A practice that covers Tuesdays and Thursdays with relief doctors looks fully staffed on the schedule. Rooms running, appointments filled, revenue landing where it should.
Open the P&L and the picture changes.
A heavy relief veterinarian line is one of the clearest tells in a set of veterinary financials, and first-time buyers misread it more often than almost anything else. They see coverage. What they are usually looking at is a cost that sits outside payroll, a seat the owner has not been able to fill, and sometimes a client base that has never seen the same doctor twice.
None of that is fatal. Plenty of practices use relief deliberately and well. But the relief line changes what you should pay and what your first year costs, and I have watched buyers price a clinic off a schedule that only held together because somebody was renting doctors by the day.
The Relief Line Is Not in Payroll:
Relief doctors are usually paid as contractors, so the cost lands in contract labor, not payroll. That quietly breaks the first ratio most buyers check. Put the doctors back and a practice showing 22% staff cost can land closer to 28%.
Ask for the relief total by year and the days it covered, then ask which days.
The same Tuesday and Thursday every week for two years is a vacancy with a different name. Relief scattered across the calendar is somebody taking vacation. The total gives you the cost. The pattern gives you the story.
Run the Math on Their Books:
Relief rates swing widely by region, species mix, and shift type. The only rate that matters is in front of you.
Divide annual relief by days covered. Then build the other side: a salaried associate at market, plus payroll taxes, benefits, CE, license and liability, over working days. The gap is what hiring saves, and what the seller paid to avoid it.
Then Rerun It as the Owner
If the practice needs an associate it lacks, swap the relief line for that salary and recalculate. Earnings usually fall, and the price was built on the earnings before that swap. Most veterinary practice buyers never run it.
One caveat. If you are buying a job and plan to work the days relief covers, that line may vanish at closing. Model it both ways, because the answer changes your price.
A Vacancy, a Wind-Down, or a Season:
A vacancy nobody can fill is the one to worry about. AAHA’s 2022 industry survey put the average at more than 15 months to fill a vacant associate DVM role, so a seller covering that seat may have been at it a year. The veterinarian shortage is not evenly spread, so what matters is whether this market can produce one.
An owner winding down is the second: relief covers the days they stopped working, so production has moved off them.
A real seasonal pattern is the third, and usually fine. So is parental leave, or an owner who works four days and covers Friday. The question is not whether relief appears, but whether anyone chose it.
Ask when the last vacancy opened, how long it sat, and why candidates said no. An owner who names candidates and what they want is still recruiting. One who says they have been fine with relief stopped trying, and you are buying the search.
Your Relief Doctor May Legally Be an Employee:
Here is what rarely comes up before closing: whether the 1099 treatment holds up is a question of facts, not labels. The IRS weighs behavioral control, financial control, and the relationship, including how permanent it is and whether the work is key to the business.
Picture the same relief doctor, two days a week for three years, with the practice’s clients and its equipment. That looks less like a contractor than an employee who never got a W-2.
Reclassified, the practice owes back employment taxes with interest and penalties. In a stock purchase that travels with the entity.
Thin Bonding Shows Up in Goodwill:
When the Tuesday doctor changes every few weeks, clients bond with the front desk or nobody. Goodwill is a real part of any veterinary clinic valuation, and goodwill built on relationships that do not exist is worth less than the multiple suggests.
Frequently Asked Questions:
Q1. Should relief spend be added back to EBITDA?
Rarely. If the work is ongoing it is a real operating cost that needs a salary line.
Q2. How long does converting relief into a hire take?
Months, not weeks, plus recruiting and often a signing bonus. Budget it into year one of the veterinary practice transition.
Q3. Is heavy relief a reason to walk away?
On its own, no. It is a reason to adjust the price.
Final Thoughts:
A relief line is not a red flag by itself. It is a question the financials cannot answer, and the answer moves your price.
Good buyer representation reads contract labor as closely as payroll, and firms handling practice sales raise it early. Find out what the relief covers and for how long before you price it.
