Every hospital has a bottleneck, and it is often a role crossover. A veterinarian is doing a task a technician is trained for. A technician is doing a task an assistant could handle. Everyone is busy, so it does not look like a problem. But the work only the veterinarian can do, diagnosing, building the treatment plan, and talking with the owner, waits until they are free.
Veterinary technician utilization is how much of a credentialed technician's trained skill set the hospital actually uses. When it is low, the cause is usually role design rather than effort: tasks have drifted to whoever happened to be there, nobody has decided which work belongs to which role, and technicians have not been given the authority to do the work they are trained for. Leaders can fix most of that by deciding who owns each task and releasing the decisions that come with it.
The most successful hospitals have everyone working at the level of their job and training. Veterinarians diagnose, set treatment plans, and communicate with owners, which is also what shapes the client experience. Technicians use their nursing skills at the top of their game. Getting there is a leadership job, and it starts with seeing where the crossovers are.
What the research shows about technician utilization
Two studies have put numbers on what support staff contribute to a practice. In the 2022 JAVMA analysis by Ouedraogo and colleagues, 409 owners of US companion and mixed animal practices reported their 2019 staffing and revenue through the AVMA Practice Owner Survey. Each additional hour of technician time used to support one hour of veterinarian work was associated with 20.5% higher revenue. The same increase in nonmedical staff hours was associated with 17.0% higher revenue and a 14.4% increase in veterinarian productivity, measured as patients seen per full-time veterinarian per week. This is a survey-based, cross-sectional analysis, so it shows association rather than cause.
In Ontario, Shock and colleagues (2020) in the Canadian Veterinary Journal surveyed practices about how registered veterinary technicians were used. Among the 112 respondents who provided economic data, each additional RVT per veterinarian was associated with about CAD $79,118 more gross annual revenue per veterinarian. In one- and two-veterinarian practices, the practices where the veterinarian frequently performed RVT duties were less profitable than those that relied on RVTs for that work. The study was funded by the Ontario Association of Veterinary Technicians, which the authors state had no role in the analysis.
The people side shows up in a large 2025 survey. Kogan and colleagues surveyed 2,176 veterinary assistants, technicians, and technician specialists between September 2023 and January 2024, recruited through veterinary organizations and social media, so respondents chose to take part. Sixty-four percent reported decreased interest in staying in the field long term, most often citing inadequate pay, burnout or compassion fatigue, insufficient staff, and poor leadership. Respect at work, the ability to contribute to animal well-being, professional development, and the ability to effect change when they saw something that could be improved were significant predictors of burnout, fulfillment, and interest in staying. The authors note that many of these job characteristics can be changed within a hospital.
None of these studies measures crossovers directly. Together, they support a practical point: how a hospital uses its technicians and support staff is linked to its revenue and to whether those people want to stay, and much of it sits within a leader's control.
Where role crossovers come from
Most crossovers trace back to one of four gaps in how roles are set up.
Nobody decided who owns the task
When a task has no named owner, it goes to whoever is closest or fastest. In a busy treatment room that is often the veterinarian, because doing it is quicker than asking. Done once, that is a reasonable call. Done every shift, it becomes the way the hospital works, and nobody remembers deciding it. Our article on role clarity in veterinary leadership covers how to name one owner for each piece of work.
The authority never moved
Sometimes the task is assigned, but the decision that goes with it is not. A senior technician running a CRI may be fully capable of adjusting it within parameters the veterinarian has written, yet still pages a doctor for every change because nobody has said they can make the call. Every page interrupts the veterinarian, and over time it can teach the technician that their judgment is not trusted. Centralized approval tends to erode the autonomy a hospital says it wants to build.
The base is not trained
You cannot move tasks down if nobody below has been trained to take them. If assistants cannot restock, set up procedures, or handle restraint confidently, technicians spend hours on that work, and veterinarians pick up technician tasks to keep cases moving. The fix usually starts at the base: training assistants and technicians to take on more, and staffing so the rest of the hospital can run. The Ouedraogo finding on nonmedical staff and veterinarian productivity points the same way.
