One Health Approach to Veterinary Business with Jan Woods

What does human health do well that we in veterinary medicine can learn from?

Vet Life Reimagined host, Dr. Megan Sprinkle talks with Jan Woods about Jan's experience in managing human health practices and how she then learned how to make veterinary practices thriving successes. 

About our guest, Jan E. Woods.

Jan Woods’ healthcare career has spanned over thirty years in both human and veterinary medicine. Ms. Woods’ most recent positions in human healthcare were in senior management with national healthcare companies. In 2001, Ms. Woods moved into veterinary medicine as the Hospital Administrator for the Veterinary Specialty & Emergency Center of Kansas City, (VSEC). She led several hospitals afterward into success and even became a co-owner of a 100-employee specialty and emergency veterinary hospital in Tucson. Jan also has been a Director for Cubex, LLC, and a Key Opinion Leader for Zoetis. Jan is an author, speaker, and founder of Ask Jan For Help, a diverse group of experts who can help on any topic to help your veterinary business.

Jan Wood’s Contact Information: 

Email: jan@askjanforhelp.com

Cellular/Text: 913-302-4999

Website: www.askjanforhelp.com

www.euveterinaryce.com 

Transcript

02:00
DR. MEGAN SPRIKNLE (host)

So you have a very unique entrance into Vet Med, and that's actually you started in Human Health. So how did you start in the human health side of things? 

 02:14
JAN WOODS
Well, I think I started like everybody does, even on the veterinary side, you start working in medical records, or you start work and then at the front, which I went from medical records to the front desk, and then from the front desk, worked my way through school for nursing and then just went to work in practices. And I then spent the majority of my career doing practice management, both on the vet side as well as the human side. But on the human side, we definitely had practice managers. And when I started, everybody was owned individually. And then of course, the corporatization happened on the human side just as it's happening on the vet side. And I had the opportunity to interview for a hospital administrator position for a large multispecialty veterinary hospital. 

 06:47
JAN WOODS
And I was really excited about that because at that point in time, there wasn't any corporatization. And the doctors, a lot of the specialists, had just stopped working at the universities and wanted to open up their own thing because they thought they could offer more in the way of customer service. And turnaround time was the biggest thing. They told me why they were leaving academia. Now, whether that's true or not, I don't know, but they had no systems. So when I interviewed for the position, it was quite interesting. I said, I'm very interested in the position, but I would like to see your budget. I would like to see your staffing ratios, and then just the general business questions. And they all just looked at me and they said, what are you talking about? 

 JAN WOODS
 And I said, I need to see how the structure is of your business and how profitable you are. And they said, oh, we don't have any of that. We just know how much money we have at the beginning of the day and how much money we have at the end of the day. And so they had no HR support. They had no regulatory support. Doesn't matter if it was controlled substances or OSHA or whatever. They had no financial support except what they threw in a shoebox and gave to their CPA at the end of the year or the end of the quarter. But they didn't even have P LS for me to look at. 

 04:30
JAN WOODS
So it was a real leap of just walking in from a totally structured healthcare, human healthcare side of medicine to something that was just, out of lack of better words, a cowboy. And it was really fun because I got to put in all of these systems that I knew worked, and I got to leave the systems that nobody liked on the human side behind because we are not set up on that side. We spend a lot of time with clients and we spend of course, that includes our patients, where on the human side, my doctors had to see one patient every ten minutes. And so the lack of empathy, the lack of compassion, the lack of stealing their hearts and minds and making them happy that they came. It was just a number and what insurance company was going to pay for it? 

 05:27
JAN WOODS
So for that reason, I was really excited to go into veterinary medicine. And so I was there. I started the practice with them from ground zero. Well, that's not exactly true. They already had a practice, but they were all different entities on the vet side. So Er owned Er, surgery owned surgery, medicine owned medicine, that kind of thing. But they had to join all those forces and become one corporation or they couldn't get the financial backing from a bank. Because the group of 16 doctors certainly has a better financial picture than one individual or two individual doctors. So I helped them put that system together and then I helped them open the practice. We built, what was it, 22,000 square foot multispecialty hospital got them going. And during that time, I also belonged to an organization called the Veterinary Specialty Practice Alliance. 

 06:29
JAN WOODS
And it's short as VSPA. And VSPA was started by these doctors who left academia but knew that they needed help from the minds in the room on how to run your business. So we would meet twice a year and share basically stories on how do we do our marketing, what was successful with marketing, what was successful with your operations, how much do you pay your staff, all those kind of things that are really important when you're making a successful business. And I think everybody knows that veterinary medicine is successful because it's such a welcome business, but it's also successful financially if it's done right. And it doesn't take much to do it right if you give your all to your patient and your client, which veterinarians are known for. And so the organization VSPA was really interesting and helpful. 

