Each day, my team at the Animal Policy Group studies policies and problems affecting pet health care and the veterinary industry. It’s been a hot 2024 for bubbling issues, and as we head toward winter, it’s not too early to discuss what’s in store for 2025. However, beware: The temperature in the room is rising and won’t subside anytime soon. Here’s a preview.
Telemedicine
Telemedicine opportunities are expanding for veterinary practices. While engaging in virtual care with existing clients poses no regulatory issues, the question facing many clinics is whether to dive in or at least dip their toes in the water.
Platform companies are available for clinics that prefer to outsource the work, or it can be done in-house, like at Petfolk practices in Arizona, Texas and the Southeast.
Nearly 110 million Americans live in states that allow pet owners to launch a relationship with a licensed veterinarian through telemedicine (live video, not email or text messages). Those states are Arizona, California, Florida, Idaho, New Jersey, Vermont and Virginia.
Legislative battles over opening more telemedicine markets will persist in 2025. I anticipate that the American Veterinary Medical Association will continue to oppose the Veterinary Virtual Care Association’s pro-telemedicine efforts, as the AVMA did in Arizona, California and Florida.
Midlevel Professionals
Expect the fight over midlevel professionals, now referred to colloquially as VPAs, to intensify in 2025. A ballot measure that would permit veterinary professional associates in Colorado will be decided this November, and observers anticipate similar legislation in Florida and other states. The AVMA and other trade groups oppose recognizing a veterinary version of the physician assistant, which human health care started nearly 60 years ago.
Part of the issue is how credentialed veterinary technicians feel about the matter. Is it an exciting career opportunity or somehow a death blow to the CVT role?
Don’t expect the passion over VPAs to subside any time soon.
Diversity
Diversity in the veterinarian profession is likely to get not one but two significant boosts in 2025. The first must remain confidential for a few more months, so stay tuned. (Trust me, it’s exciting.) The second is the progress toward accreditation of a proposed veterinary school at a public historically black college or university (HBCU). The program at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore, a land-grant institution dating to the 1890s, would include a distributive clinical year at private practices, shelters and public animal facilities in the mid-Atlantic region and throughout the country.
Innovation
The Veterinary Innovation Summit, held in August in Kansas City, opened a wide, deep lens on the rapid development of technologies based on proven models in human medicine. As we’ve come to expect in our own health care, the pace accelerates year to year in pet health care with diagnostics, wearables and, of course, artificial intelligence.
Technology’s growth in pet health care is crucial as the profession continues to face steep shortages of veterinarians and credentialed technicians. Technologies that engage pet owners can lessen the burden on veterinary teams and inform practices more precisely about the medical conditions of America’s cats and dogs.
As you might expect, the debate continues over whether and how to regulate artificial intelligence. However, the VIS conference strengthened the notion that AI is a positive development and is here to stay. Therefore, guidelines, rather than prescriptive regulations, make the most sense and won’t restrain AI improvements.
Shelter Animals
Prepare to hear a lot more about veterinarians of record in 2025. The ominous-sounding legal term has special meaning for animal shelters and rescues, especially those without substantial financial means. Animal welfare organizations must take care of the pets they house, including those with medical conditions requiring medications.
Unfortunately, and perhaps to no one’s surprise, those groups don’t receive favored prices on medications if they lack access to a licensed veterinarian who can reassure pharmaceutical companies and distributors about the doctor’s active guidance. That reality puts pet lives at risk.
Shelters United, a 43-year-old group purchasing organization led by Mal Schwartz, supports nonprofit shelters and rescues on many levels and is working with corporate sponsors to develop a veterinarian-of-record protocol.
You won’t find “veterinarian of record” in practice acts or board regulations, but it’s a commercial mechanism designed to reassure drug providers that veterinarian oversight exists. Shelters United is preparing a pilot program and toolkit for all parties, and it will engage veterinarians even further to assure quality care at shelters and rescues.
Academia
The North American Veterinary Community, publisher of Today’s Veterinary Business, will offer a blockbuster two-day event in Phoenix on Nov. 11 and 12, 2024. Stakeholders in veterinarian and veterinary technician academic programs will gather to examine how good of a job educators are doing and what they could do differently.
The open forum will start the dialogue, so I recommend tempering any expectations about solutions. Isn’t it a good sign that people want to explore how to upgrade programs and support innovation in the academic universe?
The conversation surely will gain steam in 2025.
Other Topics
Finally, I’ve written before that the next five years might be when non-DVM professionals, particularly credentialed technicians, dominate pet care news. Readers should expect to see a variety of initiatives and discussions focusing on expanding the scope of what licensed technicians can do and integrating them more intensively into veterinary practices.
As the model of a veterinarian-centric practice leaves center stage and we evolve (like our human health compatriots) toward client- and pet-centric models, the door will open widely for licensed technicians to play a more prominent role in pet health care.
I expect millennials and Gen Z pet owners to embrace an expanded role for technicians, and I’m betting on veterinarians to get on board, too.
As for legislative and regulatory activity, I’ll cover that in a future article, but you should anticipate that pharmaceutical and pharmacy issues will lead the way again.
SHOWDOWN IN COLORADO
The American Veterinary Medical Association is no fan of a Colorado ballot measure that seeks to authorize a midlevel practitioner role as “one solution to the veterinary workforce shortage and access to veterinary care crisis.” The AVMA and other sponsors of the Keep Our Pets Safe campaign, including the Colorado VMA and the American Association of Equine Practitioners, called on voters to reject the Nov. 5 initiative.
“The proponents of this measure are promoting a dangerous position that would allow individuals with minimal training — primarily through online courses and a one-semester internship — to perform surgeries along with the full spectrum of veterinary medicine,” the AVMA stated in a news release.
“This level of training and hands-on experience is grossly inadequate for anyone entrusted with the health and safety of Colorado pets and animals. Moreover, this measure is being driven by special interests and corporations looking to cut costs at the expense of quality care. Creating this new, unnecessary role is not only misleading but also sets up graduates for limited job security and burdensome student debt, all while funneling profits to colleges and corporate interests.”
The initiative’s sponsor is the animal welfare group All Pets Deserve Vet Care.
— Today’s Veterinary Business