What to Do After Getting a Veterinary Practice License: How to Organize Clinic Operations

Opening a veterinary clinic does not end with obtaining a veterinary practice license. In fact, many of the legal issues arise after the clinic begins operating, from properly preparing employment documents to recording changes in the clinic’s operations and preparing for inspections by the State Service of Ukraine on Food Safety and Consumer Protection.

Have you obtained a license and opened your veterinary clinic? Make sure you protect that license from the outset. This usually involves:

• Protecting the clinic in its relationships with clients: you need properly drafted veterinary services agreements, rules for maintaining veterinary medical records, and informed consent from animal owners for higher-risk procedures (surgery and anesthesia) to reduce the risk of client disputes;
• Preparing agreements with business partners: you will need templates and an understanding of the specific requirements for agreements, for example, for the supply of veterinary medicines, vaccines, and consumables;
• Organizing employment records at the veterinary facility: templates for employment agreements with veterinarians and assistants, job descriptions (reflecting the specifics of working with animals and veterinary medicines), mandatory orders, recordkeeping logs, and compliance with labor law.
• Preparing for expansion and operational changes: you need to understand in advance whether you will be able to expand your business and how to do so. For example, you may wish to open new examination rooms or pharmacy outlets at the clinic, change operating hours, or introduce new services;
• Preparing for inspections by the State Service of Ukraine on Food Safety and Consumer Protection and other authorities: you need to understand the procedures for scheduled and unscheduled inspections.

This is a separate area of legal work that cannot be handled without an in-house legal and HR department experienced specifically in veterinary clinics. You can save considerable money and stress by outsourcing all these matters to us.

In this article, we share our experience of how a veterinary clinic can organize its internal operations after obtaining a license. We offer legal guidance, identify potential pitfalls when starting this type of business, and explain how we help at each stage.

Related reading: Reissuing a Veterinary Clinic License: How to Preserve a Veterinary Business After the Owner’s Death

Protecting a Veterinary Clinic in Its Relationships With Clients

A veterinary clinic works not only with animals but also with their owners. That is why it is important to establish service rules in advance and document the key agreements.

During surgery, a veterinarian discovers that an additional procedure is necessary, increasing the cost of treatment. If the clinic has not documented the owner’s consent to that procedure and the process for approving additional expenses, the client may refuse to pay part of the bill after treatment, arguing that they never agreed to the intervention. In that situation, it will be much harder for the clinic to demonstrate the agreed scope of services and justify the amount charged.

To avoid this, the following matters must be addressed:

• the procedure for providing and paying for veterinary services;
• the preparation and maintenance of veterinary medical records;
• the procedure for approving additional procedures;
• documenting the animal owner’s consent to surgery, anesthesia, and other higher-risk interventions;
• the procedure for informing clients about possible treatment outcomes;
• the process for handling complaints.

The documents should clearly define which services the client orders, their price or how the price is calculated, when the veterinarian may perform additional procedures, and how those procedures are approved by the animal’s owner.

As part of our legal support, we can prepare veterinary services agreements, informed consent forms, applications, client service rules, and other documents needed to properly record the arrangements between the clinic and the animal’s owner.

Employment Documentation for a Veterinary Clinic

For a veterinary facility, simply hiring veterinarians and assistants is not enough. Employment relationships must be documented correctly, each employee’s duties defined, and responsibilities allocated within the clinic.

For example, your clinic’s job descriptions do not specify who is responsible for receiving and properly storing vaccines and veterinary medicines. A batch of medicines then has to be withdrawn from use because the required storage temperature was not maintained. In that case, the clinic suffers direct losses. It will also be difficult to identify the responsible employee because this duty was never formally assigned to anyone.

Employment documents must reflect how the clinic actually operates rather than exist merely as a formality. Depending on the facility’s structure, you may need:

• personnel orders;
• employment agreements;
• job descriptions for veterinarians, assistants, and other staff;
• internal workplace rules;
• regulations governing organizational units;
• work schedules;
• other internal documents needed to organize the clinic’s operations.

Employment matters are important not only from the standpoint of labor law. For veterinary practice, it is also important to ensure that staff meet the established professional and qualification requirements, particularly for successfully passing licensing inspections.

We can not only check whether your staff meet licensing requirements before you obtain a license but also take over the maintenance of employment documentation or the organization of your HR processes.

Do you need professional help with this matter?

