How to Build a Continuing Education Process at a Veterinary Clinic?

Guest Blog written by VetSnap

In 2025, VetSnap sponsored and hosted over 15 educational webinars attended by 5,000 veterinary professionals. For a couple of years, we’ve been conducting continuing education webinars to help vet clinics support a high level of knowledge among practitioners and medical staff. It’s our mission to make compliance more affordable for vet practitioners. 

In 2026, VetSnap will maintain the pace, hosting an even bigger number of CE webinars. While we’re preparing for a new race for knowledge-sharing, we wanted to encourage veterinarian clinics to start building their own continuing education process, using this guide. 

If you want to check our schedule of upcoming webinars, visit this dedicated page.  

Discover Your State’s Continuing Education Requirements

Staff accountability is what any veterinary practice owner would want for their clinic. However, often fast-paced, repetitive tasks make it difficult for both practitioners and medical staff to always maintain high standards of patient care. 

At the same time, the veterinary landscape is constantly evolving with new treatment techniques, protocols, guidelines, and regulations. Because of this, each licensed vet practitioner (DVMs, CVTs, LVTs, RVTs, etc.) is legally required to complete mandatory training based on the approved state program and meet a minimum limit of continuing education hours. 

The number of hours, types of topics, as well as a CE course format (online, offline, etc.) differs from state to state. For example, veterinarians often need 20 hours, while technicians – 10 hours annually to update their general medicine knowledge or scientific and non-scientific skills. Plus, they’ll need to complete 2-3 hours for substance abuse training per year. Yet, some states may raise the bar, so you’ll definitely need to check with the board that issued you a registration.

Among the leading regulators of CE programs is the American Association of Veterinary State Boards (AAVSB). It sets uniform standards for continuing education in a recognized RACE (Registry of Approved Continuing Education) program. The AAVSB reviews the quality of CE courses of different providers and whether they match to RACE requirements. 

Beyond the AAVSB’s RACE program, you can also check widely accepted CE programs from AVMAs, VMA, accredited veterinary schools, colleges, etc.

Still, you should know that your state board is always a final authority holding the right to approve, reject, or partially accept any CE program in accordance with its laws and defined qualifications of licensed veterinarians and technicians.

Best Practices for Building a Continuing Education Process 

For many veterinarians and technicians, getting CE credits has always been their personal financial matter. Usually, DVMs and technicians cover the cost of their CE courses, which also varies depending on the state and amount of credits required. 

However, more clinics are now choosing to invest in controlled substance-related CE programs. This can be explained by the fact that there are more cases where DEA agents check the staff’s CE records in regard to controlled drugs. If asked, clinics should be ready to quickly provide an auditor with relevant and up-to-date SOPs and training documentation for scheduled drugs administration. 

Relying on its CE expertise, VetSnap compiled best practices for building and introducing a CE process in a veterinary clinic.

Determine Your Clinic’s CE Needs and Goals

Begin by evaluating your clinic’s pain points, such as lacking surgical or diagnostics techniques, new anesthesia protocols, time-consuming controlled substances management and reconciliation, inconsistent workflows, etc. From there, you can identify specific CE topics that best align with your current needs. 

Set both short- and long-term goals to help your team develop skills necessary to improve patient care, boost your daily operations, reinforce DEA compliance, and stay current with changing state requirements.

Make the List of Mandatory participants 

When establishing a CE process in a clinic, you should also identify who will participate and which skills each team member needs to improve. This group of people may include only licensed doctors and technicians or also extend to all your support staff (e.g., practice managers, administrators, assistants, inventory managers). 

We recommend including at least those whose job functions match specific CE programs. For example, for anesthesia-related CEs, you should choose DVMs, and technicians that manage and monitor anesthesia. 

In the case of administration of controlled substances, for example, all medical staff that have access to controlled substances should participate in educational programs since they should be well aware of the latest DEA regulations and changing internal procedures. If you already have a list of authorized personnel, you can copy that and use it as a starting point.  

Establish Standard Operating Procedure (SOP)

SOPs for a CE process should clearly define CE requirements and ensure alignment with both federal and state rules. Among other best practices: 

• SOPs should specify the number of hours mandated by the state and any additional hours required by your clinic, 
• They should mention trusted sources of education for your employees. 
• SOPs should be reviewed and updated annually to reflect all the changes in federal or state regulations and internal clinic protocols. 

With SOPs in place, you’ll demonstrate to a state or DEA inspector (for controlled substance-related CE) that your clinic has a well-organized CE process. This would also show how committed your clinic is to keeping all employees informed about the latest techniques, protocols, requirements, etc. Besides, a DEA inspector may also request SOPs and documents that verify your staff have completed necessary training on controlled substances.

Find Reputable Source of Education

The choice of providers of continuing education is expanding every year. Still, you should make sure that a selected CE program or course is recognized by a state board, professional veterinary association, or approved by AASVB’d RACE program. It should be reputable, providing up-to-date and accurate content.

Again, if you need controlled substance-related CE, you can opt for VetSnap’s 1- to 3-hour CE RACE-approved webinars. We equip practitioners and veterinary staff with essential continuing education for free. 

Plus, VetSnap is working with the industry controlled substance compliance experts that help us create educational, free, and on-demand courses on our educational portal. 

Track and Audit Your Staff’s CE Credits

Many practitioners tell us that during DEA audits they are frequently asked to provide proof that their employees have completed the required CE training on substance abuse prevention. 

Continuing education can be delivered in different formats – webinars, in-person training sessions, or using such on-demand platforms like VetSnap’s Educational Portal. Still, no matter how the skills are upgraded, individuals and clinics must be able to confirm they acquired CE credits. For this, you should keep track of all courses and events your employees attended. 

Make a CE Process Accessible and Flexible

For the success of a CE process organized in your clinic, you’ll need to remove possible barriers that may stop your personnel from taking essential training. By investing in a paid CE time for your employees or cost-sharing policies during the visits of CE conferences, for example, you will make your personnel more interested and engaged in the entire process.

Wrap up

Each clinic should treat a CE process as a strategic investment as it reduces many compliance risks, improves productivity of all the personnel, and enhances patient care. Continuing education doesn’t always come with a high price tag, since some accredited CE providers, like VetSnap, sponsor webinars and develop educational platforms to give back to the community of veterinarians.