Where Do You Find Top-Rated Hippo Manager Support After the Move to Shepherd?
Hippo Manager practices have been moved to Shepherd Veterinary Software, and the admin work did not pause for the migration. Dedicated veterinary virtual teams keep your front desk, client communication, records, invoicing, and inventory running through the change and after it. Flat weekly pricing from $299 per FTE (volume based). Live in 14 days.
What Happened to Hippo Manager?
Hippo Manager, founded in 2011 and based in Lexington, Kentucky, built its name as a budget-friendly cloud practice management system for small and midsize veterinary clinics: simple per-veterinarian pricing, a customizable patient screen, SOAP notes, document storage, inventory, and reporting, without the cost of the big-name systems. For years it described itself as the largest independently owned cloud PIMS in the United States.
In 2025, Shepherd Veterinary Software acquired Hippo Manager. Shepherd states plainly that practices previously using Hippo Manager have now migrated to Shepherd, which is the single platform moving forward. If your clinic ran on Hippo, your day-to-day system is now Shepherd, or the migration is on your calendar. Either way, the admin queues did not wait: this page is about staffing them, on whichever side of the migration your practice sits.
The Work That Does Not Pause for a Migration, We Staff
Who Is This For?
Clinics that chose Hippo Manager for a reason: small and midsize practices that watch every dollar and cannot afford an office manager for each queue. A platform migration hits exactly those teams hardest, because the same two or three people who answer the phones also have to learn the new system, verify the converted data, and keep clients from noticing any of it. This service fits former Hippo practices settling into Shepherd, practices mid-migration that need the desk covered while on-site staff train, and any small clinic that came out of the transition with a backlog.
Where Small Veterinary Clinics Lose Time and Money
In a two-CSR clinic, one caller on hold means the checkout line stalls. Receptionists burn out fastest where the phone does not stop.
See the fixWhen a schedule has twelve slots, two no-shows are a sixth of the day. Reminder queues only work when someone owns them daily.
See the fixVoicemail fills overnight with refill requests, appointment changes, and worried owners. Morning starts an hour behind before the doors open.
See the fixEach departure means weeks of retraining, and a migration doubles the training load. The cycle breaks when one person stops carrying it all.
See the fixFront Desk and Scheduling
Whether your appointment book still looks like Hippo’s patient-centered screens or now lives in Shepherd, the desk work is the same: booking and rescheduling, confirming tomorrow’s visits, managing walk-ins around the schedule, and answering routine questions in your practice’s name. Our team owns that rhythm remotely, so the transition period does not turn your calendar into guesswork and your on-site staff can learn the new system without the phone punishing them for it.
Client Communication and Callbacks
A migration is precisely when clients need more communication, not less: appointment confirmations that still arrive, reminder cadences that do not skip a month, and callbacks that happen the same day. We work the outreach queues, chase non-responders by phone, run recall campaigns for overdue vaccines and wellness visits, and log every touch, so retention holds steady while the software underneath changes.
Records and Data Hygiene
Converted data needs a human pass. Our team works through the record hygiene a migration surfaces: verifying client and patient demographics, reattaching documents to the right charts, merging duplicates, correcting reminder settings, and flagging anything that needs your staff’s judgment. Clean records make the new system trustworthy; a dedicated remote assistant makes clean records achievable without weekend overtime.
Invoicing and Payments
Charges missed during a busy transition rarely get recovered later. We keep the billing side current: building and reviewing invoices, checking that services performed made it onto the bill, posting payments, following up on open balances and declined cards, and reconciling each day before close, in the system your practice is using that week. The end-of-day report balances even when the month has been anything but routine.
Prescription Refill Queues
Refill requests keep arriving by phone, portal, and third-party pharmacy fax no matter what PIMS you run. Our team triages each request, verifies the patient and medication, checks visit history against your practice’s VCPR policy, prepares it for your veterinarian’s approval, and coordinates with the pharmacy once authorized. Approval stays with your DVM; the queue stops stealing your techs’ afternoons.
Inventory and Reordering
Inventory data is often the messiest part of any PIMS conversion. We maintain item records, watch quantities against your par levels, prepare purchase orders for approval, reconcile received orders against invoices, and run cycle counts on a calendar, so the shelves stay stocked and the converted item list becomes something you can actually trust.
Keep the Practice Steady Through the Shepherd Move
Your team should not have to choose between learning the new system and answering the phones. Meet us, pick the seats you need, and watch a trained team carry your daily queues before you commit to anything.
Book Your 2-Week Free TrialHow Our Teams Train and Go Live for Your Practice
Before anyone touches your system, new team members study our SOP library for cloud veterinary workflows, then train on your own setup in live sessions with your staff: your appointment types, your reminder protocols, your refill policy, your inventory par levels. For practices mid-transition, we train on the destination system so the team is productive from the first week in Shepherd. Production starts supervised, with daily output review, and you receive a production report every evening in your format. Every specialist works under an individual confidentiality and security agreement with named credentials, never shared logins.
