Veterinary Prepayment: Encouraging Care Plan Enrollments for Practice Efficiency
Veterinary prepayment helps clients budget and improves preventive care compliance. However, pet owners won’t opt in unless your team explains how prepayment and service bundles work and why they should consider them. When handled well, prepayment creates more predictable income for the practice and better health outcomes for pets.
Here’s how your team can increase veterinary prepayment enrollment and improve overall patient well-being without feeling like salespeople.
1. Focus on education
Start with a conversation instead of jumping to a sales pitch or contract. Wellness exams, annual check-ups, and core vaccine visits are ideal opportunities to discuss lifestage preventive care recommendations and what they mean for individual pets. Explain to clients how care services like blood work, fecal exams, and heartworm testing can prevent serious health issues later in your pet’s life.
Once pet owners are on board with the concept and benefits of preventive care, explain how prepayment allows them to pay for those services gradually so they don’t have to face a hefty bill all at once.
2. Break down costs and inclusions
Break down exactly what pet wellness plans cover and compare monthly fees and overall annual care costs to “a la carte” service pricing so clients understand the value of veterinary prepayment. Here are some examples of services you may choose to include in prepayment plans:
- Annual exams
- Vaccinations
- Deworming
- Spaying or neutering
- Microchipping
- Heartworm prevention
- Dental cleanings
- Diagnostic testing
Seeing the math may be a lightbulb moment for some pet owners. For added impact, discuss how early detection can also dramatically reduce the costs of treating chronic disease by providing a common example, such as kidney disease or advanced dental disease.
3. Simplify enrollment
Well-designed plans may struggle to get buy-in if the enrollment process is confusing or if clients experience difficulties managing their veterinary prepayments. Instead of using your team’s time to administer the plans, choose a third-party provider that integrates with your cloud-based practice management software and has a reputation for outstanding client service.
Train team members to explain wellness plans in a few straightforward sentences and then answer questions when pet owners show interest. Digital enrollment links and QR codes posted in exam rooms or on invoices also make it easy for clients and teams to get plans started.
4. Use prepayment as a planning tool
Clients want to care for their pets and support veterinary hospitals, but money is a limiting factor. Position wellness plans and veterinary prepayment as planning and budgeting tools that they can use to create predictability and reduce the chances of surprise bills. Ask clients during routine care visits if they would like to spread out the cost of their pet’s annual wellness services into monthly payments and discuss it as a helpful solution, not a sales pitch.
5. Pair prepayment and pet insurance
Pet insurance and veterinary prepayment plans go hand in hand to improve affordability. Still, many pet owners misunderstand the nuances between them or believe they need only one or the other. Explain the differences between wellness plans, which are designed to cover routine pet needs, and pet health insurance, which covers unexpected accidents and illnesses, so that clients can understand their complementary nature.
6. Boost prepayment plan visibility
Look for ways to make veterinary prepayment plans more visible to new and existing clients. Mention wellness plans when discussing preventive services and dedicate a portion of your website to explaining the plans in detail. Include an enrollment link directly on your site to remove friction from the process.
Use everyday interactions as opportunities to discuss and normalize prepayment, but keep mentions brief and don’t push clients who say no. Consistency ensures clients are familiar with the options and can choose to enroll at any time.
If plans automatically renew, ensure pet parents get reminders well before the term ends and have a means to adjust payment methods in a digital account easily. The easier and more hassle-free you can make things for clients, the better.
Veterinary prepayment improves pet health
When clients prepay for services, they stick to a consistent veterinary care schedule and hesitate less to schedule sick visits when pets aren’t feeling well. Hospital teams enjoy consistent monthly income and increased practice efficiency, while clients enjoy better budget planning and upgraded pet healthcare.
Encouraging enrollment starts with education, continues with clear, frequent communication, and ends with a simple, hassle-free enrollment process. When prepayment and a focus on preventive pet care become part of a hospital’s culture and values, clients will see its value, and more pets will get the care they need.