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Agreements With Suppliers and Other Veterinary Clinic Partners

In the course of its operations, a veterinary clinic regularly deals with other companies and sole proprietors. These may include suppliers of veterinary medicines, vaccines and consumables, laboratories, landlords, service providers, equipment suppliers, and other counterparties.

Agreeing only on the price and payment deadlines is not enough in these contracts. They must clearly address other terms as well. Those terms are especially important for products subject to special transportation requirements or with a limited shelf life.

For example, a clinic pays for a batch of vaccines but receives products with too little shelf life remaining or products transported in breach of the agreed temperature requirements. If the agreement does not specify shelf-life requirements and a clear procedure for returning or replacing such products, the supplier may refuse to take them back. As a result, the clinic has paid for medicines it cannot properly use and must urgently purchase another batch.

The following terms may also be particularly important for a veterinary clinic:

• product quality requirements;
• the remaining shelf life of medicines;
• transportation and storage conditions;
• completeness of the goods supplied;
• acceptance procedures;
• deadlines for replacing defective products;
• refund procedures;
• the supplier’s liability for breach of contract.

We identify these risks in advance and establish mechanisms for addressing them before a dispute with a counterparty arises.

Expansion and Changes in a Veterinary Clinic’s Operations

As a veterinary business grows, the clinic’s structure may change significantly.

The owner may decide to:

• open a new examination room or another clinic;
• change the address;
• hire additional veterinarians;
• expand the range of services;
• upgrade equipment;
• change the facilities and equipment used by the clinic;
• reorganize the legal entity’s operations.

These changes must be assessed from more than a commercial perspective. Some may require updating documents, submitting new information, or notifying the competent authorities.

Before launching a new service line, it is therefore advisable to determine exactly what legal steps must be taken and which documents need to be prepared.

For example, an owner opens a second veterinary examination room, purchases equipment, transfers a veterinarian there, and begins seeing clients, but fails to properly document the new place of practice and the related changes.

As a result, the business’s actual structure no longer matches the information and documents on which its licensed activities are based. If this discrepancy is identified during an inspection, the documents will have to be brought into compliance urgently, after a problem has already arisen.

We provide our clients with recommendations before they expand. These cover both business organization and the necessary legal changes, for example, amendments to the license or constitutional documents, where required.

Related reading: Taxation of Veterinary Services in Ukraine: Advice From a Lawyer

Why a Veterinary Clinic Needs Ongoing Legal Support

Most of the issues described above do not arise only once. They accompany the clinic throughout its operations.

For a small or medium-sized veterinary clinic, maintaining its own legal and HR department is not always cost-effective. An alternative is ongoing legal support under a subscription arrangement, giving the owner access to a legal team without having to employ separate specialists.

We usually begin with an audit, during which we check:

• whether the clinic’s actual activities comply with the licensing conditions;
• employment documentation;
• information about veterinary professionals;
• documents relating to the premises and places where the practice operates;
• the facility’s internal documents;
• whether the actual facilities and equipment match what was declared;
• documents that may be reviewed by regulatory authorities during an inspection.

A separate area of our work is preparing the clinic for inspections by the State Service of Ukraine on Food Safety and Consumer Protection. It is better to identify and correct weaknesses yourself than to discover them during a regulatory inspection.

This approach makes it possible not only to resolve legal issues after problems arise but also to work proactively to prevent them.

Legal Support for Veterinary Clinics From Pravova Dopomoga

Our team provides comprehensive legal support to veterinary clinics, veterinary offices, and other businesses engaged in veterinary practice.

We can help you:

• conduct a legal audit of a veterinary facility’s operations;
• review employment and internal documentation;
• prepare the required employment documents and internal policies;
• prepare documents governing relationships with clients;
• prepare or review agreements with suppliers and other counterparties;
• support the opening of new places of practice;
• document changes in the veterinary clinic’s operations;
• prepare the facility for inspections by the State Service of Ukraine on Food Safety and Consumer Protection;
• provide ongoing legal support under a subscription service arrangement.

Legal support for a veterinary clinic is not simply about handling documents after a problem arises. Its main purpose is to organize the clinic’s operations so that potential legal risks can be identified and addressed in advance.

Systematic legal support helps a clinic operate continuously, document changes promptly, protect its interests in relationships with clients, employees, and counterparties, and remain prepared for government inspections. The owner can then focus on growing the business and providing high-quality veterinary care.

See the available ongoing legal support packages for veterinary clinics here.