Pet hospital, no one knows more about charging than it "doctors are like charging tools people" How professional are the doctors in pet hospitals? Why is there an overdiagnosis?

This article is reproduced with permission from [Great Bay Hinterland] (ID: dawanfudi)

Text/Liao Jingna

Editor/Duan Qianqian

Standing at the door of Ma Dong's pet hospital, there are three community pet hospitals of the same type as far as the eye can see. In Shenzhen, the density of pet hospitals in major business districts is almost comparable to the distribution of Snacks in Shaxian In second- and third-tier cities. The pet economy is a new business that is developing rapidly, but the market's independent pricing chaos and uneven medical standards have also emerged.

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"Because I was an adopted stray cat, I had some small problems when I first came, and I spent about 3,000 yuan in medical expenses in a month, and my monthly salary was more than 6,000 yuan." Xu Jun (pseudonym), from Nanshan District, Shenzhen, said that she adopted a stray cat "sasa" on Weibo five months ago, and has spent a total of more than 5,000 yuan on medical treatment, food and other expenses so far.

In Xu Jun's view, pet hospitals are "very good at pit money." She recalled that the first time she took SASA to the pet hospital, after doing two tests, the doctor determined that Sasa had inflammation and anti-inflammatory drugs, and the whole process cost about 200 yuan. A few days later Xu Jun went to the hospital again, the doctor suspected that Sasa had cat plague, but after doing four tests, it was still determined to be inflammation, and the same anti-inflammatory drugs were dispensed with SASA, this time it cost Xu Jun 850 yuan, and the external performance of the two visits to Sasa was sneezing, "The doctor seems to be a tool person, will only recommend a variety of paid examinations, anyway (pet owners) can not see the examination process, let them do." ”

Another pet owner, Zhong Qi (pseudonym), also believes that many pet doctors will recommend many "unnecessary" tests.

When taking his own cat to see a doctor, Zhong Qi bought a 380 yuan examination package on the Meituan APP, and after arriving at the hospital, the doctor listed a lot of additional preoperative examination items, which required more than 700 yuan, "I felt that the hospital was pitting me, and (with the doctor) said that you crossed out unnecessary items, and finally left a postoperative anti-inflammatory project, and paid 135 yuan in addition to the package." ”

Since the opening of the small animal outpatient department of the College of Veterinary Medicine of China Agricultural University in 1985, China's pet hospital industry has developed for more than 30 years, and whether there is a phenomenon of arbitrary charging in the medical projects of pet hospitals and the professional ability of pet doctors has always been a question for most of the public. On the other hand, when it comes to treating the lives of their pets, pet owners can only hope that the pet hospital, even if there are more dissatisfactions, they have to accept the doctor's advice and obediently pay the fee.

Ma Dong, founder of Shenzhen Cara Pet Hospital and deputy secretary of the Shenzhen Pet Medical Association, said that whether pet owners are willing to bear medical expenses for pets is not only linked to their own economic ability, but also affected by their awareness and emotional awareness of the role of pets.

As the role of pets in the family gradually changed from "nursing home" to "family members", the amount of money spent by pet owners on pets has also grown rapidly, and their ability to pay and willingness to pay should not be underestimated.

According to the 2019 China Pet Industry White Paper, the average annual consumption of a single pet dog in China has reached 6082 yuan, an increase of 9% year-on-year; while the average annual consumption of a single pet cat is 4755 yuan, an increase of 10.3% year-on-year.

High-priced pet medical projects account for the largest part of pet consumption. The new Ruipeng Pet Hospital revealed to tiger sniffing in the hinterland of Dawan that the current unit price of the medical project of the new Ruipeng store has reached more than 600 yuan, while the unit price of the pet beauty project is about 400 yuan.

