What is the reason for the veterinary back up?

[Anonymous]

My understanding is that it's really hard to get appts with vets for regular things, but also,apparently ER stuff. This seems to be everywhere, not just here. I understand that Covid backed up procedures from March 2020 to around July of last year, but what is fueling this? Was it that everyone got a pet during Covid and now thet all need care?

[Anonymous]

More pets, decreased hours, staff shortage because staff quitting due to crazy work hours and stress. Vets quitting because the public is being awful to them and corporations keep squeezing them for more work in same amount of time.

[Anonymous]

And frankly I am sick of it. I have never made so much money and dealt with so much abuse. People are AWFUL. They want us to be everything to everyone. They want to call us for a refill and are floored that we wont have it ready in an hour. Or floored that they cannot just request an antibiotic for their pet. They want the tops in diagnostics without having to pay....or dont want the diagnostics, but want a diagnosis. It does not work that way. People are mad at us because we cannot fit them in....don't know where they expect us to fit them....cannot get blood from a stone. If we squeeze them into a ten minute appt, then they should expect ten minutes from now on....as it is, most of my clients want more than that but complain when they have to pay for it. I am done.

[Anonymous]

Our vet just sent a note saying they have stopped accepting new patients because they are so overloaded with their current clientele.

[Anonymous]

I have tried to get our owners to do that. They wont. Our business DOES NOT NEED TO GROW ANY MORE. We cannot support what we have. They are going to lose me....

[Anonymous]

It's a tough profession under the best of circumstances, with high stress and high suicide rates, and now everything is just exponentially worse. All the precautions that they have to take, curbside checkin and whatnot, are all adding to their burden. Appointments take longer, so they can see fewer patients, and that whole thing just snowballs. IF any of the staff gets sick, or quits, it just sets off a chain reaction that's difficult to recover from.

[Anonymous]

Pandemic pets. Everyone picked up a dog during Covid.

[Anonymous]

I'm really sorry to understand this. My vet, 20+ years, quit this past spring. I literally cried. I am wondering how to save this profession. Maybe it's kind of organic, things change, but the profession has changed to take on so much more in only a short time. Our relationships with our animals has changed. We have the technology to treat so much more and we want to prolong our pet's lives with this technology. It costs money, not just with appt. dollars, but to train vets in ever changing protocol, and they have to charge more to do it. That means corporate takeovers and insurance companies...it's a domino effect.

There are so many more women in the field than men. They are young women have families, and like dentistry, want more flexibility. These are changing industries.

Meanwhile, clients need to stay off the internet and stupid facebook groups, holistic quack sources, etc. I really don't know how vets put up with that nonsense.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our vet just sent a note saying they have stopped accepting new patients because they are so overloaded with their current clientele.

I got that too. And I have to say that I was never ever impressed with one vet I met there.

The staff are LOVELY.

[Anonymous]

My regular vet closed its doors at the start of the pandemic.

[Anonymous]

We did get a puppy during Covid, though we had been researching and looking and planning since well before Covid. The vet practice we go to has been so amazing. Did have a bit of a wait for neuter surgery but I would expect scheduling surgery is always a lot least a bit like that.

[Anonymous]

I don’t know but when I went to Friendship during lockdown, people had to wait outside and on hold for sometimes 20 minutes and I watched some classic DC a-holes lose their ever-loving minds about it. They were OUTRAGED. I have a feeling the staff took a lot of abuse.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm really sorry to understand this. My vet, 20+ years, quit this past spring. I literally cried. I am wondering how to save this profession. Maybe it's kind of organic, things change, but the profession has changed to take on so much more in only a short time. Our relationships with our animals has changed. We have the technology to treat so much more and we want to prolong our pet's lives with this technology. It costs money, not just with appt. dollars, but to train vets in ever changing protocol, and they have to charge more to do it. That means corporate takeovers and insurance companies...it's a domino effect.

There are so many more women in the field than men. They are young women have families, and like dentistry, want more flexibility. These are changing industries.

Meanwhile, clients need to stay off the internet and stupid facebook groups, holistic quack sources, etc. I really don't know how vets put up with that nonsense.

