A veterinary practice manager runs the business side of a clinic: hiring and HR, payroll and scheduling, the budget and monthly numbers, inventory, client service, and the paperwork that keeps the practice compliant with OSHA, the DEA, and the state board. A good job description says which of those the manager owns outright, who they report to, how they'll be measured, and what the job pays. The template below covers all of that. Copy it, replace everything in [brackets], and delete what doesn't apply.
This guide is for practice owners and medical directors hiring a manager. If you're a CSR, tech, or office manager trying to move into the role, skip to the section on how people become practice managers near the end.
Decide which manager you're hiring
"Practice manager" covers very different jobs. The Veterinary Hospital Managers Association (VHMA) describes three levels of management that build on each other: office manager, practice manager, and hospital administrator (VHMA job descriptions). Pick the level before you write anything, because it sets the pay, the candidate pool, and whether the job can be salaried.
| Role | What they usually own | Reports to |
|---|---|---|
| Lead CSR or front desk lead | Reception schedule, phones, check-in and checkout, training new CSRs. Still works the desk most of the day. | Office or practice manager |
| Office manager | Front office staff, daily deposits, accounts receivable, scheduling, purchasing, bookkeeping. VHMA describes this role as carrying out policies others set. | Practice manager or owner |
| Practice manager | All non-medical staff, payroll, budget, KPIs, inventory, client service standards, compliance programs, hiring. | Owner or medical director |
| Hospital administrator | Everything a practice manager does, plus recruiting and managing veterinarians and acting as final business authority with the owners or board. | Owners or board |
A medical director is a different job. In most practices the medical director is a veterinarian who sets medical standards and supervises the doctors, while the practice manager runs the business. If you're hiring both, write two descriptions and spell out who decides what. Our veterinarian job description covers the clinical side.
The template
Job title: Veterinary Practice Manager
Location: [Practice name], [City, State]
Reports to: [Owner / Medical Director]
Pay: $[XX,XXX] to $[XX,XXX] per year plus [bonus terms, e.g. a quarterly bonus of up to [X]% of salary tied to the scorecard below]
Schedule: [Full-time, Monday to Friday, [X] a.m. to [X] p.m., with [one Saturday a month / on-call for building and staffing emergencies]]
FLSA status: [Exempt / Nonexempt]
About us
[Two or three sentences a manager would care about. Practice type (general, emergency, specialty, mixed animal). Number of doctors, credentialed techs, assistants, and CSRs. Annual revenue range if you're comfortable sharing it. Practice software. Whether you're independent, part of a group, or planning an expansion.]
Example: "We're a five-doctor small animal hospital with 28 team members, open six days a week. We use [practice management software] and an outside bookkeeper. The owner is stepping back from daily operations and wants a manager who can run the business side and report on it monthly."
What you'll do
People and hiring
- Recruit, interview, and hire non-DVM staff [and support doctor recruiting]
- Run onboarding, training plans, and annual reviews
- Handle employee relations issues and keep personnel files complete
- Maintain the employee handbook and job descriptions
Payroll, scheduling, and benefits
- Build the staff schedule to match appointment demand and keep overtime in check
- Process payroll [in-house / with our payroll provider] and manage time-off requests
- Administer benefits enrollment and answer staff benefit questions
Finance and KPIs
- Prepare the annual budget with the owner and report monthly against it
- Track the practice scorecard: revenue, new and active clients, average transaction, staff cost as a share of revenue, and inventory cost
- Manage accounts payable and receivable, daily reconciliation, and vendor contracts
- Recommend fee changes with supporting data
Inventory
- Manage purchasing, receiving, and stock levels for drugs, supplies, and retail
- Run regular counts and reconcile them against the practice software
- Support the DEA registrant's controlled substance records, inventories, and loss reports
Client service
- Set and train front desk standards for phones, check-in, checkout, and estimates
- Resolve escalated client complaints and track reviews
- Oversee the reminder, recall, and client communication programs
Compliance and facility
- Maintain the OSHA programs: hazard communication, injury and illness records, and safety training
- Keep licenses, registrations, and permits current for the practice and the team
- Track state board requirements that apply to the facility and to staff duties
- Manage building maintenance, equipment service, and IT vendors
What we offer
- Pay: $[XX,XXX] to $[XX,XXX] per year plus [bonus terms]
- Health insurance, with [XX]% of the employee premium paid by the practice
- [Retirement plan] with [X]% employer match
- [XX] days of paid time off per year
- $[X,XXX] annual CE allowance, including [VHMA membership / CVPM exam fees / management courses]
- [Pet care discount, cell phone stipend, parking, parental leave]
What you'll need
Required:
- years of supervisory experience, with at least [X] in a veterinary or human healthcare setting
- Experience running payroll and building staff schedules
- Comfort with spreadsheets and practice management software reports
Preferred:
- Certified Veterinary Practice Manager (CVPM) credential, or progress toward it
- Coursework in accounting, HR, or business management
- Experience with [your practice software]
Work environment
This job is mostly office and floor work in an active hospital. You'll spend time on your feet, lift supply deliveries up to [XX] pounds, and be around animals, sharps, and chemicals. Reasonable accommodations are available for qualified candidates.