 07:31
JAN WOODS
And we had many hospitals across the country, no neighboring hospitals, because we shared marketing information. So I didn't want to show my competition on the other side of town. I didn't want to share with them what were doing marketing. So we had a president, vice president, et cetera, and they rotated through by vote. And I ended up being the president for four years. And then the person that took over my position then got pregnant and had a high risk pregnancy. So I ended up revoting and another four years, so I was eight years with that organization. What was really neat about that is it gave me the opportunity to meet people in the business side all over the country. 

 JAN WOODS
 In that interim, after the three years at the practice that I was the hospital administrator, I had an opportunity to do kind of like Bill Murray and the groundhog. I got an opportunity to do that all over again. In Tucson, Arizona, we started with eleven doctors and 24/7 multispecialty and emergency. And as we grew, we then ended up with 31 doctors, a 22,000-square-foot building. We started out with, I think around 10,000, doubled it to 21-22,000 to accommodate all of the doctors that we had to have in a very short time. I also was honored to become an owner with my partners. So that was absolutely wonderful. And after we have almost 16 years, we sold to a corporate entity, and I had the opportunity to move to beautiful Santa Barbara, California, and took over as a hospital administrator there. 

 09:20
JAN WOODS
And then after I was there a while, I was approached by cubex to be their director of regulatory affairs, because all during this time that I was doing these things, I was also working with attorneys who were helping doctors who have been cited by the DEA. So people ask me, where did you learn that controlled substance stuff? How do you know that? Because they don't teach it in vet school. They're just now starting to. They don't teach a lot of it in tech school. They're getting better at it, but it's one of the biggest risks in the practice financially. And so I worked with attorneys, but also on the human side of medicine, we had something called, AHA, not Aaha, but AHA, American hospital association. And every year we had Jacob, which was their licensing advisory committee that came through every human hospital. 

 JAN WOODS
 And if you didn't pass Jaco survey, which included all of the regulations, then you couldn't bill insurance. So you know where that took us very quickly in human hospital, we had to pass every regulation and every patient care requirement in each state, or we couldn't bill insurance. So that's kind of where I learned all of that, as well as, of course, the business stuff. But I learned a lot more after college than I ever did in college, I think, because we all get the school of hard knocks when we get going. But it's been an absolutely wonderful career. I have zero complaints about and I joke and say going to the dogs in 2000 from the human side of medicine, it's been an extremely fulfilling business to be in. 

 11:05
JAN WOODS
It's been something where my father in law and his father were both veterinarians, and my husband went to the human side. That's where I met him. But my father in law and I had such an amazing relationship. He died last year about this time at age 102. We would go down and they're Nashville people, and we'd go down and meet in wherever they were living and he'd just say, well, tell me what's going on in work. And we'd talk about treatments. Of course, his treatments at 102 were drastically different than what veterinarians do now. And he would call me at my practice and say, jan, guess what I just read in the AVMA manual magazine. I said, I don't know, daddy. What? Well, I just read they're putting pacemakers in dogs. I said, yes dad, we do that all the time. 

 JAN WOODS
 He goes, oh my God, I can't believe it. And so we had a great relationship and he was so proud every time he saw me speaking, especially at the Tennessee VMA, I've spoke there several times and he was so proud. And I would tell people who I was and believe it or not, there would be people who knew my father in law had worked as a student with him or something. So it's been outside of the familial stuff, it's been a great relationship. It's hard to not enjoy your job in this industry. It really is. Yeah. 

 12:32
Megan Sprinkle
Oh my goodness. Well, first of all, I think that speaks to the types of people who are attracted to veterinary medicine like your father in law is. He was still so excited to hear about what's going on in the industry and just seeing his relatives being involved and making a difference. But it also speaks volumes to change and how fast things change over time too. Pacemakers was Newston him in just like maybe 50 years, so even maybe less so. You have seen a lot of changes both on the business side of things as well as medicine and hopefully continue to see changes when it comes to us being better about DEA and understanding those things. So I'm also just coming off of an episode that published on November 27 with Dr. 

 Megan Sprinkle
 Julie Smith and she was very big into watching the changes of business models. I can't help but want to go back just a little bit because you said that one of the things that was attractive to you about veterinary medicine was the lack of as much consolidation and that we are trending that way. So I know there's a lot of mixed feelings about that. But just from your perspective when it comes to changing business models over time in veterinary medicine, what are just kind of your thoughts for the people listening in veterinary medicine when it comes to just understanding business models and maybe what works for individuals and just anything there, because I think that's on a lot of people's minds. 

