A new practice with no SOPs isn’t unstandardized — it’s standardized by accident, on whatever each hire did at their last job. Five people bring five versions of “how we do surgical prep,” and the busiest week decides which one wins. Writing procedures before opening feels bureaucratic when there are no patients yet; it is actually the cheapest moment you will ever have to decide, deliberately, how your practice works.
Write them in this order
You can’t document everything before opening, and shouldn’t try. The consensus starting point: highest-risk and highest-frequency first — controlled substances, anesthesia, and emergency response — then work outward. Tier 1 — before any patient (risk):
- Controlled-substance handling — ordering, logging, storage, counts, discrepancies (this one is also a legal requirement; see our compliance guide).
- Anesthesia — pre-anesthetic workup, monitoring standards, recovery, emergency drugs.
- Emergency response — CPR roles, crash cart, triage criteria.
- Euthanasia — scheduling, consent, process, aftercare options, staff debrief.
- Infection control & isolation — when a patient goes to iso, cleaning standards, PPE. Tier 2 — before opening week (frequency):
- Patient intake & triage — call handling, appointment-type scheduling, check-in/check-out, estimates and payment expectations. Reception SOPs are the most overlooked and have outsized impact on client experience and clinic flow.
- Surgical day workflow — admission through discharge, timeouts, pack tracking.
- Discharge & follow-up — instruction templates per procedure, the follow-up protocol grid (who’s contacted, when, through what channel), and the escalation rule for concerning answers. Codifying this is what keeps follow-up alive after the first busy week — the full design is in our discharge-workflow guide.
- Vaccination & preventive protocols — your clinical positions, written once, argued never.
- Medical records standard — what a complete SOAP looks like here (see records guide). Tier 3 — first 90 days:
- Inventory — ordering, receiving, par levels, expiry monitoring, cold chain.
- Client complaints & service recovery.
- Payment, refunds, and estimate variances.
- Facility opening/closing checklists.
- HR basics — time off, call-outs, performance conversations.
How to write them so they get used
The format matters less than the discipline. A workable template per dvm360’s SOP guidance: purpose (one sentence), scope (who it applies to), the numbered steps in plain language, the exception path (“if X, stop and get the DVM”), and an owner + review date. One page where possible; a checklist beats prose; photos beat both for anything physical. Two process rules from teams that have done this well:
- Divide and conquer: assign each SOP to the team member with expertise in that area, use one shared template, then review together until there’s consensus. Your lead tech writes anesthesia; your head CSR writes reception. People follow procedures they helped write.
- Store them where work happens — in the PIMS, on the treatment-room wall, in a shared drive with search. A binder in the office is where SOPs go to be forgotten.
Keep them alive
An SOP library is only as good as its last revision. Put a 90-day review on the calendar for the whole Tier 1–2 set — after three months of real patients you’ll know which procedures were fantasy — and make “update the SOP” the closing step of every incident debrief. When something goes wrong, the question isn’t “who slipped?” but “what does the procedure say — and is the procedure right?” That habit, installed early, is the difference between a practice with documents and a practice with standards. New hires get the library on day one; it’s simultaneously their training manual (see our onboarding guide) and the proof that this practice decided how it works on purpose. Sources: co.vet — Veterinary SOP Template & Essential Procedures · dvm360 — How to Write an SOP · Vetsource — Supporting Your Team with SOPs · IDEXX — Writing Effective Veterinary SOPs · Today’s Veterinary Business — 5 SOPs for Veterinary Practice