Re: Pricing up your account - thoughts please?

Sal the 1st — Sat, 09 Aug 2014 13:08:11 GMT

it cuts both ways then - next time you locum for them charge them your regular rate

Re: Pricing up your account - thoughts please?

Ems — Sat, 09 Aug 2014 12:26:42 GMT

Thanks for your response :) I'm not charging them locum rates, just getting an extra pound an hour as they are a nice bunch! They've made a loss generally, not from my dogs procedure, Like you said I really wish I'd just let someone else write it up! I think I'm just gonna pay the outstanding amount and pretend the whole thing didn't happen, it's just frustrating!

Re: Pricing up your account - thoughts please?

Sal the 1st — Sat, 09 Aug 2014 11:33:11 GMT

[quote user="Ems"]Hi everyone, just wanting other peoples opinion on this; I have recently started locuming but sometimes do the odd shift for my old work place. My dog had a suspect cruciate damage a few weeks ago, so she was in for sedation to assess and also some X-rays - I have always been charged at a rate of cost price + VAT so this is how I charged all the items. Normally the head nurse puts them on but she wasn't there that afternoon and then I was away for about a week before I'd be back to sort it out so decided to do it myself. Anyhoo I've just been back in surgery and when I checked my account, I had a note of all the costs I'd had previously put on but my practice manager is wanting to charge me double what I worked out! Needless to say I was furious - it's not a huge amount but it made me feel like I had tried to steal or lie about prices or something and now I feel awful :-( :-( I emailed my manager (who is well known for being deceitful on client accounts and lying to staff) stating how annoyed I was that she hadn't spoken to me about this and how I was unsure where she got her prices from. I then Received a phone call stating that that was the price (no explanation of how she got it) and that it was payable when I was next it, my husband says I should refuse to pay but I don't want to cause any agro :-( they had a meeting this week saying they'd made a loss and I'm wondering if they're panicking and charging accounts? thoughts? It's really stressing me and I can't sleep! Thanks in advance

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couple of things

since you started being a locum are you now doing locum work through an agency or are you self employed? Either way as a locum it means that you are no longer an employee of the practice but a client - so unless its been agreed to in advance any staff discount enjoyed previously may not apply. Think of it this way - do you charge the practice less for your locum work than you would any other practice or do you allow them a discount?

I know it was difficult with The HN not being there and then you not being there but my rule is never to price work done on your own animal for precisely the reasons you have given above. It would have been better to have spoken to somebody else in the practice to price the procedure for you, even better would have been to have asked in advance for an estimate (that way you could have worked out whether you were being allowed a discount or not)

When you say the practice had made a loss do you mean they had made a loss over your dog's procedure or just a loss generally?

Try speaking to the practice manager calmly and asking her for a break down of costs for the procedure and clarifying with her if you have been allowed a staff discount (which I suspect will no longer be the case) or you are paying, and will be paying in future, the same as any other client?If you feel that you cannot speak to her maybe a chat with the HN instead? A reasonable chat about this may sort out amicably a problem that may have occurred as the result of a simple misunderstanding - especially important if you are going to need locum work with the practice in future. Don't stress over it - instead try and sort it out as soon as you can