 14:09
JAN WOODS
It is. And I don't have anything negative to say about what anybody's choice is. I own a company called Ask Jan for help and veterinary management marketing specialist and I have many corporate accounts who have me work with them and then I have many individual practices that I work with. So I get the best of both worlds. I think it just depends on how old the veterinarian is and do they want to leave the industry and have everything buttoned up. There are some practices that I work with that are primary care and maybe only one doctor. So weren't generating enough revenue for the larger veterinary corporations to be interested and some of them just end up closing the shop. And so then the community loses because we all know veterinarians are one of the top, most trusted professionals in the country. 

 JAN WOODS
 And so that leaves a hole in the community. I think there's some things that we still could do in this industry that the human side of medicine has done well. And one of the biggest things I see is we still have all these individual practices. Even if we're part of a corporation, we still have all of these individual corporations, companies that report up to this one corporation and do they get a discount on drugs and those kind of things. Of course, I had 31 docs. I got a better buying power than a doctor who had one doctor, or two doctors or five doctors. So definitely a GPO group purchasing organization, which I actually started in Tucson, they'd never even heard of it in the veterinary industry. 

 JAN WOODS
 And so I just got the buying power of all the individual practices that wanted to join and we definitely had a bigger buying power. So there's that opportunity and then there's of course, help with your day to day operations and those kind of things. But one of the things that the human hospital models have done well, or human healthcare models have done well, is they have a medical office building. And you walk in that door and there may be 100 different doctors in that medical office building, but they're in one location and they feed into one Med surge hospital. 

 16:00
JAN WOODS
So from the ability to get a group buying power, but to be able to have different doctors in the same building, I think that's still something we should look at in this industry because I know that it definitely helps the client to go to one stop instead of being so far apart. Because we've done surveys and it says that the average consumer won't drive past 5 miles past their home to see a veterinarian. That's the statistics. Now, I don't know if that statistic still stands with the corporation component entered into it. If the doctor leaves and retires or goes to another practice, do they follow him? I do. And my doctor is a lot further than 5 miles away. But that is one of the things that I think we could look at is consolidation. 

 17:32
JAN WOODS
But then one of the things I would not like us to look at is the insurance model. That is the thing that has just totally driven the doctors and nurses on the human side out of the business. Like I said, they're seeing one patient every ten minutes or they can't get paid. So that's one of the things I'd not like to see. This is one of the things that I think we've done extremely well. Whether you're an independent or you belong to a corporation, we still have insurance offerings, but we're not in a group insurance mentality. So I think there's not really one answer to your question. I think it depends what the vet wants. How much autonomy do they want? If they want 100% autonomy, they need to stay in their own business if they want help. 

 JAN WOODS
 Because I think one of the things veterinarians learn, but not at first, is that running a business and running a medical practice are two full time jobs and it's extremely difficult for a doctor to be able to do both effectively. So of course, the love is medicine, so a lot of the business stuff gets pushed to the side, put in a shoebox, like I said earlier, and given to the CPA to figure out what the heck is going on. Most practices when I lecture, because I lecture on other things besides controlled substances, but I'm approved for opioid education in states and by race. So that's of course the biggest request I have to fill the opioid requirement. But I think just the fact that do you have a budget? 

 19:13
JAN WOODS
When I ask that question, still I'll have a room full of people and I still maybe have one or two doctors raise their hand and their response would be, why do I need a budget? And I said, because it's your roadmap. It helps you understand how to get from point A to point B. You can move it. You don't have to stay where you set it in December for the next coming year. But you need a roadmap. You need to have a finger on the pulse of where your practice is going. 

 JAN WOODS
 So I think if you're an independent doctor, those are some of the things that you lack or an independently owned if you're a corporate medicine, then a lot of the corporations have budgets and then they're taught why and how to use those budgets to their best interest with purchasing power and those kind of things. I think both of them offer clients what they need and what they want. They just need to understand all the ins and outs. I would encourage them to read everything they can on if you're thinking about leaving and retiring, do you want to keep your license? Do you want to keep your DEA number? Do you want to keep your state controlled substance number and do some PRN work? 

 20:29
JAN WOODS
Do you want to leave it all behind or do you want to sell to a corporation and let them take over? And you work PRN whenever you want to or never again. But that is important to know. And when people start their practice on day one, they should be planning for retirement day one. And that way they've got again a roadmap or a thought of how they're going to handle the business until they check out. Because most people that retire or sell to a corporate entity don't have any idea how to do that. They don't have any idea how to retire. My father in law that I told you that was the veterinarian, he would call me and goes, well, we didn't do things like that. And he says, I just wish you would have been there to help me with my practice. 

