veterinary technician

veterinary assistant

customer service representative

veterinary receptionist

client services

Heart + Paw

What is the best part of working at the company?
Probably just the employee discount.. 

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
Long hours, poor accountability of doctor actions, timeliness and efficiency, low morale, high volume and high support staff turnover. 

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
In my experience, this workplace can feel very demanding for support staff, with expectations that often go beyond the role while compensation and recognition do not seem to keep pace. Assistants are frequently relied on to take on a wide range of responsibilities, which at times felt disproportionate to the support provided.

The hours can be long, and it was common to stay past scheduled shifts due to workflow challenges. From what I experienced, inefficiencies in daily operations—particularly around scheduling and timing—can make already busy days feel significantly more exhausting.

One of the more difficult aspects was what felt like inconsistent accountability. Expectations for support staff were very strict, while similar standards did not always appear to be applied evenly across all roles. This created a work environment that, at times, felt discouraging and unbalanced.

Although the company promotes a positive and open culture, I personally found it challenging to raise concerns in a way that led to productive or collaborative solutions. Feedback often felt one-sided, which made it difficult to feel heard or supported.

There is also a strong focus on productivity and recommending additional services, which can add pressure during already busy shifts. Combined with the workload, this contributed to what I felt was a high-stress environment, and I observed ongoing turnover during my time there.

Overall, this role may offer experience, but it can come at the cost of work-life balance and job satisfaction. I would encourage leadership to take a closer look at consistency, communication, and how support staff are valued within the team.

Pros:
	•	Exposure to a fast-paced environment
	•	Opportunities to build hands-on experience

Cons:
	•	Long and often unpredictable hours
	•	High expectations without consistent support
	•	Uneven accountability across roles
	•	Challenging communication dynamics
	•	High stress and noticeable turnover


What is a typical day like for you at the company?
A typical day, in my experience, is fast-paced and often unpredictable. Support staff are responsible for managing a high volume of tasks, including patient care, assisting with procedures, handling client communication, and supporting overall clinic flow. However, I have experienced that tasks meant for the licensed people in positions of treating/prescribing are delegated to assistants to complete, beyond their scope and qualifications. 

The day usually involves balancing multiple responsibilities at once, and it can feel like priorities and protocols may shift frequently depending on the needs of the moment. There is a strong emphasis on efficiency, revenue and productivity, which can make the environment feel high-pressure at times.

Scheduling and workflow challenges can lead to extended days, and it was not uncommon to stay past scheduled hours(routine procedures taking excess amounts of time due to inefficiency, recovering pets after hours) to ensure all patients were properly cared for. Communication with clients is a large part of the role, and support staff are often heavily relied on to help guide next steps and follow-ups, additional diagnostics, etc.

Overall, the pace is fast paced throughout the day, with limited downtime, and requires adaptability, strong multitasking skills, and the ability to handle a demanding workload.

A typical veterinary day: 30-minute veterinary appointments and 30-minute technician appointments. Average about 15 doctor's appointments a day (on a busy, fully booked day) and about 3-5 technician appointments. One hour lunch block in the schedule each day, 30-minute breaks which are paid for. Easy flowing appointments and have all the materials in the hospital that you could need. Do accept urgent care appointments but they are worked into the schedule, never overwhelmed. I have worked in many different veterinary hospitals, and nothing can come close to the experience at Heart + Paw Glen Mills. If you are a licensed veterinary technician, HP just rolled our a CVT bonus that gets paid out every three months. YES, IT IS REAL. 
Management is very accommodating with schedules, PTO, and last-minute urgencies. Great place to work if you have children. Management is quick to respond and always willing to talk. If you find a problem, they would love to hear your insight and get to a quick resolution.
Workplace culture is fun. Everyone is friendly to each other and love being at work. Have not had the "dread" feeling when waking up about going to work. There is at least one lunch and learn a month. We are always very well fed. 
The most enjoyable part of the job is becoming friends with all of the team members and meeting the clients and their fur babies. After only a couple months you feel like you have known the clients forever and they really feel like part of the Heart + Paw family.

What is the best part of working at the company?
I've worked for veterinary corporations before, and hands down Heart + Paw and HAH  outshines them all.  Everything from the work culture that prioritizes pets and people,  the employee benefits,  work/ life balance, and growth opportunities are just a few positives about working here.  

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
The most stressful part of any work day time compression and staff shortages. Even though the schedule "looks" manageable,  that curve ball (seems to find its way in either by that one appt that took longer or staff callout)

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
The work environment and culture is as expected; there's team collaboration & commoraderie, staff support,  learning and growth opportunities. You feel supported and heard all the way up to the top. 

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
As a vet tech/asst here, our typical day includes getting rooms ready for the day,  assisting the veterinarians in appointments,  performing treatments and diagnostics,  answering client call-backs,  filling med requests,  providing support at the front desk to providing support to Stay & Play, being a surgery tech for the day,  speaking to clients in rooms, handling the unexpected, and lots of walking and being on your feet all day.

