Why is Telemedicine a Great Addition to Your Veterinary Practice?
Telemedicine is no stranger to the e-health care world. COVID-19 became an extra reason for practices to take remote health care or telehealth seriously. In human medicine, 81% of respondents agreed that telemedicine is more time- and cost-effective than in-person consultations (source).
The same applies to veterinary practices. Pet owners like calling their favorite vet for a quick question or a follow-up anyway. Why not make the most of it?
So, is telemedicine here to stay?
When we launched telemedicine in 2020, the uptake was tremendous. And we recently revisited the topic of telemedicine, discussing why it is so essential.
So why should it still be a part of your offering?
“Video consultation has become a powerful tool in ensuring our practice’s survival in addition to its benefits for pet owners and the safety of staff. The fact that we’re one of the first in our region to adopt telemedicine in response to COVID-19 means that we’ve gained a crucial ‘relative advantage’ while keeping our clients satisfied.”
– Pascal Hoberg, Director, The Wylie Veterinary Centre
30%
of Video Vets Now calls are referred to a face-to-face consultation
But why are some vet practices hesitant to offer telemedicine?
Source: Survey of 117 participants
This apprehension toward telemedicine is typical, so we also asked what pet owners felt about it.
Source: Survey of 101 participants
“ So far, everything’s been really positive. A lot of people appreciated saving the trip. It’s comforting for our clients to know that they don’t have to come in. They think we are really forward-thinking in offering telemedicine. What’s important to our clients is that they are given the option to choose. We’ll call and offer this new feature to save them the trip. Most people take us up on the offer and do a video consultation instead.”
– Gail Bigelow, Hospital Manager, Center Veterinary Clinic
This doesn’t mean that telemedicine replaces regular consultations, but it’s a great addition to help practices be more flexible, especially during clinic closures due to lockdowns and social distancing.
How can your practice leverage telemedicine?
Source: Survey of 100 participants
What benefits do you get?
“In my practice, I would like for telemedicine to become more commonplace. I will be actively advocating for it because it will utilize my staff in a different way. The nurses are doing their telemedicine appointments at home — I don’t have them at the clinic — and that gives them a lot of flexibility.”
– Martin Brice, Vet & Owner, Emerson’s Green Veterinary Surgery
Telemedicine with Vetstoria
As a Vetstoria customer, you can easily enable telemedicine via your settings. Once you do so, you can:
✔️ Decide which appointments should be offered via video or create a “video consultation” .
✔️ Set up payments to charge pet owners.
✔️ Save changes.
✔️ Send users the link to the video consultation in their confirmation email when they book an appointment.
Want to learn more about telemedicine?
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