 JAN WOODS
 I said, Well, dad, what'd you end up with potatoes? Because he's in Nashville several years ago. And so we don't want to end up with potatoes. We want to end up financially secure. So when we retire, we have the money. That means that we have to charge for services rendered. And that's one of the things that I see the difference between human medicine and veterinary medicine. There's always a charge in human medicine, but interestingly, the doctors don't know what that charge is because they just have a sheet, and they just circle codes. And then you hand it to the front desk, and the front desk takes it from there, and you pay your copay. You know what I think about insurance. So I am not advocating that. 

 22:00
JAN WOODS
I'm advocating a sheet, a travel sheet that has your codes, and then they can talk to somebody within the practice that has a financial background that could help the client understand that. So I think that what my vets told me is, Jan, I don't think they can afford that. I said, how do you know? Are you a bank? Did you get into their finances? Well, I just don't think they can. And they drive off in their Bentley. That's one of the things I hear over and over again. We've got to stay out of the client's pocket, and we need to charge for our services and be proud of what we have in our head, because that's what they're paying for. They're not paying for the equipment and the lights and et cetera. Well, they are, but they're not there for that. 

 22:40
JAN WOODS
They're there for you to care for their animal and take care of what give them the knowledge that you got in college. So that is one of the things I think every veterinarian coming right out of school should concentrate on, is establishing their value, knowing what their value is. Take that value and have your staff be part of understanding what value you have and what they have and make sure that people get charged. Because when you retire, you want to retire with some money. You don't want to retire with a sack of potatoes. Like, I used to tease my father in law. 

 28:04
Megan Sprinkle
I don't think anybody thinks about that coming out of vet school. So I think that's so was I was on Reddit, and this girl, she was talking about going into vet school and about loan options, and I was encouraging her. I said, Talk to somebody about your situation. And she's like, oh, yeah, I'll get a financial advisor when I start paying off my loans. And I'm like that's. Too late. That's why we get people to help us, too. I'm not saying that everybody has to be masters of it. It's just start talking about it. Start thinking about it. And if there are little things, you have options. 

 Megan Sprinkle
 You can always change little things along the way, but still making sure that you've set yourself up for that so that you can because we can't be our best selves if we're constantly worrying about that either. We can't be the best doctors and give what we want to our patients. So I think that's really important to think about, even if it sounds way too early, I think it's good to already have the conversation, working with the people that you're on that plan. And I think we live in a world of opportunities, so it doesn't mean like you're selling your soul for a certain path. 

 24:09
JAN WOODS
Exactly. 

 Megan Sprinkle
 But at least you have something that you're working towards and contributing to so that you're aware. 

 JAN WOODS
 Well, I agree. Before I say the rest of what I was going to say, that's where I talk about understanding and preparing for retirement. The day you open your practice, actually before you open your practice, that's when reality sets in. Oh my god. All these things that I thought were going to happen are only this much of this that I thought was going to happen. So we need to be prepared when you give away your services and you discount your services or you let people walk out the door and not pay. My AR was less than one half of 1% because we had a policy that pay at the time of the service render and all of my staff and the clients understood that upfront. I'm not saying get away from the altruism. 

 25:00
JAN WOODS
I'm not saying getting away from the compassion and winning their hearts. I'm saying we need to charge because when you retire, all those people that you gave discounts to or you didn't charge or they didn't pay their bill later, they're not going to come and knock on your door and say, here I am with the money plus interest. So we have to take care of ourselves and our families because some of the veterinarians have kids going to vet school, you know, that's expensive. And just having a family and making sure they're taken care of is an expensive part of life, but one that's rewarding. So that's something that is terribly difficult for veterinarians to deal with, I think, is the financial component of what we. 

 Megan Sprinkle
 Do, other than making sure that the doctors aren't the ones that are having the financial discussions. Are there other things that you think would help veterinarians get a little bit more comfortable with that? That maybe either seeing people do well in vet med or maybe even in the human health side? 

 26:04
JAN WOODS
Well, there's a couple of things. One is we had eight interns every year, but I had 31 docs, so my partners and I could afford eight interns every year, and we got to work with them from ground zero. And part of that rotation through all of the specialties in the hospitals was they had to rotate through management. Part of their training was training with me on practice management because that's I think and I'm not a clinician on the vet side. I happen to think that managing people is one of the hardest jobs you've ever had and they don't teach you that in school. And so that was part of it. 