Reliability gets rewarded with more work
The technician who can do everything often ends up doing everything, including work below their training, because they are the one who gets it done. That can look like high utilization from a distance while their technical skills sit unused. Our article on why your most reliable people carry too much covers that pattern.
The legal line comes first
What a credentialed technician may do, and under what level of veterinary supervision, is set by each state's practice act and differs from state to state and province to province. Hospital policy and individual veterinarians can be more conservative than the law, but not less. Every decision about who does what has to sit inside those limits. The work for a leader is making sure the hospital uses everything the law and your own policy allow, not stretching past it.
How to fix role crossovers in your hospital
These steps can start on your next busy shift and take about a month to show whether they are holding.
1. Map one busy shift
For one shift, note every time someone does a task that belongs to a different role: a veterinarian placing a catheter while two technicians restock, a technician cleaning kennels while anesthesia monitoring waits for someone free. Ask the team the same question: what do you do most days that someone else is trained for? The list does not need to be complete. A dozen entries is usually enough to see the pattern.
2. Name one owner for each recurring task
Take the crossovers that happen every week and decide which role owns each one. Write it down, share it with the team, and include what "done" means. A short written agreement prevents the drift from coming back the first time the hospital gets busy. Our free veterinary leadership role agreement template is one way to record it.
3. Release the decision, with parameters
Where a task includes a decision, move the decision with it and set the boundaries in writing: the CRI rate range, the point at which a change needs a veterinarian, the situations that always escalate. Then say it plainly: "You own this decision. You don't need approval here." When the technician makes a reasonable call that turns out imperfectly, review it together, and leave the responsibility with them. Taking it back after the first wobble can teach the whole team to keep asking permission.
4. Train the base
List the tasks your assistants could take on with training, and schedule that training as you would any clinical skill. Then check whether staffing allows it. Moving work down only helps if there is someone with the time and the skill to receive it.
5. Check it in a month
Map another busy shift a month later and compare the lists. Some crossovers will be gone. Others will have come back because a role was short-staffed or a parameter was unclear. Each one that returns tells you where the system still depends on someone covering the gap.
For an owner, technician utilization ties a leadership decision directly to the numbers that matter in a fee-for-service hospital: revenue per veterinarian, capacity, and how long technicians stay. A foundation holds when every role is doing the work it was trained for, and that structure is something leadership builds.
Frequently asked questions
How do you measure veterinary technician utilization?
There is no single standard measure. Practical options include mapping role crossovers on a busy shift, tracking how often technicians escalate decisions that sit within their training, and comparing technician hours with veterinarian hours over time. Revenue per veterinarian is an outcome measure, so use it alongside the others rather than on its own.
Are veterinary technicians underutilized?
Often, though how much varies by hospital. Technicians commonly spend time on tasks an assistant could do, or wait for a veterinarian's approval on decisions within their training. The legal scope of practice differs by state and province, so the first step is to compare what your technicians do now with what your practice act and hospital policy allow.
What is the difference between a veterinary technician and a veterinary assistant?
A credentialed veterinary technician has usually completed an accredited program and passed the Veterinary Technician National Examination, and in most states the tasks they may perform are defined in law. A veterinary assistant is usually trained on the job and supports the technician and veterinarian with tasks such as restraint, restocking, and room setup. Utilization improves when each role does the work it is trained for.
Where to start
If role crossovers sound familiar, the next question is which part of your leadership system to fix first. The free Leadership Audit scores you across six domains in about eight minutes, compares each score with other veterinary leaders who have taken it, and shows which domain to start with. Take the PIVOT Leadership Audit.
Written by Dr. Kaelyn Petras, DVM
Founder of PIVOT Vet Strategies and Emergency Medical Director with experience across emergency, specialty, hospital leadership, intern training, and veterinary leadership systems design.