How to apply
[Apply through VeterinaryHire / email a resume to name@practice.com]. We respond to every applicant within [X] business days. Our process is a phone screen, an interview with the owner and medical director, and a paid half-day on site.
Why each section matters
Reports to. A manager who reports to three owners, each with different priorities, will fail. Name one person. If the medical director has a say in hiring techs, write that down too.
FLSA status. A salary alone doesn't make a manager exempt from overtime. For the federal executive exemption, the manager must be paid on a salary basis at least the standard salary level, their primary duty must be managing the practice or a department, they must regularly direct the work of two or more full-time employees or the equivalent, and they must have hiring and firing authority or recommendations that carry particular weight (U.S. Department of Labor, Fact Sheet #17B). The federal standard salary level is $684 per week, or $35,568 a year (DOL salary levels). A true practice manager usually fits the duties test. An office manager who mostly works the front desk may not, so check before you call the job exempt. State rules can be stricter than federal ones.
Compliance duties. These are the parts of the job an owner most often forgets to hand over, and they come with deadlines:
- OSHA hazard communication. Every employer must tell employees about the hazardous chemicals they're exposed to through a hazard communication program, labels, safety data sheets, and training (29 CFR 1910.1200).
- OSHA injury records. Veterinary services (NAICS 5419) is not on OSHA's list of partially exempt industries (OSHA, Part 1904 Appendix A), so a practice must keep the injury and illness log unless the company had 10 or fewer employees at all times during the last calendar year (29 CFR 1904.1). Every employer must report a work-related death to OSHA within 8 hours, and an in-patient hospitalization, amputation, or loss of an eye within 24 hours (29 CFR 1904.39).
- DEA controlled substances. The DEA registration belongs to the veterinarian, but the manager usually keeps the system running. Controlled substance records and inventories must be kept for at least 2 years (21 CFR 1304.04), and a full inventory must be taken at least every two years (21 CFR 1304.11). A theft or significant loss must be reported in writing to the DEA field office within one business day of discovery, with a DEA Form 106 filed within 45 days (21 CFR 1301.76). The same rule bars a registrant from employing anyone with access to controlled substances who has a felony conviction relating to controlled substances or whose DEA registration was denied, revoked, or surrendered for cause. That makes it part of the manager's hiring checklist.
- State board rules. Each state's veterinary board sets licensing standards, sets policies for clinics, and investigates complaints against professionals and facilities (AAVSB). Your manager should know your practice act well enough to keep staff duties within it and licenses current. AAVSB's regulatory board lookup links to each board.
Measured outcomes. Listing the scorecard in the description tells candidates you'll judge them on numbers they can see. It also screens out people who have only run a front desk.
What the CVPM is
The Certified Veterinary Practice Manager (CVPM) is VHMA's credential for experienced managers. VHMA is its sole sponsor (VHMA CVPM roadmap). To apply, a candidate needs (VHMA, Earning your CVPM):
- At least three years of practice management experience within the last seven, covering 26 of the 30 duties listed in the application
- 18 college semester hours in management-related courses
- 48 hours of management-focused continuing education
- Four letters of recommendation
The job title doesn't have to be "practice manager" as long as the experience meets the requirement (VHMA CVPM FAQs). The exam fee is $695 for VHMA members and $845 for non-members, and a retake costs $595 or $745. The exam runs four times a year at testing centers (VHMA exam dates and fees). Candidates get three and a half hours, and an approved application stays active for two years. To keep the credential, a CVPM earns 48 hours of CE and pays a $225 recertification fee every two years (VHMA), with 24 of those hours from in-person programs (VHMA CVPM FAQs).
