Compliance is crucial for both the health of your patients and your veterinary practice. Compliance with clients and patients presumably results in better patient care and more preventive options available to pets. For your business, a high compliance rate would mean a predictable flow of regular visits allowing for increased revenue. Unfortunately, compliance continues to remain low even despite economic improvements over recent years, which has led to increases in pet care spending overall. This means the pets in your clinic aren’t receiving the best care and treatment possible.
Effective client communication plays a crucial role in helping increase compliance and, by automating the process, it won’t require more staff time or resource. If you’re hoping to improve compliance this year, automated client communications are a must. Here’s how you can go about lifting your game in this area.
Set a goal
To be able to track client compliance and ensure your initiatives are working, it’s good to know what your current compliance rate is, and set a goal as to where you would like it to be.
Wendy Myers from Communications Solutions for Veterinarians recommends aiming for a preventive care compliance rate of 70% or higher, and even small increases in compliance can have a significant impact on the financial health of your practice. In fact, she calculates that preventive services and products account for 38% of a practice’s total income.
And, let’s not forget the positive impact that increased compliance will have on the health of the patients in your care.
Prompt for other care issues
As well as reminding clients about their booked appointments, automated client communications can also be used to remind them about other aspects of their pet’s care as well.
Prompting clients when their pet’s prescription is due for renewal or it’s time for flea or worm treatment is another easy win for your practice. It provides a gentle nudge to clients about the importance of preventative care and can help increase compliance in this crucial, but often overlooked, aspect of their pet’s health.
And, for clients where you haven’t forward booked an appointment, sending reminders to schedule their next visit will help ensure their pet doesn’t miss their yearly check-up, and that they come back to your practice rather than going elsewhere.
Automate your reminders
Once you have booked in a client’s next appointment your practice management system takes over and automatically sends reminders as the appointment date gets closer. It’s also good practice to have an online booking system available so clients can change or book their appointments for a time that suits them without having to call the clinic.
And don’t just stop at a single reminder notification. Research from Vetstreet shows that reminder compliance is 31% higher when using a combination of email and postal reminders.