What Veterinary Practice Owners and Managers Need to Know about Covid-19 and Their Business
Dr. Ernie Ward
March 15, 2020
The novel coronavirus infection, Covid-19, is raising epidemic alarms, creating economic uncertainty, and generating questions about employer and employee responsibilities and obligations. Having owned veterinary practices during both the SARS and H1N1 swine flu pandemics, I’ve experienced first-hand these legal, ethical, and health challenges firsthand. While the current coronavirus pandemic is potentially much more severe and wide-reaching than earlier disease outbreaks, I thought it would be helpful to share some of the research and resources we used to navigate these turbulent times.
First Focus on Employee Safety
All veterinary practice owners and managers should make the safety and well-being of their staff their top priority during this unprecedented time. This includes having adequate communicable-illness policies and response plans required by OSHA. Most general veterinary clinic personnel are classified as “Medium Exposure Risk” under current OSHA workplace risk zones. If your business fails to adequately inform and safeguard employees, there may be certain circumstances in which an employee becomes infected with SARS-CoV-2 at work and an employer could face penalties. While this risk is extremely rare, be advised that employers have a legal obligation under OSHA guidelines to keep employees safe, including all reasonable precautions from a communicable-illness at work.
Keep Updated on Covid-19 Guidance
Veterinary clinics need to keep updated on public health guidance regarding Covid-19. Being able to provide a business policy aligned with official recommendations is an important legal safeguard in the event your infection-control efforts are challenged by an employee or client. CDC, WHO, and state and local health agencies should be routinely monitored and your Covid-19 policy updated to reflect any changes.
Staff Education and Tools
For both legal, practical, and ethical reasons, every business needs to be able to demonstrate they have provided employees with accurate education about how to prevent the spread of Covid-19 and given them the means to act on that information. Ideally, you should conduct staff training before any workplace infection occurs. This can be as simple as reviewing the modes of Covid-19 transmission, disease symptoms, sharing public health guidelines, and providing official sources of information that the practice policies are based on. Document all training sessions with each employee.
Each veterinary practice is required to implement measures to reduce the risk of workplace Covid-19 transmission. Some of these include: 1) easy access to handwashing stations stocked with soap or sanitizers for both employees and clients, 2) all public or shared surfaces such as counters, door handles, keyboards, telephones, and so forth are regularly disinfected, 3) employees and clients have adequate physical space to practice social distancing and aren’t forced into crowded spaces.
If You Develop Symptoms, Go Home and Stay Home
Veterinary practice owners and managers should ask employees to immediately disclose any symptoms of Covid-19. While it is true a staff member may not have a legal requirement to inform management of a Covid-19 diagnosis, they do have an ethical responsibility to help protect vulnerable populations from the Covid-19 pandemic.
Employers have a legal requirement to inform their employees and, in some circumstances, local health authorities, about any employees diagnosed with Covid-19. Owners and managers may not identify a sick employee by name.
It’s unlikely an employee could bring charges against an employer for contracting Covid-19 at work due to the difficulty in proving the exact location of the individual’s infection. An employee would have to prove a legal standard known as “conditions peculiar to work,” and that there were no other opportunities for infection, an improbable argument against most veterinary clinics.
When to Send Staff Home
Any staff with symptoms of Covid-19 should be sent home at once or informed to remain home. Failure to do this could create potential legal liability if other employees become infected in the workplace and it is shown that the owners or managers did not communicate this policy. During SARS some employees tried to claim this was workplace discrimination based on Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) protections, although the courts ruled in favor of sending symptomatic employees home and keeping them out of work when there’s a direct threat to the health or safety of others, including pandemics.
You should also ask team members if they live with anyone most vulnerable to Covid-19 to help keep them and their loved ones as safe as possible.
When to Return to Work
Veterinary practice owners and managers should begin creating reasonable, fact-based guidelines on when a Covid-19 infected employee can safely return to work. Written policies should be specific about when an employee with potentially transmissible conditions will and will not be allowed back at work. Because we don’t fully understand Covid-19 infection yet, consult state and federal health authorities and require a personal physician’s written clearance before readmitting an employee with documented Covid-19 to work. Failure to do and not having written policies in place may expose your business to legal liability.
Protect your Clients
After infectious disease outbreaks, many businesses face challenges by customers who claim they contracted an infection from employees. Restaurant workers can only claim workers’ compensation if they become sick at work, but restaurant patrons can seek greater damages. Be sure to provide adequate hand washing stations, hand sanitizer, and perhaps personal protective equipment for your clients during this pandemic. Many businesses will also share with customers the steps they are taking to reduce Covid-19 transmission and protect staff and clients.
Clients with Covid-19
You should consider asking clients to inform your clinic if they’ve been diagnosed with Covid-19 or experiencing symptoms. Offering to meet clients in their car to triage or transport their pet into your clinic, providing curbside delivery of prescriptions or supplies, and offering telemedicine services should be evaluated. Providing masks or gloves to clients could be another tactic to help prevent transmission to your staff.
Pet Fur and Skin as Potential Vectors
Veterinary staff members should also practice exceptional hygiene and consider wearing protective gloves, clothing, equipment, or respirators. Dog and cat fur and skin can potentially serve as a mechanical vector for SARS-CoV-2, meaning a staff member could possibly contract Covid-19 from petting, restraining, and other physical contact with an infected client’s pet.
Staff Shortages and Scheduling Strategies
Many veterinary clinics will experience staff shortages due to Covid-19. You should critically analyze both your appointment capacity and demand during this time in order to provide adequate veterinary care and maintain revenue and profit. You may need to limit business hours, reduce the density of appointments, or triage cases based on your ability to deliver care. In certain instances, non-emergent patients or routine elective procedures will need to be rescheduled or postponed due to inadequate support staff. By being forward-thinking and strategic with both scheduling and expenses, you are best positioned to maintain positive cash flow and preserve business economic fundamentals during this pandemic.
Pandemic Pay
A key reason infectious outbreaks have historically spread in the US is that hourly employees feel compelled to remain at work as long as possible because they lack healthcare and sick-pay benefits. Consider evaluating and revising your clinic’s sick-pay benefits. Due to the unprecedented magnitude of this pandemic, there may be additional state and federal economic aid for businesses and workers affected by Covid-19.
What if Worst-Case Happens?
All business owners need to critically evaluate required supplies, services, and employee needs for the next four months. I expect supply disruptions, drug shortages, and limited employees to affect nearly all aspects of business and personal life. You should also run economic projections to properly budget expenses and inventory in the event practice revenue decreases during the next six to twelve months.
Challenges Create Opportunities
The Covid-19 pandemic doesn’t mean catastrophe; it means challenge. Businesses that carefully plan now will overcome adversity and likely emerge stronger due to better business practices. I attribute much of business success to starting a business in the midst of the early 1990’s recession and being forced to be a mindful business manager from Day One. I think this challenge presents considerable opportunities to expand telehealth services and home-delivery of goods and services for enterprising veterinary professionals.
Help Staff Deal with Stress and Anxiety
Your staff and clients look to you for guidance and reassurance during troubling times. Be truthful while maintaining optimism. It’s easy to focus on doomsday scenarios and forget that the vast majority of humans will be perfectly fine. Our responsibility is to protect the vulnerable, help the needy, and preserve the future. This is a time for humanity to unite against our common foe and emerge more connected and resilient.
CDC Covid-19 website: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/index.html
WHO coronavirus updates: https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/events-as-they-happen