 JAN WOODS
 So I think if you can work with somebody where you've got a mentor or you can go into as an intern or resident, you can go into somewhere that includes the management component of it. I would highly encourage know there are some people out now that do mentorships. We have mentors that ask Jan for help, that work with doctors on just how to handle the clinical component. Unfortunately, we have a high rate of suicide in this industry. And that is, I think, a lot of the people not getting what they thought they were going to get when they started their practice and the long hours and the grind of the long hours and some of the cases we have to deal with are extremely sad. So definitely a mentor. 

 27:28
JAN WOODS
And if it's not an outside mentor, if you're going into a practice, please make sure that mentor is somebody that's in the practice that's been there for several years. Not the person who just graduated the year before. You and go to your CES and get all the education you can on the business part of the business because it's the hardest part when it's not something you do on a day to day basis. And I would tell you trust your nurses. One of the things that we always told doctors is look, these nurses are your eyes and ears on the ground. And for an example, you wrote zero point ten, but somehow it got to ten mils instead of zero point ten. Well, that nurse catches it and says, hey doctor. And they're scared to come up and say, did you really mean ten mils? 

 JAN WOODS
 No, I meant zero point ten. So trusting your nurses, trusting your management to help you be more successful, my philosophy has always been we set them our responsibility is to set our doctors up for success. So find somewhere that provides you that in vet school while you're going to vet school. It's hard, you've got a lot of long hours, but go to the conferences and don't just perseverate on the healthcare part. The medicine part is what I was trying to say of it. You get that every day, all day long in med school. Think about the other things that you're not comfortable with because we have a tendency not to do things we're not comfortable with. And in this respect it would be the business side of it. 

 JAN WOODS
 So take as many classes as you can, learn as much as you can and find a mentor not only in the medical side, but in the business side as well. 

 29:10
Megan Sprinkle
Speaking of uncomfortable things, I think that is a perfect transition over to you mentioned it. A little bit earlier before, but really where you get asked to speak a lot because there's really just not a lot of I think experts in this, in our industry is around the regulations of controlled drugs and things like that. So I happen to know that's a big passion and how I kind of met you is through vetsnap. So do you mind sharing a little bit of kind of like the core of what you are seeing as the gap in our industry? It's okay if you scare people just a little bit to share just how important this is, but ultimately the resources that are available and things that people can do. 

 JAN WOODS
 Sure, thank you for asking. I think again, as I mentioned earlier, this is not something you're taught in school. So when people come and see me speak, I get to speak from somebody who had a practice who has been on that side of the business, either on two legged or four legged medicine. So I understand that part of it and I also understand the business part of it, but then we throw in the regulatory so when you listen to me speak, you get a little bit of everything like how can I do this in my practice? I'm doing all these other things. Well, again, set yourself up for success. Learn what the DEA or OSHA for that matter, require, and then put those things in place as quickly as possible. And then make sure your staff is trained that they understand. 

 30:41
JAN WOODS
Because what I see is if staff only comes to see me talk and they go back to the doctors who haven't seen me talk, they're going to go, I'm not doing that. I've never done that. Why would I start now? Have the doctors come with you to the presentation and learn what you need to do so that you can minimize your risk. Because in this particular business end, we don't have excuse me, my phone is ringing. We don't have the ability to learn this. Michigan is actually teaching my course and Donna, who is ahead of that part of it, says that the students have been very receptive to it and so it's something they don't teach. So now this is part of their learning course. 

 JAN WOODS
 They watch my three hour presentation, but they've done them in ten minute increments, and then they've also done them in there's three 1 hour or ten minute increments, depending on how much time you have. So that's the only university right now. Some of the universities have the pharmacists teach them, but the Regs are just like them, only different. How about that? Because they're teaching it from a pharmacy perspective. And a pharmacy perspective is not what we're going to do and how we're going to handle it when we get out in our own practices. So I'm not saying it's not right, I'm just saying they need to know the difference. So when they walk out. But I think some of the biggest things I hear every time the DEA walks in, they know that they are going to be able to make money. 

 32:13
JAN WOODS
In fact, I've been told over and over again, jan, if I need to make my quota for the month, all I have to do is drop in a vet clinic. I'm hoping with as much as I lecture on this, and you're right, there's not very many of us doing this in the country, I'm hoping that people that will not be the case when they walk in. I'm hoping the DEA will go, you know what? You just got a few things here and there, so we're going to write you a letter of admission. You need to write me a plan of correction on how you're going to fix these things that are not severe in nature and great job. That's what we hope for. I think the biggest things I hear are nobody understands. Not nobody. 

