November Data Review:
Fall Stays Strong
While not as impressive as some of the previous six months, November data showed a veterinary industry that remains strong amidst the pandemic. Revenue, ATC, and New Clients all maintained some growth, while Transactions were the only major Key Performance Indicator (KPI) presenting a slight slowdown.
Though lack of growth in Transactions for October and November was far outweighed by ATC growth, it is still concerning to overall volume for clinics. As vaccines for COVID-19 began rolling out in December, outbreaks of the virus at the hospital level are at an all-time high, causing some practices to close down temporarily.
Revenue is the product of Transactions and Average Transaction Charge (ATC).
November revenue was up 11%, putting it very much in line with October revenue and maintaining steady growth since the summer rebound. Below is a breakdown of revenue category performance for November 2020 as compared to November 2019.
Takeaways: Boarding and Grooming continue to struggle since the start of the COVID-19 outbreak. Laboratory, Surgery, and Imaging saw dramatic increases over prior year, helping to drive strong ATC growth as well.
Transactions can be thought of as volume of visits into the hospital, and that’s obviously where we’ve seen some major negative impacts.
Transactional growth for November was down 2%, making for another negative month after October. In fact, it’s the most sluggish we’ve seen since the height of the lockdown. This KPI was hit hardest during the initial outbreak and may now be reflecting a cooling off of initial pent-up demand.
Average Transaction Charge is the average amount spent during a visit.
ATC is the only key metric that has maintained positive growth each month since the start of the COVID-19 outbreak. November presented the same result: ATC was up 13%, fueled mostly by strong growth in high ticket revenue categories like Imaging, Surgery and Laboratory.
New Client Growth continues on an upward trend and was up 14% in November. Once again, this is likely driven by new pet ownership during the pandemic and shifting of old clients to new hospitals due to capacity issues.
Be sure to read our other monthly data writeups on iVET360’s dedicated COVID-19 site to see how your hospital is comparing to the industry during the pandemic.