Why Outsource This Work, and Why Staffingly
A dedicated team that carries the phones, records, and billing while your on-site staff learn Shepherd. Migrations fail quietly at the front desk; ours is the desk that does not blink.
A flat weekly fee per dedicated specialist. No per-call charges, no percentage of your collections, and no surprise line items in a year that already has enough of them.
Recall outreach, VCPR-aware refill triage, pet insurance records requests, cycle counts, and purchase orders. Small-clinic veterinary admin is a service line here, not a side offering.
Most teams go live in about 14 days. 2-Week Free Trial. A trained backup steps in at no charge. 800+ providers served, with a 4.9 Google rating you can verify on our listing.
Process and Onboarding
20 to 30 minutes on Teams. We map your queues, and where you are in the Shepherd transition, before we meet.
Named user credentials per specialist in your current system, least-privilege roles, your approval on every account.
Your SOPs plus our cloud PIMS training library; supervised production from day one.
Daily production reports, weekly KPI review, month-to-month after your 2-Week Free Trial.
Security and Compliance
Client data deserves the same protection during a migration as after one, and we hold the same bar either way. Veterinary practices are not covered entities under HIPAA, but your client and payment data get the same discipline: HIPAA-trained staff, Business Associate Agreements executed with every client, workflows designed to support HIPAA compliance, SOC 2 Type II attestation, ISO 27001:2022, $5M E&O and cyber liability coverage, and named individual credentials, so you can review our activity in your own system. Read the complete program at HIPAA and Security at Staffingly.
Flat Weekly Pricing Per Dedicated Specialist
1 to 4 dedicated veterinary FTEs.
5 to 9 FTEs.
10+ FTEs.
45 hours of coverage for less than others charge for 40.
$399 per week works out to $8.87 per hour across 2,340 hours of coverage a year, flat. Your dedicated specialist covers a 9 hour day, Monday to Friday, a full hour more than a standard shift: the day starts by clearing what arrived after you closed, overnight voicemails, refill requests, and records requests, and it ends past your close so far less rolls into tomorrow. A trained backup steps in at no charge whenever they are out. Flat weekly fee per dedicated specialist, never a percentage of your collections, no setup fees.
Start with a 2-Week Free Trial. Month-to-month after, with no long-term contract.
- Salary + payroll taxes + benefits
- Recruiting + turnover replacement
- Training on your PIMS + protocols
- Software seat + equipment + PTO coverage
Calculate Savings
Hippo Manager Support: Frequently Asked Questions
What happened to Hippo Manager?
Shepherd Veterinary Software acquired Hippo Manager in 2025. Shepherd states that practices previously using Hippo Manager have migrated to Shepherd, which is the single platform moving forward.
Is Hippo Manager still sold or supported as its own product?
No. Following the acquisition, Shepherd is the platform going forward for former Hippo Manager practices. For your specific account status and migration timeline, confirm directly with Shepherd.
Can your team work in Shepherd after our migration?
Yes. Our assistants are trained on cloud PIMS workflows and train specifically on your own system and SOPs before going live, so the same team that supports your transition continues in Shepherd afterward.
What tasks can a virtual assistant take off our team?
Appointment booking and confirmations, client calls and callbacks, recall outreach, record cleanup after data conversion, invoicing and payment posting, refill queue triage for your veterinarian’s approval, inventory counts, and purchase order prep.
Do you handle the data migration itself?
No. Data conversion is handled by the software vendor. What we staff is the human side around it: the record verification, the queues that keep running, and the backlog that builds while your staff train on the new system.
How do your staff access our system?
Through named individual user accounts you approve, with least-privilege roles. No shared logins, and you can review our activity in your own system at any time.
How fast can a dedicated team start?
Most teams go live in about 14 days: access setup, workflow training on your SOPs, then supervised production. The engagement starts with a 2-Week Free Trial.
What does it cost?
A flat weekly fee per dedicated specialist: $399 for 1 to 4 FTEs, $349 for 5 or more, $299 for 10 or more. Never a percentage of your collections, and no setup fees.
Veterinary Resources for Practices in Transition
Practical answers to the problems small veterinary clinics bring us most often.
Written By
Dan Nandan has spent 25+ years in IT consulting and healthcare BPO, was among the first in the US to build an RPO/BPO delivery network overseas, and has been featured in Computerworld. He runs the operations and the dedicated virtual teams behind the veterinary workflows on this page.
Connect on LinkedInKeep your practice steady while the software changes.
Book a strategy meeting. Dan Nandan, CEO, joins most calls personally. Real conversation, real numbers for your practice.
Claim Your 2-Week Free TrialHippo Manager and Shepherd are trademarks of their respective owners; Hippo Manager was acquired by Shepherd Veterinary Software. Staffingly, Inc. is an independent outsourcing company and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Shepherd Veterinary Software or Hippo Manager. Staffingly works inside client-owned systems under client-granted access.