 JAN WOODS
 The majority of the people don't understand the logging responsibilities and don't understand the inventory is a separate document from their day to day reconciliation. So when they're handling drugs, that has to go into the log immediately, and then you have to do inventory that is a separate document. If those two documents don't match when the DEA knocks on your door, you're already set up for. I guess I think when I speak, that's something that I really harp a lot on is, look, get these two things in place and make sure that they match and make sure that five minus two is three mils, not a question mark. And believe it or not, I've walked into practices where they just have a question mark on their log and I said, I don't understand. Why didn't you put the balance? 

 33:40
JAN WOODS
Well, because I didn't have time, really. We got calculators. And so that's one of the things I consistently hear unless I consistently see record keeping as an area where they always win. Until we learn how to handle all of our record keeping, it's not just logging. It's a complete system. It's called a closed system. And that's how they audit us, is within that closed system. Probably how we destroy our controlled substances that are expired and unwanted and controlled substance, medical waste are two areas we don't understand. There's a lot of people out giving wrong information on that. And so we hear something, we think it's right and then it's not, and we get audited. So I think those two things I hear a lot of. And the other one I hear a lot of is transferring. I'm the primary registrant. I'm leaving. 

 JAN WOODS
 What do I do with these drugs? And can I transfer them? Can I transfer means can I sell them to the other new primary registrant or I'm leaving. I'm closing my practice. What do I do with these drugs or I'm leaving. They don't have another doctor to take my place? What do I do with these drugs until somebody comes to take my place? And what do you mean? If I leave and there's nobody to take my place, they can't use my drugs. And so I think all of those areas are the hotbeds of questions I get on a routine basis. And I see on citations a lot of, oh, goodness. 

 35:07
Megan Sprinkle
How close are you with these regulatory agents? It sounds like you know them, which is nice because you kind of hear experience and can share that with the clinics. But what are the best resources for people? Of course, you are a great resource. There's tools like Vetsnap that can help you digitally record, keep mean, just like how many lockboxes you have. There can be a lot of details to know. Again, like you said, there's not a whole lot that's taught, and that's probably not the first thing that's on our mind when we get out of that. Yeah, sorry, go ahead. 

 JAN WOODS
 I was going to say, I get phone calls all the time now. It says, I'm starting my practice. I want to do this right. Will you come down and set it up for me before I get going? Which is a great way to start. Go ahead. I'm sorry. 

 Megan Sprinkle
 No, that's great. Are you speaking in schools, too? I know you mentioned one school is using your course, but I agree with you. I think the earlier we can support people to let them know about these things, the better we set them up for success, and then they can teach the next generation or the next doctor. So how do you participate in the community? 

 36:03
JAN WOODS
So good question. So I do speak at most of the large conferences, such as Fetch. I do speak on behalf of Vetsnap, which I think is a fabulous digital logging system, which means it talks to your PIM system. And then if it's time to give two mils of volume, then everything's digitally. You don't have to do a manual controlled substance log. It's digitally done for you. That's acceptable by the DEA as long as it's current, completed and accurate. And then I've worked with not only like Fetch and VMX and the one in my gosh, I'm drawing a blank in Vegas or Western. Thank you. And I do a lot of speaking with VMAs, a lot of the state conferences, and I do teach some in the universities. And then I own the company Ask Jam for help. 

 JAN WOODS
 So I think they see me in a lot of places, come up. I write articles and DVM 360 and that practice news, so they can see things in that. You can go to my website at www.AskJANforhelp.com click on blogs, and you can see articles that I've written, as well as many other specialty business specialists. Not just on regulations, practice management, all kinds of things. And then I work with many individual doctors, individually owned as well as corporations. It's to the point I think where there's not a lot of us doing what we're doing because this is just not information we're taught. And a lot of it comes from referrals such as you said you heard me speak or somebody said hey, would you interview Jan? I think that's how you got started know, when you were talking with vetsnap. 

 37:46
JAN WOODS
So that's the biggest lovely response to what I do is that it's a referral from somebody who heard me or worked with me. I think if you are stuck and you don't know what to do, definitely they're welcome to email me or give me a call. I would tell you to look at your Vet Practice Act. Most people don't pay an attention. That's not true. It's a gross over generalization. When you take your license, you understand the Vet Practice Act from the time that you open that cover to the time you close that cover because that's part of your test. But those get changed frequently. So we need to go in and refresh our memory on what does the Vet practice act say we can do. Because it does include controlled substances and it does include OSHA. 