Vet practice owner here - first thing you need to do if you want to change the profession is to open new vet schools. There are so few vet schools in the US, so few. The number of vets available to hire is incredibly limited. We have been trying to hire a vet for over a year - any vet. As you can imagine, supply and demand, salaries increase dramatically but we also can only justify so much of an increase to our clients. They complain to us about increase in costs.
Corporate practices (I am looking at you Banfield) are offering 60k bonuses. The family vet hospital cannot compete with that and the new grad with 400k worth of loans is going to jump at that.
Like human medicine, things change. Vets are required to take CE and learn new meds, techniques, etc. That costs money. See comments about costs above.
Clients are frustrated about having to wait outside. So are we. We aren't getting any advice from the AVMA. Our groups have abandoned us.
Our colleagues are killing themselves - not figuratively, literally committing suicide in record numbers. The stress is awful and if you ask any veterinarian, they know several other vets who have made the awful decision to end their life.
Patience please. That is all we are asking.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm really sorry to understand this. My vet, 20+ years, quit this past spring. I literally cried. I am wondering how to save this profession. Maybe it's kind of organic, things change, but the profession has changed to take on so much more in only a short time. Our relationships with our animals has changed. We have the technology to treat so much more and we want to prolong our pet's lives with this technology. It costs money, not just with appt. dollars, but to train vets in ever changing protocol, and they have to charge more to do it. That means corporate takeovers and insurance companies...it's a domino effect.

There are so many more women in the field than men. They are young women have families, and like dentistry, want more flexibility. These are changing industries.

Meanwhile, clients need to stay off the internet and stupid facebook groups, holistic quack sources, etc. I really don't know how vets put up with that nonsense.

Vet practice owner here - first thing you need to do if you want to change the profession is to open new vet schools. There are so few vet schools in the US, so few. The number of vets available to hire is incredibly limited. We have been trying to hire a vet for over a year - any vet. As you can imagine, supply and demand, salaries increase dramatically but we also can only justify so much of an increase to our clients. They complain to us about increase in costs.
Corporate practices (I am looking at you Banfield) are offering 60k bonuses. The family vet hospital cannot compete with that and the new grad with 400k worth of loans is going to jump at that.
Like human medicine, things change. Vets are required to take CE and learn new meds, techniques, etc. That costs money. See comments about costs above.
Clients are frustrated about having to wait outside. So are we. We aren't getting any advice from the AVMA. Our groups have abandoned us.
Our colleagues are killing themselves - not figuratively, literally committing suicide in record numbers. The stress is awful and if you ask any veterinarian, they know several other vets who have made the awful decision to end their life.
Patience please. That is all we are asking.

+1 If you are reading this post, you should be on notice that most practices are very backed up. Curbside took longer than regular visits, and almost every practice also has staffing issues. If you need your annual examinations/vaccines for boarding or daycare, plan ahead. Most practices are booked up through September.

As to emergency care, in a perfect world, I'm sure that your vet would squeeze you in for a sick visit. This is not a perfect world and again, practices are backed up. You know what makes that even worse? Having hourly staff quit and not being able to find new staff because clients are so hostile, abusive, and angry that staff can no longer handle it.

Be a decent human being and take "no" for an answer. Plan ahead. Try to understand that these are difficult times.

Oh, and another thing, if something does not go exactly as planned, think twice about posting on social media that a vet intentionally killed your pet, or picketing the office, or even leaving a 1 star review because you couldn't get an appointment as quickly as you wanted. It's not helping anything and will drive more and more veterinarians out of the profession.

[Anonymous]

Op it’s very frustrating. We love our vet and have been with them for years with multiple pets, docs, and even locations when we moved. We’ve never before had issues scheduling but right now the earliest SICK appointment is August 17. If something is acute or serious my experience is that they do their resolute best to accommodate, but they can only be squeezed so much. I would NEVER abuse these people. They do the work because they love animals and are good at it, but I can see why people have left the profession (both vets and techs/front office staff). I think they even advise people to make just in case appointments now which isn’t going to help the situation.