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Revenue growth in April 2023 was much less than in the previous month (1.9% vs. 5.3%). These numbers are not entirely comparable because April of 2022 had one more workday than April of 2023; however, the decline is more than should be seen with just a one-day difference in workdays. A similar trend was seen with both patient visits and new client numbers; they declined much more in April 2023 than in March 2023. As noted last month, practice growth has definitely slowed and, on average, has moved away from the increased growth rates seen during the pandemic. 

Veterinary hospitals have been dealing with either anemic growth or a decline in veterinary visits over the last two years. While revenue has been growing faster than visits, this is due to fee increases and/or increased individual pet owner spending. Mixed signals persist in the U.S. economy and inflation continues to be a challenge both for veterinary practices and for pet owners, which means fee increases and increases in individual pet owner spending may be difficult to sustain. Growth in actual visits is critical to ongoing and sustainable practice growth both in revenue and profits. Discussed below are some strategies to increase visits.

1. Track the practice’s visit numbers. The term “visit” doesn’t have a generally agreed-upon definition in veterinary medicine. In my mind, a “visit” as opposed to a transaction or invoice means the pet actually was brought to the practice and saw a doctor for some kind of service, whether it be a wellness exam, a dental, or a surgery. If your Practice Information Management System (PIMS) reports on the term “visits,” make sure you get their definition of what that means—it varies between PIMS. A reasonable alternative is to track doctor transactions (usually associated with a true visit) or transactions/invoices.
2.  Review visit numbers at least monthly, both in terms of actual numbers and as a percentage change. Correlate this with the number of available appointments. Calculate the number of rechecks as a percentage of total visits and compare that to past periods in order to see if rechecks are increasing, flat, or declining.
3. Review the reminders set up for each pet—are they accurate? Do they represent the services the pet should be getting on an annual basis? Are the dates right? Sometimes pet owners change the cadence of their visits (for example, Fluffy used to get her annual exam in May, but now it’s in October), and the reminder dates don’t get updated to reflect this new schedule.
4. How many reminders are sent? One per pet per service? Two? Are they too far out to be useful? Is there any reminder sent post-service due date?
5.  How are the reminders sent? Postcard, email, text, phone call? Ideally, each pet owner is asked what their preference is, and that is used for their reminders. A phone call later in the cycle can also be effective and break up the monotony of only getting emails or texts. The practice needs to communicate with clients via their preferred format (even if it’s not the practice’s preference), be aware of new and changing preferences, and incorporate these into the overall outreach strategy as quickly as possible.
6. Make sure the practice has accurate phone, email, and snail mail addresses on file for all clients. The first step is educating the front desk team on just how important it is not only to get this contact info but to check that it is correct at every visit.
7. Consider offering monthly-billed preventive care plans to increase the number of visits per client, as well as improve compliance and pet health.
8. Review new client numbers—if these are declining, this is clearly a contributing factor to a decline in client visits. While referrals from happy clients may still be the best source of new clients, there have been changes in where and how these referrals take place. No longer are these conversations taking place at the supermarket, over the fence in the back yard, or at the dog park-more and more of these connections are occurring online. This isn’t news to most practices, but where people connect online can change rapidly, and getting the right exposure can be difficult without some social media expertise.
9. Keep the practice front and center when it comes to community involvement. This can be as simple as speaking to a school class, giving a tour to a Girl Scouts troop, or sponsoring a booth at a community event, but in many communities, it is just as important as the online presence. 

Relying just on fee increases or hoping pet owners will have the money to provide a greater scope of care to drive revenue and profits is dangerous. All practices must have organic growth in the number of new clients and the number of visits to sustain long-term revenue and profit growth.

➤ Download Insiders' Insights - KPI, May 2023 Report

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Karen E. Felsted, CPA, MS, DVM, CVPM, CVA of PantheraT Veterinary Management Consulting, www.PantheraT.com, provide data review and commentary.


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