Three findings that are really one finding
From NAVTA membership research and AVMA reporting on it:12
- Over half of credentialed veterinary technicians report being not, or only sometimes, utilized to their full potential.
- 48% perceive little differentiation between the responsibilities of credentialed technicians and their uncredentialed colleagues.
- 56% identify low income as the single most significant issue facing the profession.
Read separately those look like three complaints. Read together they describe a single economic problem.
If a credentialed technician does the same work as an uncredentialed assistant, the credential cannot command a premium — because from the practice's side it is not buying anything. The technician has paid for education and carries the debt, and the differential does not exist. That is not a morale issue. It is a rational response to a pay structure that has no reason to pay more.
What the turnover figure costs
AAHA puts technician turnover at 35% a year, against a practice-wide average of 29.7% and a national average across industries of 12–15%.5
And replacement is slow: an AAHA industry survey puts average time to fill a credentialed technician role at almost 13 months.5
Put those together. At 35% annual turnover and a 13-month search, a practice with six credentialed technicians loses roughly two a year and takes over a year to replace each. In steady state it is never fully staffed. The vacancy is not an event, it is a permanent condition.
The reasons given for leaving are consistent, and the order matters:1
- Lack of utilization
- Poor culture
- Low wages
Pay is third. This is the finding practices most often act against — responding to a resignation with a counter-offer, and losing the next person for the same reason as the first.
The delegation problem, from the other side
When technicians are asked why their skills are not better used, the reasons they name are:1
- Workplace culture
- Veterinarians not trusting them
- Veterinarians being unaware of their skill or training level
The third is worth sitting with, because it is the cheapest to fix and probably the most common. A veterinarian who does not know that the technician beside them is credentialed in anesthesia monitoring will not hand over anesthesia monitoring. Nobody is withholding anything. The information simply is not there.
Research on newly credentialed technicians finds the gap between what they were trained to do and what they are asked to do is widest in the first years — precisely when the decision to stay in the profession or leave it is being made.4
A practical consequence: a practice can improve utilization measurably without changing anyone's attitude, simply by making the credential and its scope visible. A list on the wall of who is credentialed and in what is a smaller intervention than a culture change, and it removes the commonest stated cause.
The business case, stated carefully
Utilization is usually argued on fairness. The stronger argument is arithmetic.
Every task a credentialed technician is licensed to perform and does not is a task a veterinarian performs instead. That is the most expensive labour in the building doing work it does not need to do. The mechanism is simple:
| Poor utilization | Good utilization | |
|---|---|---|
| Anesthesia monitoring | Veterinarian | Credentialed technician |
| Dental prophylaxis | Veterinarian or deferred | Credentialed technician |
| Catheter placement, radiography | Mixed | Credentialed technician |
| Client education, discharge | Veterinarian | Credentialed technician |
| Veterinarian's time freed for | — | Diagnosis, surgery, complex cases |
| Appointments per day | Lower | Higher |
The frequently cited figure — that effective technician utilization is associated with over $93,000 of additional practice profitability — comes from a 2009 AVMA report on veterinary business measures.6 It is old enough that the absolute number should be treated as illustrative rather than current. The direction of the finding has held up in the guidance published since.
There is a second-order effect too, and it may be larger. Better technician utilization makes the associate role better, and associate vacancies take over fifteen months to fill.5 Utilization is a DVM retention lever as much as a technician one.
Where to start
Five things, ordered by cost.
1. Find out who is credentialed, and in what. Many practices do not have this written down. Until it exists, delegation depends on individual veterinarians remembering, which is not a system.
2. Write down the scope each credentialed technician is expected to work at. Not what they are permitted to do in theory — what this practice expects them to do routinely. Ambiguity defaults downward every time.
3. Audit one week of tasks. Have each technician log what they actually did in fifteen-minute blocks for five days. The gap between that log and their scope is your utilization problem, quantified, and it usually surprises the people who commissioned it.
4. Establish a real pay differential for the credential. If credentialed and uncredentialed staff are paid similarly for similar work, the credential has no economic meaning and you will keep losing the people who hold it. Pay has improved — average hourly moving from $26.50 to $32.89 — but the differential question is separate from the level question.3
5. Ask the technicians. They have already diagnosed it. The named reasons are utilization, culture and wages, and most individual technicians can tell you precisely which two changes would matter in their case.
Credentialed technician listings on PayRecruiter carry the scope of practice the role actually uses — anesthesia, dentistry, radiography, triage. It is the first thing a credentialed candidate reads, and most listings do not say. Request access
Request access →The one-line version
If credentialed and uncredentialed staff do the same work, the credential is worth nothing to the practice and the person holding it will eventually act on that. Utilization is not a fairness argument — it is the cheapest available lever on a 35% turnover rate and a thirteen-month vacancy.
1: NAVTA — survey on veterinary technician pay, education, utilization and reasons for leaving. 2: AVMA — veterinary technicians highlight title protection, role definition and low salary as key issues. 3: AVMA — veterinary technicians being paid more but still face concerns about wages, burnout and debt; average hourly rate 2022 to present. 4: Frontiers in Veterinary Science — the newly credentialed veterinary technician: perceptions, realities and career challenges. 5: AAHA — does your practice have a turnover problem; turnover by role and time-to-fill survey data. 6: 2009 AVMA Report on Veterinary Business Measures, as cited in VetPartners utilization guidance. Figure is illustrative given its age.
Common questions
01What does veterinary technician underutilization actually mean?
A credentialed technician trained in anesthesia, dentistry, catheter placement, radiography and patient assessment spending most of their day on restraint, cleaning and reception. The skills exist, the license permits them, and the practice does not use them.
02How many technicians say they are underutilized?
More than half report being not, or only sometimes, used to their full potential in NAVTA membership research. Separately, 48% perceive little differentiation between credentialed and uncredentialed responsibilities.
03Why do credentialed technicians leave?
The reasons given, in order, are lack of utilization, poor culture and low wages. Pay matters, but it is third — which is why practices that respond to a resignation with a raise alone often lose the next person anyway.
04What do veterinary technicians earn?
Average reported gross income is $53,759, with average hourly rates rising from $26.50 in 2022 to $32.89. Pay has genuinely improved; 56% still name low income as the biggest issue facing the profession.
05Why do technicians say veterinarians do not delegate to them?
The reasons they cite are workplace culture, veterinarians not trusting them, and veterinarians being unaware of their actual skill or training level. The third is the most fixable and probably the most common.
06How long does it take to replace a credentialed technician?
An AAHA industry survey puts it at almost 13 months on average. Against a 35% annual turnover rate, a practice can be permanently mid-search for a role it never fully staffs.
Sources
- 01NAVTA — survey reveals veterinary technician pay and education have increased, but burnout and debt are still issuesnavta.net/news/navta-survey-reveals-veterinary-techn
- 02AVMA — veterinary technicians highlight title protection, role definition, low salary as key issueswww.avma.org/news/veterinary-technicians-highlight-t
- 03AVMA — veterinary technicians being paid more but still face concerns about wages, burnout, debtwww.avma.org/news/veterinary-technicians-being-paid-
- 04Frontiers in Veterinary Science — the newly credentialed veterinary technician, perceptions, realities and career challengeswww.frontiersin.org/journals/veterinary-science/arti
- 05AAHA — does your practice have a turnover problemwww.aaha.org/trends-magazine/publications/does-your-
- 06VetPartners — utilization guide, staff turnover costs versus training costsutilization-guide.vetpartners.org/guide/13-5
- 07dvm360 — increasing veterinary technician utilization with new guidelineswww.dvm360.com/view/increasing-veterinary-technician