Author: Paul Hall

Other Views: Client Education — Where & How to Support Client Understanding

Posted on by Paul Hall

Key Insights

There are many places and ways experts point to, for providing clients with information about the preventive care of their pets: crucial brief in-clinic conversations, posters/handouts, on the website, social media and now in the portal/app.

  • A Group Effort–Improving Client Education & Compliance — Dr. Amanda Donnelly.
    Dr. Donnelly, veterinary client communications expert and VetPartners consulting organization member, advises that client education and patient preventive-care engagement begin with in-clinic interactions, management and training. As she says: “Don’t assume what clients know”. She then outlines steps for staff training and alignment around preventive health.
  • Educate Your Clients on the Value of Preventive Care Diagnostics — Sandy Walsh, RVT, CVPM.
    Sandy is a practice management consultant and VHMA and VetPartners consulting organization member. She asserts that interaction with the client from first visit through each follow-up is the best way to educate/inform the client about preventive care and emphasize the importance of preventive care for the health of the owners pet(s). But, Sandy also how you can continue and reinforce the preventive-care education conversation… on the website, the practice portal/app and in social media.
  • Client Education: a Vital Role for Veterinary Technicians — Penn Foster Blog (Emma Rose Gallimore).
    Another commentary pointing to the importance of involving veterinary technicians (and we would add, other members of the vet staff) in educating clients about important preventive care for their pet(s).
  • 3 Pointers for Parasite Prevention Education and Broaching Parasite Preventives with Clients — Beckie Mossor, RVT, Julia Burke Assistant Editor DVM 360.
    Ms Mossor also focuses on in-clinic client education, briefly discussing how important it is to try to understand the client’s mindset and knowledge, before deciding what preventive health guidance to offer.
  • DVM360 Toolkits: e.g. DVM360 Toolkit for Heartworm Disease, and DVM360 Vaccines Toolkit.
    For selected client education topics, DVM360 has put together toolkits that help train staff with communication tactics for discussing key preventive care topics with clients. They also include handouts and social media post messaging that the practice can use.
  • Client Education Materials — AVMA and Steal These Veterinary Client Handouts! — DVM360.
    There are many sources that promote preventive care client education through the use of handouts and posters in-clinic. AVMA and DVM360 are just 2. LIfeLearn and VIN are 2 other subscription services that include handouts and website content covering preventive care topics.
  • 5 Ways to Ramp Up Your Veterinary Practice’s Client Education Game — VetSource Blog; and, Client Education Through Online Videos or Online Classes — MWI Blog (Roxanne Hawn)
    But, as these commentators suggest, client education can and should be readily available beyond the clinic. Websites are clearly the most common place to make client education available to clients. (videos are an increasing popular way to engage clients and help them understand the preventive care of their pets)

While In-clinic education, by your full vet team, is the main point for client education. The in-clinic time is often limited. Website-base preventive care education is an important way to provide on-demand access to information about various preventive care topics.
Now you can incorporate client education as part of many pet portals/apps. It can be most relevant and impactful if you can tell clients what your Standard of Preventive Care vaccines and services are, in your pet portal/app. This lets them (a) see which of your recommended preventive care has been set up for each of their pets, and what preventive care should/might be added, and (b) lets them get answers, right at that point, about why each of your recommended vaccines, tests and services are important to the health of their pet.

Other Views: Compliance — A Range of Suggestions & Perspectives

Posted on by Paul Hall

Key Insights

Compliance, obviously, directly impacts patient health. But, while there is consensus on communicating the importance of preventive care, suggestions vary on the best ways to promote patient vaccine and service compliance.

Two keys are mentioned most: (1) provide the client with full information, so they know what vaccines and services are recommended and when they are due, and (2) make sure members of the vet team are in alignment in communicating the value of preventive services for the health of patients… so clients come back in to get the vaccines and services recommended.