Ma Dong mentioned that a customer of Kara Pet Hospital paid 50,000 yuan for the pet's pacemaker implantation without saying a word, "If the pet is regarded as a family member, then I am willing to spend 100,000 yuan or even 1 million yuan for the family member." ”

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Although pet owners are willing to pay the bill, pet owners still wonder whether the level of professional ability of pet doctors can be worthy of such a high price for medical projects. Is there any arbitrary charging phenomenon in pet hospitals?

In fact, pet hospitals and pet shops are often confused with the public, and the barriers to entry for pet hospitals are much higher than pet shops.

Pet shops can only provide pet grooming and pet food services, and business owners can open with an industrial and commercial business license. However, if you want to land a pet hospital store, you have to apply for an animal treatment license, which requires the medical environment and medical facilities of the pet hospital to meet the relevant standards, and the pet hospital also has to sign a labor contract with 3 doctors who hold a practicing veterinary certificate, and the annual national pass rate of the professional veterinary certificate is only 8%. Only in this way can pet hospitals provide services such as vaccination, medical treatment, and the sale of deworming drugs.

From this point of view, there are not many stores on the market that can truly meet the landing standards of pet hospitals, and many pet stores have crossed the level to do the business of pet hospitals, providing services such as selling pet deworming drugs and vaccinations, but they are not compliant pet hospitals.

Ma Dong, founder of Shenzhen Cara Pet Hospital and deputy secretary of shenzhen pet medical association, told Tiger Sniff Dawan hinterland that according to the above standards, as of September 2020, there were only 370 pet hospitals in Shenzhen.

Ma Dong introduced that after the pet arrives at the hospital, the doctor will first observe the severity of the pet's illness, and the critically ill pet will immediately carry out first aid, otherwise it will be carried out in accordance with the process of registration, consultation, examination and treatment, and whether the pet needs to do examination, what examination items to do, and what treatment items to do, which are decided by the attending doctor.

In the traditional cognition of most Chinese, small diseases such as cold fever runny nose as long as you buy some medicine to eat, serious diseases only need to go to the hospital, this is the reason why Chinese pharmacies are very much, now this concept has also been "pushed to the people" to the pet, many pet owners think that the doctor can completely diagnose according to medical experience, "doctors see a doctor, but where a little experience knows what is about the problem, you can prescribe some medicine to pets to eat, but they can use 'professional' as a pretext, saying that some are not, recommend you to do a test to diagnose the diagnosis, no need!" Xu Yun said.

Ma Dong explained that in fact, the problem of mammals is very complex, the need for professional doctors to diagnose and treat, the medical level of pet doctors is the result of spending a lot of time learning knowledge and work experience accumulation, not only based on the results of laboratory tests can be simply diagnosed, the high medical costs are also partly paid for the doctor's medical knowledge.

For example, he said, pet imaging doctors who are skilled in CT NMR, X-ray and other examination items are scarce resources in the industry, and must have at least 10 years of experience in the industry, "Some people feel that taking a film is a simple thing, but there is no certain experience in the industry to see how to put the film is not understood, physiological structure anatomy can not draw how to look at the disease." ”

According to the "2019 China Pet Hospital Development Report" jointly released by Bell Pet and DogMin Network, the academic qualifications of pet hospital practitioners in China account for 61.6% of the college and below, while undergraduate students account for 31.2% and graduate students account for 7.2%. From the perspective of age, there are more young people, and the proportion of working years of 1 to 5 years is 52.9%, while only 20% of the work experience of more than 10 years is occupied.

However, the more experienced a veterinarian is, the more confident he is of the treatment of small animals. For a long time, the relevant majors studied by pet doctors in China are "animal husbandry medicine and pharmacy", and the professional education they receive and the professional veterinary certificate they hold are all for the treatment knowledge of livestock animals such as "pigs, cattle, sheep and horses", and there is not much involvement in the treatment of domestic pets such as kittens and puppies. To this day, most universities remain unchanged.

But on the other hand, doctors have excessive autonomy in the treatment process of pet hospitals, which inevitably leads to excessive medical treatment.

