Declining vet visits: is education really the answer?

As a veterinary professional, our greatest overriding concern is always prevention. Prevention is the key to everything. It is the key to a puppy not getting deadly viruses, a middle aged dog staying active and slim, and to an older dog having a mouth full of sparkly teeth, but we cannot do it without the pet owner.

Every one knows that in the face of our industry’s preventive care thrust, preventable disease is on the rise and veterinary visits are on the decline. Part of this is due to financial constraints, and part of this is our previous vaccine-centered veterinary visit, both of which we are working on, but the last part may be pet owner education.

The veterinary profession talks endlessly about client education. It is the Holy Grail that will turn our industry around and make every hospital profitable. I too wholeheartedly believe that education will bring pet owners in more frequently, but belief may not be enough. The facts may be pointing in a different direction. Sure correlation isn’t causation, but there is certainly no harm in looking for the problems within our hospitals (where we can affect change) instead of without – where we cannot. We have, as an industry, been stressing education for ten years, and for ten years, people have been showing up less often – not more often – at many of our hospitals. Why?

Perhaps education is only half the solution, and half of the problem. Maybe we are educating our clients well, and then failing them in the end, during the most important aspect of any veterinary visit: the exam.

Remember the adage that a little knowledge is a bad thing? Well, perhaps all of our efforts with titles like “5 signs your cat is sick” And “How to tell if your dog hurts” have backfired? What if our profession is providing just enough knowledge to make our clients dangerous?

We all know how vital the exam is. The entire profession has talked ourselves blue advocating exams over vaccines. Veterinarians are told to explain their exams, “Look at Fuzzy’s teeth? See the tartar there?” We tell clients that Fluffmeister’s lungs and heart sound okay, take a peek in the ears and maybe glance in the eyes and take a look “under the hood”.

And we are doing everything we can to demystify medicine. We explain heartworm cycles and tick behavior, tooth brushing and how to avoid spoiling pets with treats, and then we say, “See ya next year.”

But maybe we need a bit of mystery. After all, I am a fairly educated person, I can look in my dogs’ ears, I can look at their mouths (I often do, and they are clearly not flossing), and I would certainly know if someone was coughing, limping or acting lethargic.

If we want to emphasize our exams perhaps we need to create a bit of mystery. Use the otoscope, use the opthalmascope, use a bit of jargon, “the sclera is a bit red, Mrs. Hatmuffin, it’s probably allergies, but if anything changes…”  There’s a reason Banfield uses a tonopen during every exam.

Think of what transpired during your own visits to a physician: otoscope, opthalmascope, reflexes, breathing in and out, breath holding, coughing, and that’s for the young and spry. We also inevitably pee in a cup that is delivered to who knows where and is never seen or heard from again (do they even run it?). Visiting the doctor involves a bit of mystery. Maybe your pet’s visit should as well.

We are all trying to create educated pet owners, because we all know that the ones who are all over the internet reposting dog-food recalls are our best clients, but we need to remember that the more educated they are, the more likely they are to demand more of us.

I worked with a doctor whose exam consisted of a TPR (maybe), brief stethescope exam, token abdomen feel and a peek under the tail. He believed people were in a hurry and wanted out of the hospital. Perhaps so, but they were dropping good money to cart their dog or cat into the hospital, the least we could do was honor their time with a thorough exam. Had this veterinarian moved to three-year vaccines he never would have seen his clients again!

We all believe that well-care and exams are the cornerstone of well care, and so we probably need to double down on ensuring that those exams look and feel the part to the client. And, bonus: a more thorough exam might just uncover something – you never know.