’s a closer look at the pros and cons of adding a second location and how cloud-based veterinary software like Shepherd can help you scale your business smoothly and confidently.
Pros and cons of opening a second veterinary practice location
Pro: A second clinic can grow your business
Adding another clinic can increase your service capacity, open doors to new revenue streams, and significantly increase your client base and overall profits. You can also use a second site to expand your offerings and branch out into niche areas that interest you or your team, or that need more space or equipment than currently available in your flagship location.
Con: Multi-location veterinary operations are complex
Things get messy when each location does things a bit differently, which means you need systems in place to unify and standardize operations. That’s not to say the locations should operate identically, but there should be some degree of consistency that allows clients and team members to float between locations, if needed. Plus, you’ll need to facilitate communication between physically distant teams.
Pro: Expansion helps you reach new clients and communities
A new location not only offers more physical space, but access to an entirely new community of potential clients. You can tailor services to meet the unique needs of local pet owners, such as cat-only care, urgent care, wellness packages, or walk-in hours. Or, if your primary location boasts unique services clients can’t find elsewhere, use the new clinic to extend those services further into the community.
Con: Growth requires strong leadership and a cohesive team
More locations mean more people and greater complexity in managing them. You must have in place a strong communication, training, and leadership structure. You may need to add a layer of leadership that oversees operations across both clinics, allowing each location’s individual leaders to focus on their unique challenges and team dynamics. If you want team members to work at both clinics, you may also need a dedicated trainer to oversee their development.
Pro: Multi-location veterinary practices are resilient
Adding a second location can make your business more adaptable and responsive to shifts in demand, economic changes, and staffing issues or changes. When one location needs help or experiences a transition (e.g., new staff, software change, or equipment repair), you can shift appointment slots to the second location to temporarily alleviate stress and bottlenecks. This flexibility provides room for creative growth and planning.
Con: Another location doubles your financial risk
Opening a second practice requires a significant upfront investment in real estate, equipment, staffing, marketing, and inventory—often before the new hospital becomes profitable. Cash flow can be strained as you cover two sets of fixed expenses while nurturing a new client base. Without careful forecasting and access to sufficient funds, even a thriving first location can feel the financial pressure of supporting a second site.
Supporting a second location with cloud-based veterinary software
Expanding to a second (or third) clinic introduces additional complexity into your operational strategy. To handle this complexity and ensure continuity and communication across locations, you need a single, adaptable veterinary software system. A cloud-based PIMS like Shepherd is well-suited to multi-location practices because it doesn’t require a physical server tied to a specific place.
Look for the following key features when choosing the best veterinary software to support your multi-location practice:
- One centralized admin portal – Access essential business information with group-level administration, inventory control, and reporting from a single sign-in
- Shared medical records — Keep medical documentation, protocols, and pricing consistent across locations so clients experience the same standard of care and team members can float when needed.
- Built-in communication tools — Allow teams to communicate seamlessly across locations to coordinate patient care, events, scheduling, inventory, and team bonding.
- Shared inventory management — Track stock across multiple sites from one platform to help reduce waste and monitor overall costs while still accounting for each clinic’s unique needs.
- Cross-location reporting — Administrative staff overseeing multiple locations can generate reports that pull data from multiple clinics simultaneously. Compare revenue, appointment volume, and overall profitability to determine where to funnel the company’s combined financial and human resources.
- SOC 2–compliant data security — Security in the cloud is paramount, especially when more locations mean more users and more data moving between sites. Veterinary software with rigorous privacy standards can provide security against threats.
- Clinically trained support team — A knowledgeable, responsive, veterinary-trained software support team is critical for helping new clinics get up and running.
Multi-location mastery
Opening a second location is a big step, but it can also be financially, professionally, and personally rewarding. The key to success is establishing the necessary infrastructure to support growth, including the right veterinary software.
Shepherd was designed with multi-location practices in mind. Our veterinarian-led support and development teams ensure you have the tools you need to expand your operations confidently. Schedule a demo today to learn how our veterinary software can help you simplify multi-location practice management.
