Translating the Science of Equine Wellness Into a Business Model/Wellness Plan and What This Can Do for Your Practice From an Economical Standpoint

A wellness program is not a bundle of discounted services. That is a discount plan and many people (including the author) have tried unsuccessfully to sell a discount plan as a wellness program. A wellness plan is a service that requires the commitment of the lay and professional staff to operate successfully. When done properly, a wellness plan is a tool to set your practice apart, increase client visits, and increase opportunities to improve client loyalty. Author’s address: Brazos Valley Equine Hospital, 6999 Hwy 6, Navasota, TX 77868-7465; e-mail: bbuchanan@bveh.com.

1. Introduction

As defined by Merriam-Webster (www.merriamwebster.com), “wellness” is the quality or state of being in good health especially as an actively sought goal. This is an appropriate definition for a wellness plan in veterinary medicine as well. When a practitioner is developing a wellness program there are several aspects that should be considered. What is the goal of the wellness plan? Is it the right time to develop a wellness plan? What is in the wellness plan? How to execute the plan?

A wellness plan can encompass many aspects of the care of the horse. Depending on the practice’s population, it can be vaccines and general exams, it could be serial radiographs and lameness exams, it could be dentistry, or it could be acupuncture and chiropractics. To begin to build a wellness plan, the practice must first decide on the ultimate goal. Is the goal to introduce a new service, increase use of a current service, or to continue building client loyalty? As with every service, one goal is to be profitable. How a wellness plan can be profitable depends on how it is designed. The author discourages discounting and bundling services. While successful in small animal practices, this approach has been a failure for us and many equine veterinarians. In this approach, the belief is that the client will either not utilize the services that are prepaid or that by giving free exams, the client will spend money on diagnostics leading to higher average transactions per client. Our philosophy has been to encourage clients to utilize the wellness plan to both benefit the horse and also to benefit the owner by relieving them of the worry about “what does my horse need and when?” Because you are taking care of it for them, it helps build loyalty and trust of the veterinarian as an essential partner in taking care of the horse and establishing the vet as the go-to person for the healthcare needs. 

2. When to Invest in a Wellness Plan

A wellness plan may not be appropriate for every practice. If the doctors are booked out 2 weeks, implementing a wellness plan does not make sense, as they will not be able to provide additional services. If there are consistently 1 to 2 appointments not filled on the schedule or a seasonally slow period, investing in a wellness plan is worth considering. In a general practice where vaccine sales or dentistry are small parts of the total visits or income, a preventative wellness plan may be worth implementing. The more involved you are in the “little things” (dentals, vaccination, and deworming), the more vertically integrated you will be in the total healthcare of that individual horse making yourself more essential to that individual client.

One other scenario to consider for implementing a wellness plan is when there are similar style practices competing for the same clients. Offering a wellness plan is one way to build client loyalty and to elevate your practice above the competition. The decision to implement a wellness plan should involve the professional staff, the lay staff, and office staff. Encouraging their input will help to build ownership in the plan and improve staff buy-in. If the office staff feels the plan is too complicated or the professional and lay staff do not understand the plan or make recommendations counter to the plan, it will not be successful.

3. Designing the Plan

Once the decision has been made to design a wellness plan, several questions should be addressed.

• Who is the target client?
• What is included in the plan?
• Is a farm call included?
• What is not included in the plan?
• Are there multiple levels or customization of the plan?
• Why is that beneficial to the horse?
• How will this be beneficial to the horse owner?
• Why is that beneficial to us?

There is a tendency to add up all the services you want to offer and mark them down 10 to 20% and sell the plan as a great deal. While this is a great deal, it is the author’s impression that the horse owners in search of a great deal buy their vaccines and wormers at the feed store. Building a plan for clients who don’t seek routine veterinary services is not logical. Including some free services can be helpful as long as those services are likely to lead to other diagnostics. A detailed oral exam may lead to more dentistry. A semi-annual lameness exam may lead to more joint therapy and orthopedic diagnostics. Including customization will increase the attractiveness to clients but also increases the work load on the office staff. If the plan is too complicated for the staff to keep straight, clients will not understand it and will not buy into the plan.

After deciding what is in the plan, you must put a price on it. Will you charge clients monthly? Charge them once a year? When billed out monthly, client retention is highest. When billed out once a year, the chances of losing money on the plan are reduced as the client has prepaid for all the services. When pricing the plan, add up everything included in the plan at full value. Divide this number by 12. That is the monthly cost to the client for you to administer the plan and treat the horse. There are multiple companies that you can outsource the monthly debit or bank withdraw reducing the workload on your office staff. Autopay from a bank account is preferred to a credit card, as bank accounts do not expire and are less frequently canceled. Consider asking for a bank account as a backup for clients who want to set up the plan on a credit card.

Consider your clientele: Will they pay this monthly fee? If not, consider removing some things from the plan. Will there be a onetime setup fee? You need to decide what to do with clients who want to cancel the plan and to be very clear on how to handle scenarios involving sale or death of the horse. We will allow clients to cancel a plan, but they must pay the full retail price for everything they have used and not yet paid for.

4. Internal Marketing and Training

Once you have decided what is in your plan and the cost, you still have to “sell” it to clients. Just like any new service, some marketing and client education is a must. Having the staff buy-in is critical in recommending or offering the plan to clients when they call to make an appointment, when they arrive and check in, during the examination, and on any follow-up contacts. It is most useful to “sell” the plan to clients during well horse visits that are related to components of your plan. It is not helpful to try and “sell” clients a preventative wellness plan when the horse presents for an illness. The staff needs to understand all aspects of the wellness plan and be able to articulate this to the clients. The staff should be able to answer most questions the client asks. Most importantly, the staff must believe that the wellness plan is in the best interest of the horse, client, and practice. Having some written material on the website and as handouts is important to allowing clients to review the details. Where we have failed in “selling” our wellness plan has been poorly training our staff and having doctors make recommendations counter to the plan. The AAEP has multiple resources available to clients and staff in relation to core vaccines and deworming strategies. Utilizing these tools is one method to get all the veterinarians and staff on the same page when discussing the wellness plan with clients. No client is going to invest in a wellness plan that recommends twice a year influenza if the veterinarian advises them that once a year is all they need. [...]