 JAN WOODS
 And another one is my retired de agent and I wrote the controlled substance section for the AVMA Plit book that you can get for your practice. It's amazing, it covers every area that you should be looking at from a practice perspective. OSHA HR controlled substances. It just goes on and on radiology. All these things we have to do to keep our staff safe. It's in that PLIT manual, safety manual. Then don't hesitate to look at the federal regs and the state regs, but it's hard to do because they're convoluted, they're crazy and they change frequently. So somebody will call me and argue with me and say well I'm doing it this way. And I said well that rig changed many years ago. Did you find the change? No, this is what it said okay, you can do whatever you want, but it's not current. 

 39:23
JAN WOODS
So those are options to go to. Also if you are a member of AVMA has some good resources. I will tell you that when I do state policies, I can honestly tell you sometimes it takes me a week to find all of the regulations and I do it for a living. So I have empathy for people trying to follow the rules when I do it for a living and sometimes have to spend a week finding them. So don't hesitate to contact somebody like myself to help you. You don't need to struggle. Get the system put in place, make sure the system is right, and make sure everybody in the staff that handles the controlled substances, which should be minimal, you don't open it up to the whole place. Then make sure that they do it right. 

 JAN WOODS
 And if they're taught right and they're doing it right, then you have a very good chance of just getting something. Like, why didn't you hang that up on your wall from the and I will tell you another area that I interestingly get is when people get audited. I have many conversations and many scripts, so to speak, that I give them on how to talk to a DEA agent. But they forget all of that. They're scared, and they just go on and on ad nauseam. So when you're talking to a De agent, remember you're talking to a judge. It's just like when you talk to a cop when you get pulled over. If you're going to be smart with him, you're probably going to see a worse problem than if you would have just been helpful and polite. So be careful what you say. 

 41:00
JAN WOODS
And I always tell everybody, use closed ended answers, just like we do with clients who want to tell us about our pet from 19 two. But today is 2023. We want to know what happens. Why are they there today? So we go to closed ended questions, and so we need to remember that with the DEA and don't give them more information than they came for, because that just gives them something else to look for. 

 Megan Sprinkle
 Yes. I can tell you are so passionate about this, and you talked about that. This is such a rewarding career for you. What is it for you? What's the most fun that gets you excited to wake up and do this all over again? What's your joy in your career? 

 JAN WOODS
 Oh, my. It was interesting, and not to compliment myself, but I was nominated for the Athena it's an international women Business Award, and I was nominated twice. And they asked me and I was one of the top five I'm one of the top three runner ups, I think. Always the bridesmaid, never the bride. But they asked me what my legacy was and what I felt my legacy was to the community. And I think I answered them in something they weren't expecting from personal viewpoint. My legacy is my children and how I taught them to be successful in whatever career they chose and to be happy with not be afraid to take risks. I've always taken risks with business. I don't take personal risks, but I take a lot of business risks. 

 42:35
JAN WOODS
And not to be afraid of taking risks, because sometimes we learn lessons the hard way if we don't take a risk. Or sometimes we do learn a lesson the hard way if we do take the risk. But to me, it's worth it. So that would be my legacy. And then from a business perspective, I think just seeing people lights turn on when you help them in a business area, that they said, I don't know what I'm doing. I've got this employee that's doing this. I don't know what to do. I can't make them happy. And I say, let's stop right here. Let's talk about happiness. It's an intrinsic value. 

 JAN WOODS
 All you can do as an owner of a practice or a manager of a practice is set them up for success and give them a great place to work with the tools they need and the training they need and be supportive and caring, and then they can be a successful employee and successful adult. We can't make them happy. It's an intrinsic value. They have to be happy on their own. We're responsible for giving them the tools to do a good job. So when you're training somebody I had 14 I think I had 14 managers that I groomed from preschool up to being fabulous managers. And to see the lights turn on and they go, oh, really? That's what I have to do? 

 43:58
JAN WOODS
Yeah, that's something we need to look at, seeing techs or doctors and like I said, we had eight interns that went through every year, went through my courses, and you could see their lights turn on. And it's fun because it's something I've been doing forever, but I like to learn new things. I guess I'm a lifelong learner. You are. You wouldn't be doing what you're doing. And so I guess personally, it's learning more and sharing that knowledge, especially in an area that doctors don't know or nurses don't know or administration doesn't know. And that's one of the things that I found absolutely riveting when I left the human side, because everything we do over there we've been doing for 100 years, and it's successful and we make a lot of money, but the doctors and nurses are not historically happy. 

 JAN WOODS
 And on the vet side, the doctors and nurses are extremely happy and they like what they do. Do they have bad days? Yes. But for the majority of the part, we have good days because we have a puppy or a kitten lick our face. So I think that is probably the thing that I like the most, is seeing that happiness, seeing that love for the industry, seeing that love for what they do, and seeing a return on that. That's probably what makes me the happiest. When I lecture, I love answering questions. I tell them, don't think any question you're asking me is incorrect or stupid, as we always say, because you may be the only one who has the guts to raise your hand, but everybody else in there still needs the same answer. So seeing them go, oh, I get it. 

