The Cost of Veterinary Care

One of the current and more visible trends in the animal health industry is the rising cost of veterinary care. Travis Meredith, DVM, MBA, who presented during the recent Animalytix Mid-Year Market Update, stated the average invoice to a pet owner increased 22.5% from January 2021 through July of 2024. It’s a big number, and not sustainable.

We are now to the point where the cost of care is starting to show up in local and national news and is even drawing the ire of politicians, who are quick to blame private equity-backed practices for driving prices up. While they might enjoy that narrative, all practices have had to raise prices given that their overall costs, from prescriptions to diagnostics to labor, are up significantly.

Unfortunately, the result is a dampening in demand, with fewer patient visits, transactions and new client visits. Fewer pets are getting care, and even when they continue to go to the vet, pet owners are waiting a longer time. When the economy was healthy, this didn’t seem to be as big an issue, but in a challenging economic climate, where today’s pet owners have less discretionary income, it’s on everyone’s radar.

The industry is busy on many fronts addressing the cost of care. New veterinary schools are opening to address the shortage of veterinarians, which is a positive, but will take years to catch up. Low-cost vaccine clinics, mobile clinics and telehealth practices are anxious to bring lower cost options to pet owners, but many of them are having trouble staffing. Spectrum of care is taking hold, making pet owner finances a priority. Despite these efforts, shelters are filling up again, and many pet owners are not bringing their pets to the vet, so the key question is, “What can we do now?”

Dr. Meredith cites clinical productivity as the top priority for practices to be healthy, and believes expanding clinical staff training, increasing staff competencies, and reducing operational bottlenecks are most important. He urges industry partners to focus their efforts there. AI can play a role here as well, and it is rapidly becoming more accepted, being perceived as less of a threat and more of a tool.

As a distributor sales rep, with customers who need support and input, I would recommend focusing your efforts on helping them become more productive. Find the resources available internally and externally and make them a part of every customer conversation. It will lead to more care, better care and healthier practices. You will help sustain your customer’s livelihood, as well as yours.

Photo credit: istockphoto.com/ThinkNeo