Practice Partners

Veterinary medicine has seen a lot of changes over the past few decades. One of the largest changes is the increased availability and dependence on referral centers by most general practices. This is a change that we should celebrate, as it allows veterinary medicine to offer better outcomes and options not as readily available to us before. However, there are familiar challenges that our clients still face. Specialty care services often comes with a much larger price tag to our clients. Some pets are being left behind when a family is not able to afford the care their beloved pet needs. Other times, families are going into significant debt to provide the care their pet needs.

Our hope is to be a resource to veterinarian and their clients when referral to a specialist is not in the budget. To be a solution for those 27.9% of households that are experiencing barriers to their pets care.

VetSurgical was built with the idea to help our colleagues with their patient’s care. Have you recommended your client to a referral center, but the client is unable to afford the cost of the specialty practice? Perhaps your traveling surgeon is not able to get to you in timely manner, and the case needs attention sooner. VetSurgical is here to be your back up plan when things just aren’t lining up. Whatever the circumstances may be, we would like the opportunity to partner with you to provide the care your patient needs in a timely and cost-effective manner.

• Procedures you like to refer, but the client has voiced concern over cost.
• Procedure you can do but the clients has voiced concern over cost, and you are not able to accommodate their budget.
• Procedures you can perform, but do not have the time to devote to them. Quality of life is important to us all, as is a full schedule. That surprise foreign body, pyometra, dog fights, as well as other emergency procedures can be difficult to get fit in to your busy day. We are here to help get it done for you.
• Your traveling surgeon, or in-house surgeon, is not available in a timely manner to meet the needs of the pet and client.

• Clients that can afford the work up and care at a referral center.
• Cases you can handle at your regular fee schedule. We believe in the capabilities of General Practitioners so if you can manage a surgical case then we encourage you to do so.
• Cases you can manage and have time to dedicate to them.
• Clients that can not secure financing with Care-Credit, ScratchPay or other sources, but we are willing to at least consult with the owners to see if there are alternative options to surgery.

No!

Client records that are referred will be marked as such, and neither practice will accept appointments for urgent care or wellness without your referral or approval.

VetSurgical is looking for procedures not long term clients.

Our parent practice, Premier VetCare, recognizes the concern of other general practices referring to another general practice for patient care. We assure you, we are not looking for clients to become our long term clients. Our mission is to help as many pets as we can, using our talents and expertise. We would like to support your client through the surgery and recovery phases. Once we have discontinued rechecks, we will refer your client back to you for future healthcare needs.

VetSurgical currently operates out of our parent company, Premier VetCare, located in Smyrna, TN.

In early 2021 the practice will be moved to a newly remodeled surgical and urgent care center. Once we are open in the new surgical center, we will also be providing walk-in urgent care. For practices that maintain full appointment schedules, we understand accommodating urgent cases can backlog your regular appointments, leaving you with unhappy waiting clients. In those instances, we hope you will consider referring your clients with urgent care needs to VetSurgical. Do not leave your long term clients without guided options and being lost to another practice because of a full schedule. Partner with us, and we will work with you to provide the urgent care needs of your clients.

YES!
We understand each practice is unique and busy. As we are looking to be an extension of your practice we believe it vital to keep you involved as much or as little as you like. We are flexible. Our doctors will be happy to touch base by phone, text, or email.

We will also forward copies of our records, or a case summary to you for your records if you like.

VetSurgical was born out of compassion. In early 2018 our founder, Dr. Mike Hatcher, was invited to participate in a round table discussion on affordability of veterinary care in the United States. That round table and many more would eventually become part of a report published by Access to Veterinary Care Coalition at UT Knoxville in December of 2018. That report highlighted the challenges many families face in affording the care they needed for their pets. This round table event reflected the experiences that he had seen in his own practice.

Prior to that round table, Dr. Hatcher was already empathetic to the challenges many pet owners face in affording care for their pets as he had previously served on the board of Brown Dog Foundation. The mission of the Brown Dog Foundation (BDF) is to provide life-saving care to families who find themselves in a temporary financial crisis. During his time with BDF, he learned even more about the systemic issue of affordability of care and the hard choices so many clients make every day when faced with unexpected costly medical care for their pets.

Since that time, Dr. Hatcher looked for ways to help reduce and lower the cost of care to those that otherwise could not afford it. After much study and thought, it was decided he could extend the same high volume, affordable, quality care model he used to build his practice, Premier VetCare. That practice model met a need that has seen the practice grow into one of the busiest, single location, multi-doctor practices in the area. In late 2019, the idea of VetSurgical was born.

