{"id":79063,"date":"2026-02-10T19:15:53","date_gmt":"2026-02-11T00:15:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/todaysveterinarybusiness.com\/?p=79063"},"modified":"2026-02-10T19:15:53","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T00:15:53","slug":"veterinary-marketplace-politics-policy-0226","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/navc.sitepreview.app\/todaysveterinarybusiness.com\/veterinary-marketplace-politics-policy-0226\/","title":{"rendered":"Gatekeepers Versus the Marketplace"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\u2019s examine.<\/p>\n

The Laws of Economics<\/h3>\n

The 2025 PetSmart Charities\/Gallup national survey of pet owners found that nearly half avoided veterinary care due to the costs. The data wasn\u2019t ambiguous or confusing. Workforce shortages and legacy veterinary politics are the culprits. If clinics\u2019 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.<\/p>\n

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\u2019re stuck in a cycle in which prices serve as the primary, maybe the only, tool to cover expenses. I\u2019m not an economist, but former veterinary college dean Dr. James Lloyd is one, and he\u2019s explained market dynamics on these pages [go.navc.com\/invisible-hand-TVB<\/a>].<\/p>\n

That\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

That takes us to our next stop.<\/p>\n

School Accreditation and Legacy Veterinary Politics<\/h3>\n

In 2023, 2024, and 2025, four industry forces converged (better yet, collided).<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

Third, the AVMA Council on Education, America\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

Fourth, the collision within legacy veterinary politics led to:<\/p>\n