In VHMA's 2025 compensation survey, 37% of hospital administrators, 14% of practice managers, and 4% of office managers held the CVPM. CVPM-certified hospital administrators earned 8.2% more in annual salary than those without it (VHMA, 2025).
What this means for hiring: at the practice manager level, requiring the CVPM shrinks your pool a lot. List it as preferred, and offer to pay the exam fee for a manager who qualifies. That's a cheaper recruiting tool than an extra few thousand in salary.
What practice managers earn
There is no federal pay category called "veterinary practice manager." BLS sorts managers into broader occupations, so use more than one number.
In May 2025, BLS reported these figures for the veterinary services industry (BLS OEWS, veterinary services):
| Occupation (veterinary services only) | Employed | Median annual wage | Mean annual wage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Medical and health services managers | 4,390 | $80,580 | $105,650 |
| General and operations managers | 6,110 | $79,700 | $94,240 |
| First-line supervisors of office and administrative support workers | 11,750 | $58,730 | $60,390 |
Here's how to read that.
- The industry cut matters. Across all industries, the median for medical and health services managers was $123,860 in May 2025 (BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook). That figure is dominated by human hospitals and health systems. If you see it quoted as "practice manager salary," it's the wrong benchmark for a clinic.
- The mean sits well above the median. In veterinary services, the mean for health services managers is about $25,000 above the median. A smaller group of high earners pulls the average up. Price a typical practice manager job from the median, not the mean.
- Practices code managers differently. The same job might be reported as a health services manager at one practice and a general and operations manager at another. The two medians are close, which is reassuring.
- The supervisor row is a floor for office managers and lead CSRs. It's closer to what an office manager or front desk lead earns than to a full practice manager.
- These are national figures. They don't adjust for your local market, practice size, or revenue.
VHMA publishes a fuller breakdown by role, experience, credential, practice type, and region in its Compensation and Benefits Survey, but the full report is a member resource. Non-members can buy it for $300 (VHMA, 2025). If you're setting pay for a manager at a large or multi-location hospital, it's worth the money. For pay across the rest of your team, see our veterinary salary guide.
Interview questions that test management skill
Most candidates can describe what a practice manager does. Ask them to show you how they've done it.
- "Here's last month's P&L and staff schedule [anonymized]. What would you look at first, and what would you ask me?" A strong candidate goes straight to staff cost as a share of revenue, overtime, and inventory cost, then asks questions before suggesting cuts.
- "Tell me about someone you fired. What happened in the months before?" Listen for documentation, clear expectations, and coaching that came well before the decision.
- "A tech tells you a vial of a controlled drug is short at the end-of-day count. Walk me through the next 48 hours." You want to hear: secure the records, notify the veterinarian who holds the registration, recount, review the logs, and know that a significant loss goes to the DEA within one business day.
- "Our doctors say we're short-staffed. Our numbers say payroll is too high. How would you find out who's right?" Good answers compare appointment volume by hour against the schedule.
- "Tell me about a fee increase you recommended. How did you decide on the amount and how did you tell clients?"
- "What's a policy you inherited that you changed, and how did you get the team to go along with it?"
- "What would you need from me as the owner to do this job well?" Candidates who can't answer this haven't thought about the boundary between owner and manager.
Keep questions about the job. Federal law bars job decisions based on protected traits such as age, sex, religion, disability, and national origin (EEOC), so don't ask about family plans, health, or age. For a paid on-site day, our working interview guide covers the wage rules.
A 30/60/90-day plan
Give this to the new manager on day one. It tells them what you expect and gives you both something to review at each checkpoint.
