Practice Management Masterclass
Four lunch-hour sessions on retention and engagement, financial tools, meeting management, and inventory. Practical, fast-paced, and built for the people who keep Illinois practices running.
- Dec 2, 3, 9 & 10
- Noon to 1 pm CT
- Live on Zoom
- 4 hours of CE live
Schedule
Good to know
Cost
Freefor ISVMA member practice managers. $50 for non-members.
CE
4 hours1 hour per session when you attend live.
Format
ZoomOne-hour sessions with live Q&A. Recordings available.
Who should attend
- Veterinary practice managers
- Team members who want to become practice managers
What you'll learn
Meetings That Couldn't Have Been Emails
Most practice leaders can name their meeting problem in one breath: people don't show up, people don't talk, or nothing happens afterward. Research by Steven Rogelberg suggests about half of meeting time isn't well spent, and most of the fix happens outside the room.
Maria uses Allcott and Watts' 40-20-40 model to show how to prepare, facilitate, and follow up so meetings stay focused, quieter team members get heard, and decisions turn into action. You'll map one of your own recurring meetings during the session and leave with a daily huddle format your team can start the next morning.
By the end of this session, you will be able to
- Distinguish between planning meetings and doing meetings, and who belongs in each.
- Apply the 40-20-40 model to one recurring meeting in your practice.
- Use brainwriting and round-robin techniques to include quieter team members.
- Diagnose the root cause of attendance, participation, and follow-through problems.
- Design a daily huddle under 10 minutes with a consistent three-question format.
Maria is a Certified Veterinary Practice Manager and DiSC Certified Practitioner with about 20 years in leadership, 13 of them in veterinary medicine. As Executive Director of the Animal Hospital of Lake Villa from 2017 to 2022, she ran the hospital's team meetings alongside HR, team building, and conflict management. She has presented CE since 2014 across the United States, Canada, and Mexico, in English and Spanish, including at the AVMA Convention, NAVC HiVE, and Uncharted Veterinary Conference.
Incorporating Fun into the Workplace: A Retention and Engagement Strategy
Having fun at work can help bond your team to your practice. Engaged employees are more motivated to give great client service, recommend products and services, and stay. Recruitment and retention remain a challenge in veterinary medicine, and Jill shows how a little fun, planned with intention, can help.
You'll leave with ideas that fit different personalities and budgets, plus a way to show your practice owner the results.
By the end of this session, you will be able to
- Explain why employee engagement directly impacts retention, productivity, and financial performance.
- Develop strategies for creating activities that appeal to diverse personalities and budgets, while gaining owner support through measurable outcomes.
- Build an annual plan for employee engagement that is both sustainable and meaningful.
Jill has spent more than 20 years in veterinary medicine at Whitney Veterinary Hospital in Peoria. She became a CVT in 2005, the hospital's Practice Manager in 2018, and a Certified Veterinary Practice Manager in 2022. She is passionate about team building, training, leadership, and bringing fun into the workplace. She speaks locally and nationally and hosts the Veterinary Hospital Managers Association's Manager to Manager podcast series.
What Gets Seen Gets Managed
Owners, managers, and associates all drive a practice's financial results, but they don't always see the numbers they're responsible for. Grace and Kristen show which metrics matter for each role, how to set boundaries around financial access, and how to turn the numbers into better conversations and decisions.
In this session
- Identify the financial metrics that matter for owners, managers, and associates.
- Set clear boundaries around who sees which financial information.
- Implement a simple process for sharing and discussing financial information that connects individual responsibilities to practice goals.
Grace brings more than two decades of experience across clinical practice, hospital operations, and financial administration. She has led financial turnarounds and guided multi-site hospitals through growth, specializing in P&Ls, budgets, pricing strategy, cost controls, and KPI dashboards. She chairs the VHMA DEI Task Force and co-chairs the North Orange County Hospital Managers Group.
Kristen is a Certified Veterinary Practice Manager with more than 15 years in practice management and leadership. She serves on the VHMA Board of Directors.
5 Ways to Make Managing Inventory Easier
Inventory touches both patient care and the bottom line, and it's one of the easiest systems in a practice to let slide. In this practical session, Nicole walks through five ways to simplify inventory while improving accuracy, efficiency, and profitability: demand forecasting, reorder points, cycle counting, getting more from your practice management system, and building a team-based inventory culture.
Whether you're new to inventory or refining an existing system, you'll leave with strategies you can put in place right away.
By the end of this session, you will be able to
- Explain how inventory management impacts both patient care and practice profitability.
- Apply demand forecasting principles to make more informed purchasing decisions.
- Implement reorder points to reduce stockouts and prevent overstocking.
- Design a practical cycle counting schedule to improve inventory accuracy.
- Identify ways to leverage Practice Management System (PMS) tools to streamline inventory processes.
- Describe strategies for fostering team collaboration and shared accountability around inventory management.
Nicole has nearly 20 years in the veterinary industry, including more than a decade in small animal practice, where she started as a receptionist and worked her way up to Operations Manager. In 2017 she founded Veterinary Care Logistics, a consulting firm that has helped hundreds of practices build sustainable inventory systems. She created the Certified Veterinary Inventory Professional (CVIP) program, hosts the Inventory Nation podcast, wrote Inventory Management for Veterinary Professionals, and co-founded Inventory Ally.
One registration covers all four sessions.
Free for ISVMA member practice managers. $50 for non-members. 4 hours of CE for live attendance.