Although I wanted to have a genuinely good experience, I'm not afraid to say working at Heart + Paw felt more like being outside of a clique and inside of a workplace. There was a lot of petty snark and honestly felt more like being with highschoolers instead adults sometimes. The training process would have been more helpful if current staff weren't already overwhelmed with doing five other jobs and only showing you how to do things thrice every other week. There were earnest efforts but in most cases poor communication. I've noticed that there are a lot of responsibilities that were placed on front desk employees that naturally can be overwhelming at times for anyone. There was a red flag when the longtime employees up front were asked to review working there and weren't afraid to say that they had issue after issue with management and all staff had bad things to say about their CEO. Among other things I don't really have any bad feelings towards anyone but I can see that they pushed the family aspect a little too hard to the point where it's actually creepy and inorganic. Ultimately I'm happy to not work there anymore but I do feel sorry for everyone because they're clearly overworked.

I was a Pet Stylist at Heart+Paw. My favorite thing about working with this company and especially the location I was at (East Market). It was very small and I was always able to reach out to someone if I needed help with a particular task. I do enjoy smaller work environments because I am more comfortable and able to familiarize myself with my coworkers. From the vet side to day camp area. Everything was just very nice and everyone was very welcoming and helpful. The help of the Care Coordinators makes grooming 10x easier. I really appreciated the people at East Market who held those job positions. They were so helpful to me. I do think the groomers should make a little more bit more. The pay is great but just needs a slight increase. Since there are no bathers. You do have to do a lot more work as far as bathing & drying. Because there are also no kennel dryers. And as a groomer you also are taking care of walk in appointments. The location I was at was an easy commute and placed perfectly in the city so you can always expect to have a nice, busy work day. 

Fells point is a terrible place to work for your mental health. The partner veterinarian should not be in management and is very hard to work with, burns out “her staff”, and treats them as processions. Look elsewhere. High turnover over rate, no training plan for new hires, communication is a zero, and surgery days are so inefficient and you end up staying 2 hours past your shift and extubating an animal 5 minutes before shipping it off with its humans, sub par standards. Corporate is a joke, all they care about is the bottom line. PRICE GOUGING IS INSANE!!! Very unorganized. Management sits in the office and talks badly about every single person that works there including the doctors and relief doctors that come through to other doctors and staff. If you want a huge project this is the place for you but you won’t be able to implement anything beneficial since corporate has the final say and will always have the majority stake in the company (51% or more). There is potential in the support staff but they don’t get proper training, they are always understaffed, and get burnt out quickly. 

Unrealistic targets set and constantly changing , upper management doesn’t listen to feedback from in center management.   Pressure to work after hours at last minute for meetings  yet claim work/ life balance.  Doctors hired because they are available not because they are able to handle the work load placed on them or a good fit for hospital.  No concern for staff.  Wanting hours cut to avoid any overtime  but also requiring them to stay after when doctor can’t handle the work load with a “ that’s too bad” for them attitude.  They make long term clients just another number for the bottom line.   They say they won’t change anything at time of take over but then quickly do making things a typical corporate run practice.  They encourage practice owners to lie to staff about what is taking place.   Members of  upper management are long time friends so any complaints in regard to their abusive behavior,  like name calling,   is dismissed.   
Poorly organized at start for practice take overs.  Constant software issues often blamed on staff.   

Working at this company was a frustrating experience. They tried to create a "family-like" environment, but it was clear that favoritism, cliques, and unprofessional behavior dominated the culture. The focus was less on skill or qualifications and more on fitting into a specific personality mold. If you didn’t align with the inner circle, you were quickly seen as disposable, no matter how qualified or experienced you were. 

The staff was often unskilled and poorly trained, leading to inefficiency and frustration across the board. Instead of fostering collaboration and growth, management allowed toxic behavior to thrive, prioritizing personal relationships over competence. It became increasingly difficult to stay motivated in such a negative environment where office politics overshadowed actual work performance. Overall, if you value a respectful, professional, and inclusive workplace, this is not the place for you. The "family" dynamic was more about exclusion than support.

The doctors are very nice and the medicine is good but it isn’t exactly an advanced general practice so it’s a great place to work if you have no experience and would like to learn or if you are newer to the field.  I enjoyed my time at this location and would also pick up shifts at their market street location in Philadelphia and it was always very pleasant.  The only downside to Marlton is the staff is pretty slow moving and does not pick up the slack ever.. a lot of sitting around, and all the techs/assistants are friends who hang out outside of work so it can feel a little isolating at times.  The hospital itself is very slow and they block their schedule a lot so being overwhelmed or busy isn’t really a thing which is why I think it is good for beginners!  I am thankful for my time at Marlton!  It is very hard to find a practice that is calm, patient, and kind and Marlton is one of them!   Low drama, low stress, pretty pleasant environment.

From a veterinarian's perspective, I have worked at a lot of other vet practices and I have never been quite heard or listened to as I have at Heart+Paw. Upper level management is easily accessible and almost everyone has the what’s possible mentality and tries to make compromises where it is possible. They really do let the docs focus on providing high quality care which is always my #1 goal in practice. The highly enabled technology, Vetspire, online pharmacy etc make client communications much more streamlined. Like with any newer start up there are pain points to work through but each individual location operates very differently and is encouraged to find the solutions that work best for their staff/location. I feel supported as a veterinarian in this company which allows me then to take the best possible care of my staff and our patients/clients. 

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Veterinary technician 19 salaries reported	$24.39 per hour
Veterinary assistant 14 salaries reported	$19.86 per hour
Customer service representative 14 salaries reported	$17.64 per hour
Veterinary receptionist 12 salaries reported	$17.46 per hour
Client services 10 salaries reported	$17.70 per hour

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