| |
About Us
My name is Jan Miller and I’m the founder and senior consultant at Veterinary Best Practice. I have had an exciting and very diverse 25 year career in healthcare management and I'm delighted to have the opportunity to speak shamelessly about it for a few minutes.
I started out in diagnostic imaging as a rad tech, oh those many years ago. I quickly decided that doing barium enemas was not the proper career choice for me, so I moved into management, eventually as the director of diagnostic imaging for a small community hospital and later for a 2 hospital, 10 medical office healthcare system. To this day, I absolutely love looking at a perfectly exposed and well positioned radiograph (and must restrain my urge to critique each film.)
While still in the field of radiology, I had the opportunity to work as a technical consultant in diagnostic imaging for the medical systems division of DuPont. Covering the 10 western states, including Alaska and Hawaii, travelling most of the time kept me busy and exhausted. Incredibly, I had a fear of flying when I started in consulting at DuPont. Did I ever get over that fast! I also learned that every hotel restaurant in the United States serves chicken Dijon and that airports are the best places to people watch.
I spent the next few years managing a primary care medical office and then moved to a position as Operations Director for a large group dental practice where I learned the language and business of dentistry.
Next, it was on to the surgical specialties as I became an internal consultant of clinical operations for the physician group of Kaiser Permanente. I assisted surgical medical directors with operational issues such as patient processing, growth management, staffing, budget development and management, long term planning and program development. I later held a similar position with another multi-hospital health system.
It was a long and circuitous route, though I finally ended up in veterinary medicine doing what I love: practice and business management and development around a different species of patient.
My learning curve in veterinary medicine has included working for MMI (the parent company of Banfield, the Pet Hospital) as one of a handful of people hired to develop a pet insurance product. Unfortunately, the venture was short lived, but it was a wonderful opportunity to learn still another area of healthcare. It also exposed me to the industry that is the perfect blend of my skills, experience, interest and passion.
Since MMI I have worked as both a veterinary practice manager and consultant. Like many people, I had considerable anxiety about venturing off on my own as a fulltime consultant. I had been thinking about it for at least 10 years, initially in human medical practices and then in veterinary medicine. I now had many years of experience in virtually every aspect of healthcare operations. So what was preventing me from making the leap to forming my own company? As it turned out, absolutely nothing that mattered.
I am a frequent contributor to Veterinary Economics magazine and have developed a business and financial analysis
software program (Veterinary Practice Builder).
Veterinary Best Practice is the company I've formed. It is the best of 25 years in healthcare management and with it a perspective that is truly unique, imaginative and rich with broad based experiences and measurable successes.
I look forward to the opportunity to work with you and help you fulfill your career aspirations.
Warmest regards,
Jan
|