 45:36
JAN WOODS
I didn't know that. Now I know what to do. That's fun. 

 Megan Sprinkle
 Yeah. You mentioned that for your children. One of the joys was teaching them how to be happy in whatever career that they decided to pursue. What are some of your biggest lessons that you teach them about that? 

 JAN WOODS
 I think one of the things I tried to teach them as a child is we don't have to like everybody, but we need to respect them for their choices and what they do, and you don't have to hang out with them, but you also don't need to mistreat them, because that's their choice. That's their life path. It's not yours. I think that's why we hang out with people that were like minded. Right. I think the kids that was one of the things I wanted them to embrace early on. And if they came home because somebody was a bully or whatever, you would talk about how are you going to handle that and what do you need to do? And you don't have to like them, but you need to respect them, and that's hard for kids to do. They don't like to respect people. 

 46:45
JAN WOODS
We have grown adults now who don't respect anybody, and unfortunately, they're on national stages. So I think we've lost that. I think we've lost the caring and the empathy and the respect, and that's what I tried to teach my kids, and I think that came from wanting to be a nurse on the human side. And I think that's what comes from being a veterinarian or a nurse on the vet side is that empathy that you have for others, even if they are four legged or the two legged that comes in with them. 

 Megan Sprinkle
 Yeah. Well, I have a last couple of questions just to get to know you a little bit better. You sound extremely busy, but do you have any hobbies or skills that you also like to pursue outside of medicine area? 

 47:30
JAN WOODS
Yes, actually. My grandfather was a jeweler, and my mother and all of her brothers were artists, and so I kind of got that gene pool. Both of my sons have that gene pool. My daughter, who's adopted, does not have that gene pool. She can't draw a stick figure in it and frustrates her so much. But that's definitely the gene pool that we inherited. I love to make jewelry. I'm absolute fanatic about making jewelry. I love mosaics, meaning, like, when I go to Europe, we travel extensively, and I'll spend hours looking at the mosaics inside the Vatican or inside one of the museums. And so those things, stained glass and then glass mosaics and then jewelry, they all sparkle. Probably something that's sparkly and fun and gives pleasure to others. 

 Megan Sprinkle
 Oh, that's fun. Well, a lot of people answer this based off of where they want to travel to, but is there anything on your bucket list that you would like to do? 

 48:35
JAN WOODS
Geez, we've been so lucky. I've been to the Middle East even more than once on my bucket list left to do. I haven't been to Russia. I would like to go to Russia, but it's not a good time right now. Where are we? I'm trying to think. There are some countries that were behind the Iron Curtain that we haven't made yet, like Poland and some of those, but I've even been all the way up to So. But my favorite every time is Italy. Because of all of the artwork, and we love religious history and religious architecture and religious art and those kind of things. So I just really go crazy when we go to Italy, France, any of those. I don't really think there's much left if I died tomorrow. I don't think there's a lot that I said I didn't do. 

 JAN WOODS
 Remember I told you I was a personal risk taker? Those are the risks I take. You can't get me to bungee jump. That's a personal risk. A business risk is what I meant to say. The business risk. And then the things that business affords me to be able to do would be the travel. And so that's that personal risk that I don't care if they say I can't go there. I'm going. 

 Megan Sprinkle
 Yeah. With you on that bungee jumping? No, thank you. 

 49:52
JAN WOODS
Yeah. Well, I had one other thing real quick. I had patients that would come into the exam room when I was on the human side of medicine, and they would say, when my husband retires, we're going to go here or we're going to go there next time I saw them, the husband had died or the wife had died, and they never got out of their backyard. And so I thought to myself, way back in the early 80s, I'm going. I'm not going to say I didn't that I haven't been there and done that. 

 Megan Sprinkle
 Yeah. It's always worth a try. 

 JAN WOODS
 I think it is. 

 Megan Sprinkle
 Well, you actually sound like you've talked a lot about things that you might be grateful for, but if you kind of had to wrap it up for our last question, what is something that you are most grateful for? 

 50:34
JAN WOODS
I am, as I said, grateful for my children and my family. My husband helps me with this business. Now, I couldn't do what I'm doing without his help and with everybody else that helps me. I've always been grateful for employees because we can't do this ourselves. I'm grateful for the industry that allows us to still make a difference. And I think that's the biggest reason I left human medicine is I didn't see I was making a difference. Every day in veterinary medicine, I make a difference, and that is probably the thing I'm most grateful for.