Marge Simpson: It doesn’t matter how you feel inside, you know. It’s what shows up on the surface that counts. Take all your bad feelings and push them down, all the way down, past your knees, until you’re almost walking on them. And then you’ll fit in, and you’ll be invited to parties, and boys will like you… and happiness will follow.
-Simpsons S01E05 “Moaning Lisa”





NVA (national veterinary associates) is another firm that gobbles up private practices. I worked in their IT department as support for a few years. Spoke to dozens of veterinary offices daily throughout the continental US and AK.
It seemed corporate’s interest was to keep things running with little expenditures.
Then they started to focus on new acquisitions. They were bringing in so many new offices there was a backlog getting their IT systems joined into the corporate network with proper backups.
Then there was the hack (2019). Affected offices had their databases encrypted so they were unable to access any pets records. Here is an article about it - https://krebsonsecurity.com/2019/11/ransomware-bites-400-veterinary-hospitals/
I left days after that occurred. Couldn’t take actively lying to offices saying their records would be available soon knowing the records would take at least a week to recover. The newly acquired offices lost everything. Offices told me pets would die.