  • 6 Tools That Improve Client Compliance in 2022 — Dr. Kate Boatright.
    Dr. Boatright recommends engaging clients between visits with a practice app/portal, so that clients are more informed about upcoming vaccines and services. She also recommends forward booking, Med auto-ship programs and longer acting medications to get patients the care needed. She suggests considering telemedicine to supplement/expand patient care access, and pet insurance (we would add wellness plans) to lower financial barriers to care compliance.
    (note: Dr. Boatright is one of the leading advocates for Spectrum of Care initiatives, to lower the financial barriers to veterinary patient care. See recent AAHA articles from Oct 22 and Nov 22)
  • Seven Strategies to Improve Vaccine Compliance — Wendy Myers.
    Wendy is founder of Communication Solutions for Veterinarians a communication training firm. She recommends (a) providing 5 reminders to make sure the client books, (b) telling clients about the vaccines/services recommended during booking, (c) previewing vaccines/services to be done at the start of the visit, and (d) having the vet reinforce the value of protocols during the exam.
  • Training Your Team to Help with Client Compliance — Des Whittall.
    Des, in his usual practical approach, points to 3 key reasons clients don’t comply: (1) Lack of understanding — simplify and focus the explanation of recommendations, (2) Lack of trust — get all team members clear on consistent prevention protocol messages they use with clients, (3) Perceived lack of value — make sure the client understanding how the vaccine/service directly affects the patients health. The key element, Des says, is training the vet team so they are confident in communicating with clients, because they have knowledge and practice discussing preventive care and the importance of compliance.
  • How to Increase Compliance of Pet Owners: Understanding the Human-Animal Bond — Marshall Liger.
    Marshall is the hospital administrator (CVPM) for 3 practices in South Carolina and the founder of Liger Veterinary Consulting. He outlines 4 tips to improve pet owner communication and compliance, based on the recent study from the Human-Animal Bond Research Institute (HABRI), that shows the more connected the pet owner feels to their pet and to the practice/staff, the more likely they are to follow the vet’s health recommendations. (1) know which pet owners are most engaged with their pets health (and foster engagement of all clients), (2) train the vet team to engage the owner on the importance of pet health, (3) assess how well the practice is communicating the importance of preventive health compliance to clients, and (4) track compliance improvement for preventives, vaccines, dental and diagnostics.
  • 7 Simple Ways to Increase Client Compliance — TeleVet Blog.
    Practical steps to promote compliance focused around clear communication of information with clients, that is proactive and easily accessible.
  • 5 Ways to Improve Veterinary Client Compliance — Mixlab Blog.
    Another list advocating simple, clear communication of information. They recommend leveraging of portal/app technology to engage clients between visits.

The most crucial element of encouraging clients to get the vaccines, tests and services their pet needs, is clear communication of information about what is needed and why it’s important to keep their pet healthy. This takes place in-clinic with face-to-face interaction with the staff and the vet. But, it also can be reinforced before, after and between visits with easy, preventive-care-focused communication in reminders and the pet portal/app. (e.g. getting client’s attention )

There are many views about the best way to boost compliance with a combination of reminders, what reminders, how many, what timing, apps/portals, whether to include forward booking, appointment confirmations, online scheduling. The best client communication system is the one each practice can customize for their particular communication preferences, and the one that clearly tracks your patients’ compliance and your practice performance.

Promoting Healthier Pet Patients

Posted on by Paul Hall

A critical part of keeping patients healthy, beyond the medical care provided, is by motivating and engaging clients, so pets get the preventive care needed.

In-clinic communication with clients by vets and the full vet team, conveys to clients the importance of preventive care… what the practice recommended standard of care protocol is for their pet, and what is needed next to protect their pet’s health.  But, often, the client time in clinic is brief and it may be a challenge to cover everything and get the client to fully understand and retain all that vets and staff have told them.

The practice’s client communication systems, designed right, can inform and reinforce your preventive care messaging before, after and between visits.

Your client communication system is not a “cost center” to be minimized, but a direct booster of patient health and a revenue generation center.  (For every dollar spent on reminders, most practices generate at least $50-80 in revenue)

Other Views – Boosting Patient Health

Posted on by Paul Hall

There are many voices in the veterinary industry with key experience and insights about how to best promote patient preventive care health with client communication. 

Many are members of the Vet Partners veterinary consultants organization.  (including Wendy Hauser, Amanda Donnelly, Peter Weinstein, Debbie Boone, Sarah Rumple, Sandy Walsh, just to mention a few.)  Others are practice owners, veterinarians or practice managers who have very practical observations and suggestions from their experience.

They continue to provide insights from a range of preventive health and client communication topics… but, all focused on how practices can foster healthier pet patients.

Etc.

We invite you to tap into this selection of insights from industry experts as you improve patient health in your practice.

Upgrading Client Communication for Patient Health

Posted on by Paul Hall

Industry experts have pointed out key ways to improve practice communication with clients, to promote the preventive care health of patients.

Many observers stress the need to ensure that the full vet team is trained to communicate and guide clients in-clinic on the importance of preventive care for the health of their pets.  (Because time for preventive care education is often more limited than we want, in-clinic and website tools and resources can help… especially if clients can be shown which standard-of-care vaccines, tests and services are need for each of their pets.)

But, there are specific ways to upgrade client communication systems to reinforce preventive care messaging before, during and between visits:

  • Let All Clients Access their Pet Info with a portal/app, without having to download, install and use a phone app.
  • Make sure clients can book/request an appointment, and to get to their pet info, directly from each of your reminders.  This simplifies and strengthens the client’s sense of engagement with the practice and the health of their pets.
  • Use high impact reminders that have been optimized to get the attention of clients and prompt them to easily to get the preventive care needed for each pet.
  • Identify which patients are missing what preventive care vaccines, tests and services that the practice recommends as core/advised.  Fill in those gaps in preventive care reminders, either manually or by automatically including them as “also recommended”.
  • Use a client communication solution that includes an app and portal as part of the electronic reminders and does not charge an additional monthly fee.  The funds saved can be directed back to the reminders/app-portal themselves, directly benefiting patient preventive care.

One last upgrade suggestion to support the focus on patient health:  if you don’t already have it in place, start tracking (a) patient compliance and (b) the revenue generated from reminders, compared to the client communication dollars spent (your communication Return on Investment).

Easier, More Effective Client Communication

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