Penn Veterinary Supply, Inc. - Since 1981

It seems like it’ll be the term of 2020: “Social Distancing”. Turn on the news or scroll through social media right now and it’s everywhere. As the situation surrounding COVID-19 escalated, Americans across the country were strongly encouraged to practice social distancing, meaning keeping a distance of at least 6 feet between you and any other person. By limiting human contact, you are less likely to contract the disease or to spread it, as you may be a carrier and not realize it. As the New York Times pointed out, it’s a strategy that saved lives in the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic and in the more recent 2009 Mexico City flu pandemic.

But what does this mean for your practice?

“Non-essential” businesses all across the country are shutting down or working remotely to encourage social distancing. However, as a veterinary practice, you are considered “essential” and are able to resume business as usual. We know your patients need you, but we also want to make sure you are putting feasible protocols and procedures in place to best protect your employees and customers. Here’s what social distancing can look like in your practice.

Reschedule Elective Procedures

First thing’s first - evaluate your appointments and prioritize the appointments that are of the highest need. If a patient does not need to be seen, reschedule the appointment. This will limit the traffic into your practice to only necessary cases, such as injuries or illnesses. You can use this management tree, developed by J. Scott Weese, DVM, DVSc, DACVIM and shared by Clinician’s Brief, as a tool to create your COVID-19 protocols.

If you have not already, take the time to go through your appointments for at least through the end of March and call your customers to reschedule them. They will understand. If rescheduling is not an option for some reason, try to spread out your appointments so customers are not crossing paths. If you have a telemedicine system put in place, you can offer that service. This brings us to the next point...

Set-up a Telemedicine System

Telemedicine has been in practice for years and your clinic may already be setup to participate. If not, now is a good time to look into setting up a temporary telemedicine system - who knows, it may become permanent!

Email is a great tool for this. Ask your clients to email inquiries and include any relevant pictures. Reply back explaining that there will be a virtual consultation fee for a reply and ask for their consent. Once they consent, you can reply again and continue the consultation. If it is decided that the pet needs to be brought in, credit a part of or all of the virtual consultation fee.

You could also opt to take inquiries over the phone or via a video chat system. There are different programs out there that you could partner with to make this possible. Just always remember that having a veterinary-client-patient relationship already established is necessary for practicing telemedicine. Learn more on the AVMA website. If you’re interested in finding out more about a telemedicine platform that can help you stay within legal guidelines and also get these virtual consultations into your client records, click here to ask for more information.

Offer Curb-Side Service

Scheduled visits can be handled as curbside drop-offs. Instruct your client to call you when they arrive in the parking lot. Then a staff member can go out to the car, retrieve the pet, and bring it into the hospital. The client can wait in the car while the exam or treatment is being done and the pet can be brought when they are ready. Any updates or questions during the exam or treatment can be done via text, phone call, or even video chat if the client is able. This limits the number of people coming in and out of the office.

Get on the Same Page

Now that you have a few ideas of how you are going to continue to operate while keeping your clients and employees safe, get everyone on your team on the same page. Have a group huddle every morning, if possible, to update everyone on new protocols, how things are going, and news from your state health officials. Be sure to also communicate these things to your customers through all of your channels: email, website, social media, and through your app (if you have one). We’ve created a few social media posts that you may find helpful! (Don’t see what you need - email us at [email protected] and we can make it for you!)

We know this sounds cliche, but we want to remind you of the importance of just being there for each other. You are a team and now more than ever, you need to come together and support each other. Find joy, put out reminders to breathe, ask how everyone is holding up. With these new protocols, as with anything new that is forced upon your business, things may get hectic and stressful, but we can’t afford to lose our humanity.

Penn Vet is keeping our customers up to date through our COVID-19 page. Be sure to check out the resources available to you there and give us a call at 800-233-0210 if you have any questions.