First 30 days: learn the practice
- Meet one on one with every team member and both the owner and medical director
- Get access to payroll, the bank, the practice software, vendor accounts, and the DEA records
- Pull 12 months of the monthly numbers and build the baseline scorecard
- Find every compliance deadline: licenses, DEA registration renewal, biennial inventory date, OSHA log, equipment inspections
- Change nothing big yet, except anything unsafe or illegal
Days 31 to 60: fix the obvious
- Present the baseline scorecard and three priorities to the owner
- Fix the schedule against appointment demand
- Run a full inventory count and reconcile it
- Review the hazard communication program and safety data sheets
- Take over the hiring pipeline for open roles
Days 61 to 90: own the results
- Deliver the first monthly report against budget
- Finish one priority project start to finish
- Hold first check-ins with each direct report
- Agree with the owner on the bonus scorecard for the next quarter
How to structure a bonus without backfiring
A practice manager bonus should reward results the manager can actually move, and it should be hard to game. Some practical rules:
Pair each metric with a guardrail. Any single number can be pushed in a bad direction.
| Metric | Gamed alone, it leads to | Pair it with |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue growth | Fee hikes that drive clients away | Active client count or client retention |
| Staff cost as a share of revenue | Understaffing and burnout | Staff turnover, unfilled shifts |
| Inventory cost as a share of revenue | Stockouts of drugs doctors need | Count of stockouts, inventory count accuracy |
| Overtime hours | Unpaid off-the-clock work | Timekeeping audits |
| Online review score | Discouraging complaints | Number of complaints logged and resolved |
Use team results for most of it. A manager can't control whether a doctor quits, but they control the schedule, the hiring pipeline, and the monthly report. Weight the bonus toward those.
Leave injury counts out, or reward reporting instead. OSHA says rate-based safety incentives, such as rewards for injury-free months, are allowed only as long as they're not implemented in a way that discourages reporting (OSHA, 2018). A manager paid for low injury numbers has a reason to discourage reports. The same memo says rewarding workers for reporting near misses or hazards is always permissible. Reward the manager for a complete OSHA log and finished safety training instead.
Write it down. Put the metrics, weights, baseline, payout schedule, and what happens if the manager leaves mid-quarter in the offer letter.
Check overtime rules for nonexempt managers. If your office manager is paid hourly, a bonus based on a set formula is nondiscretionary and must be included in the regular rate used to calculate overtime (DOL Fact Sheet #56C). That raises the overtime rate in any week the bonus covers.
How people become veterinary practice managers
If you landed here looking for a practice manager job, here's how most people get there.
From the front desk or the treatment floor. Many managers start as CSRs or techs, become a lead or department supervisor, then take on scheduling, inventory, or hiring. Each added duty counts toward the CVPM experience requirement, which is based on what you did rather than your title (VHMA CVPM FAQs). Our guide to the veterinary receptionist role covers the CSR side.
Through business coursework. The CVPM requires 18 college semester hours in management-related courses. If you don't have them, start now, since they take longer to finish than the CE hours.
Through the CVPM. It's not an entry credential. You need three years of management experience before you can apply, so treat it as the step that moves you from practice manager toward hospital administrator. VHMA also runs a separate Certified Veterinary Office Manager (CVOM) program with its own requirements (VHMA CVPM roadmap).
When you're ready, browse veterinary jobs on VeterinaryHire and look for listings that name who you'd report to and how you'd be measured.
Next steps
When your description is ready, post your practice manager job on VeterinaryHire. You can write and preview the listing before you choose a plan, and it goes live as soon as checkout finishes. Our guide to where to post veterinary jobs covers other places to reach managers. If you're hiring doctors at the same time, see how to hire a veterinarian.
Sources
- Veterinary Hospital Managers Association, management job descriptions, CVPM roadmap, Earning your CVPM, CVPM exam dates and fees, CVPM FAQs, and 2025 Compensation and Benefits Survey announcement.
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, OEWS estimates for veterinary services (NAICS 541940), May 2025, and Occupational Outlook Handbook: medical and health services managers.
- U.S. Department of Labor, Fact Sheet #17B: Exemption for executive employees, earnings thresholds for the EAP exemption, and Fact Sheet #56C: Bonuses.
- Occupational Safety and Health Administration, 29 CFR 1910.1200 hazard communication, 29 CFR 1904.1, Part 1904 partially exempt industries, 29 CFR 1904.39 severe injury reporting, and 2018 memo on safety incentive programs.
- Drug Enforcement Administration regulations, 21 CFR 1304.04, 21 CFR 1304.11, and 21 CFR 1301.76.
- American Association of Veterinary State Boards, Look up a license and regulatory board lookup.
- U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Prohibited Employment Policies/Practices.
This is practical hiring guidance, not legal advice. Overtime rules, OSHA obligations, controlled substance rules, and practice acts differ by state and situation, so confirm them with your employment advisor, the DEA, and your state board. Sources checked October 16, 2026.