Since 2004, Dr. Hatcher has seen countless clients find their way to his practice when searching for more affordable care than they could find at either their regular veterinarian or the referral centers. He was happy to help these patients in need, but often discovered if they had found their way to the practice sooner, procedures would have been less complicated, the cost of care lower, and clients would have been less frustrated with the process of the search for an alternative solution. It was not uncommon to see fractures or other procedures put off weeks or months as owners sought out more affordable care for their budgets.

The mission of VetSurgical is to be a resource to a network of local general and specialty practices for their clients that cannot afford the treatment plans presented to them. Each practice has its own unique costs of providing services, so understandably each needs to charge accordingly for their time, staff, inventory used, etc. Owners find that the cost of any given treatment plan can vary from one type of practice to another. At the root of our mission is to extend care to more pets in need while working with their family veterinarian.

Even then, there will be some clients that will not be able to afford the care at the rates we offer. In those cases, we hope we can offer support and guidance to those clients as they are faced with hard choices. There is often something that can be done, and we will explore those options with the owners. Though our hope would be to eliminate economic euthanasia, we would at least be grateful to be part of reducing the number of clients that must face that decision.

VetSurgical is not a specialty practice. Our doctors are simply general practitioners with heavy interest, training, and experience in a wide variety of veterinary surgical procedures. They are willing to work with the pet owner in their time of need to provide more advanced, affordable care than they may be able to get from their regular veterinarian.

We believe in quality affordable care, not cheap care. We believe in the value of good pre-surgical work up, and proven surgical principles. Our surgical suite is equipped with Hot Dog warming device, IV fluid pumps, wireless patient monitors, electrocautery, and a surgical LASER, and more. Our three dental stations are equipped with ultrasonic cleaners, full assortment of dental tools, and a IM3 dental station.

We are also proud that we are an Affiliated Teaching Hospital for Lincoln Memorial University College of Veterinary Medicine. Our parent practice has been involved with LMU-CVM since the schools second year of operation; hosting several dozen students on their way to becoming day-one ready practitioners. As part of that program our hospital was inspected and evaluated to the highest standards to ensure LMU-CVM students are trained to current standards of care.

Our parent company is also proud to have been inspected by the AVCM COE. Passing such an inspection means we have met the expectations of a teaching hospital in policies and safety for veterinary education facilities. Your referral of surgical and urgent care cases will also give students an opportunity to participate and learn as they work side by side with our general practice surgeons during their clinical year.

While in veterinary school at UTCVM, our founder’s interest weighed heavily in surgery. He was fortunate to be able to take all the surgical electives, as well as the first physical therapy course ever offered in a veterinary college. Following graduation, he was again fortunate enough to work in a practice where he continued to gain experience in a wide variety of surgeries, as well as assist in advanced surgery labs for veterinarians. Within a short amount of time, his talent in surgery was recognized and he was performing nearly all the advanced procedures in the three-practice group for which he was employed.

In 2003, he was at a crossroad in his young career. Struggling with a desire to pursue residency surgical training or open his own start up practice, he was led to open Premier VetCare in 2004. This was a time before the widespread availability of specialists in Middle Tennessee, and he continued to gain experience in a wide range of procedures. He found himself in a position to help those that could not afford referral centers by providing the care and procedures their pets needed. It was a common theme to have new clients find the practice after their family veterinarian referred them to a specialty center they could not afford. Without direction from their family veterinarian, the pet owners set about finding alternative options for their pets.

In addition to our doctors clinical work, they also frequently participate in surgical wet labs and lectures to ensure they keep up to date on current surgical trends and options.

Our veterinarians have over 35 years of combined experience performing minor surgeries to the more daring procedures–giving owners hope, pets a chance, and a few miracles along the way! Dr. Hatcher has overseen his associates surgical training to ensure they maintain exceptional surgical skills and expertise. We have consistently maintained a high surgical case load that keeps our skills sharp and ready to help with the next case, as well as stay on top of advances and current research in veterinary surgery.

Our list of successfully completed procedures is long.The listing below is just a few of the procedures or doctors are experienced in.

• Fracture Repair (Plating. External Fixation, IM pins )
• ACL Repair ( Extra-capsular Suture Certified, and TTA Certified)
• FHO
• Lateral ear resection
• Penile Urethrostomy
• TECA-LBO
• Portal systemic shunts,
• PDA
• Complicated wound management
• Skin and pad grafting
• Facial fracture repair and reconstruction due to trauma