The pet health care market entered 2026 with tailwinds from strong millennial and Gen Z pet owner dynamics. Unfortunately, headwinds from workforce shortages still gripped clinics and held back clients from pursuing the veterinary care they desired. Put bluntly: American pet owners want more from care providers, but shortages and legacy veterinary politics continue to handcuff the profession. Let’s examine.
The Laws of Economics
The 2025 PetSmart Charities/Gallup national survey of pet owners found that nearly half avoided veterinary care due to the costs. The data wasn’t ambiguous or confusing. Workforce shortages and legacy veterinary politics are the culprits. If clinics’ fixed costs are rising, then a lack of veterinarians and veterinary technicians means those practices view their prices as a life preserver to increase revenue and cover costs.
The laws of economics apply to pet health care, as they do to all sectors of the economy. Unless we produce more veterinarians and technicians, we’re stuck in a cycle in which prices serve as the primary, maybe the only, tool to cover expenses. I’m not an economist, but former veterinary college dean Dr. James Lloyd is one, and he’s explained market dynamics on these pages [go.navc.com/invisible-hand-TVB].
That’s why our mission should be to address labor shortages. America needs more graduates from veterinarian and technician schools. We need more programs and larger class sizes.
That takes us to our next stop.
School Accreditation and Legacy Veterinary Politics
In 2023, 2024, and 2025, four industry forces converged (better yet, collided).
First, Dr. Lloyd and others produced data, echoed by veterinary practices on the ground, that demonstrated the United States faces acute and growing shortages of veterinary professionals. Periodicals and conferences enlightened the industry, and consumers confirmed that veterinary appointments had become difficult, if not impossible, to secure. Yet the American Veterinary Medical Association regularly challenges the notion that shortages exist.
Second, the Veterinary Virtual Care Association and animal welfare advocates launched successful initiatives in Arizona, California, Florida, and Ohio to allow pet owners to use telemedicine to access care. But here’s where legacy politics showed up: The only opponents to veterinary telemedicine legislation remain the AVMA and state VMAs, despite consumer demand for convenient access to care and no evidence that telemedicine harms American pets.
Third, the AVMA Council on Education, America’s veterinary college accreditor, shifted focus in 2023 to make it harder for existing and new veterinary programs to do business. Rule changes tightened restrictions on distributive clinical programs (notwithstanding success in the marketplace) and increased the requirements for basic research, which dramatically raises the costs for veterinary schools.
Land-grant institutions continue to do an excellent job of producing researchers and scholarship. Yet, the AVMA COE felt compelled to push all veterinary colleges, especially distributive programs, to boost research despite the lack of a connection to meeting the demand for practice-ready graduates. The capstone to the COE’s tightening of control over schools was its March 2025 directive to reduce their ability to utilize online technologies common in other academic programs. Why? No one really knows what drove the accreditor to do it, but the decision dropped with a thud on schools struggling to meet rising costs and the demand for additional faculty occasioned by the new policy.
Fourth, the collision within legacy veterinary politics led to:
- A federal antitrust lawsuit filed by Lincoln Memorial University against the AVMA.
- A Council on Education effort to initiate terminal accreditation against the Tuskegee University College of Veterinary Medicine.
In December 2025, the U.S. Department of Justice filed an 18-page statement of interest in Lincoln Memorial’s lawsuit with a point-by-point rebuttal of AVMA’s assertion that its accreditation decisions are not subject to scrutiny under federal antitrust laws. Put simply, trade associations organized to protect the economic interests of their members do not have immunity when they hold the power to accredit professional programs and limit the number of graduates entering the profession.
The statement of interest also noted that the Justice Department consulted with the U.S. Department of Education, which oversees the COE, before filing in federal court. (Full disclosure: I have worked on accreditation matters with Lincoln Memorial since May 2011 and with other schools.)
It’s now public knowledge that the AVMA is overseeing the administrative appeal of a COE attempt to terminate Tuskegee’s 80-year-old program. In late November, a federal court in Alabama considered Tuskegee’s arguments that the AVMA is denying it due process by limiting the school to two hours to present its case and denying it the opportunity to call former deans Lloyd and Dr. Willie Reed as witnesses.
Of note: The AVMA withdrew the limitations after the lawsuit was filed. In March, Tuskegee will be allowed to call the witnesses it chooses and to present its case over three days.
Opportunities in 2026
As we approach the second quarter, these questions remain:
- Can legacy veterinary trade associations reassess their leadership responsibilities and stop opposing every hint of change and progressive idea?
- Can we support laws that enable pet owners to enjoy telemedicine (currently 120 million Americans)?
- Can we learn from the voters’ decision in 2024 to allow Colorado State University to train veterinary professional associates, as the Colorado Board of Veterinary Medicine licenses them to serve pet owners? The AVMA is encouraging all state VMAs to oppose any consideration of a midlevel professional.
- Can the Council on Education welcome innovation and work with schools to address their concerns rather than initiate terminal accreditation against a program and attempt to deny it due process?
- Can we take a practical step and separate the AVMA from serving as the accrediting body for veterinary schools?
- Can the COE allow schools to decide for themselves whether to deploy online technologies to deliver a didactic curriculum and lower costs? Legacy trade associations in law and human medicine learned what happens when they try to build walls blocking the encroachment of innovations that serve the public interest.
Having majored in history, I never forget the admonition that “Change wins,” particularly when it helps people navigate the challenges in daily life.
The Future Is Now
Could 2026 be the year we unleash veterinary professionals and institutions to embrace the human-animal bond driving nearly 70% of American households? New tailwinds, poised to launch, could give the veterinary economy a boost like it’s never seen. Where do you stand?
UNDER THE MICROSCOPE
The AVMA Council on Education scheduled comprehensive site visits at these U.S. schools in 2026: Arkansas State University, Auburn University, Western University of Health Sciences, Lincoln Memorial University, University of Maryland Eastern Shore, Lyon College, Rowan University, Louisiana State University, Michigan State University, and Utah State University.