At present, most of the salary composition of pet doctors is in the form of "basic salary + commission". A pet hospital that did not want to be named revealed that the commission of pet doctors is determined by the turnover of the store in the month, and the doctor's assessment KPI is also measured by whether the turnover has increased, "which has led to some doctors in the industry over-medical treatment for higher income, but most doctors still go to the doctor from the perspective of professional medical treatment." The head of the hospital said.

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The occurrence of excessive medical treatment reflects the difficult operation status quo of most pet hospitals.

At present, China's pet hospitals mainly include three forms: community hospitals, specialized hospitals, and central referral hospitals. Community hospitals mainly cover customers around the location of the store, the main features are good service, high customer stickiness; specialized hospitals require medical teams to have very strong professional capabilities in a certain field, such as pet ophthalmology, pet dentistry, etc.; central hospitals are general practices, generally have large pet medical equipment.

Among them, community pet hospitals account for the vast majority. Taking the new Ruipeng Pet Hospital as an example, there are more than 1,000 community hospitals and more than 300 specialized hospitals nationwide, while there are only more than 100 central referral hospitals.

The first is the high cost of store investment and operation. Taking Carla Pet Community Hospital as an example, the initial capital investment of a single store is about 1.5 million to 2 million yuan, which includes store decoration, medical equipment and pharmaceutical consumables procurement and other costs. In daily operation, a store needs a cost of 200,000 yuan per month, of which the store rent and water and electricity are 40,000 yuan, the salary of employees is 90,000 yuan, and the rest is for pharmaceutical consumables, marketing and other expenses.

From the perspective of profit model, pet hospitals mainly achieve profitability through the sale of three major services: pet medical and health care, pet grooming, and pet food supplies. Ma Dong mentioned that the largest revenue of pet hospitals comes from pet medical treatment, while pet grooming services and the sale of pet food are relatively low, and pet hospitals are used as a means of drainage for stores.

A pet community hospital that did not want to be named revealed that the unit price of outpatient proportion customers in stores is 500 yuan, the unit price of surgical medical projects is about 1,000 yuan, the unit price of hospitalization proportions is 1,500 yuan, and the monthly revenue of stores is about 200,000 to 250,000 yuan. Based on this calculation, even if the store maintains a net profit of 50,000 yuan per month, it will take at least 2 to 3 years to achieve a return on the cost.

According to the "2019 China Pet Hospital Development Report" jointly released by Bell Pet and Dogmin Network, 14.2% of pet hospitals are still in a state of loss, even if the profitable pet hospital profit margin is not high, and the pet hospital with a profit of 30% only accounts for 21.8%.

On the other hand, with the influx of more and more practitioners intensifying industry competition, a price war has begun between pet hospitals. Some pet hospitals will launch extremely low-priced medical projects to attract customers, and the profit margins of pet hospitals have been squeezed. Ma Dong revealed that some pet hospitals even launched a 25 yuan pet vaccine project, and this is only the purchase price of a vaccine.

In this case, many pet hospitals transfer the pressure of store revenue to the staff as a KPI, which inevitably leads to excessive medical treatment by doctors and arbitrary charges in pet hospitals. At the same time, because the pet medical insurance on the market can not achieve the uniqueness of the target object, there are many loopholes, and most of the medical insurance minimum reimbursement amount is as high as 500 ~ 800 yuan, doctors will even cooperate with pet owners to defraud medical insurance reimbursement.

Although most pet hospitals are difficult to operate and the industry is chaotic, there is still huge room for development in China's pet medical market in the future. According to the 2019 White Paper on China's Pet Industry, the number of pet dogs and cats in China's cities and towns reached 99.15 million in 2019, an increase of 8.4% year-on-year. Despite the rapid development, China's household pet penetration rate in 2019 was only 17%, and the number in the United States reached 67% in the same period.