How Veterinary Professionals Can Help Gen X, Millennials, and Gen Z in Need Afford Pet Care
"I don't want huge things. Like, I want to get a dog someday. But what if that dog has to go to the vet and we have to pay $6,000 to get this dog surgery? Wanting a dog to share with my partner should not be a thing that could bankrupt us."
This article from the @nytimes on July 11, 2022 featured a series of young Americans sharing their worries about their economic futures.
Aedan's story hit me like a ton of bricks.
While I certainly don't have all the answers to the this very complex issue (no one does), I know there are at least a few steps the veterinary profession can take:
1) Address cost concerns and affordability of our services.
We need to understand that compromise and compassion are inextricably interlinked. This doesn't mean we don't charge a fair fee or practice the highest standards of care, in many instances we're still woefully undercharging and can always improve our abilities, it's that we need to evaluate each pet and pet parent's circumstances and make shared decision-making a priority.
Otherwise, we’ll continue to see stories like this in the national news, potentially preventing a generation from benefiting from the joys of living with pets for fear of financial disaster.
2) We also need to make affordable veterinary care a priority at both the veterinary organizational and local and state governmental levels.
There are tremendous opportunities if we look for them as a collective body, rather than at a highly-fragmented individual clinic level.
3) More loans and credit cards to add additional debt to folks already overwhelmed by student loans and credit cards isn’t necessarily the answer.
Making matters worse, many veterinary medical team members have limited training in these payment plans, leading to even further financial conflicts, especially in crises.
We need to create healthy coping mechanisms and staff training to unburden ourselves from “fee guilt” by allowing pet parents to be true partners in pet care decisions.
There’s a lot more to this topic, but we need to continue to innovate options for pet parents with financial constraints.
4) Pet Insurance needs to be more accessible, affordable, easier to understand, and inclusive.
5) Patience.
Allow pet parents adequate time to make serious decisions. I understand there are emergency exceptions, but we need to improve our client communications and allow opportunities to process complicated decisions whenever possible.
6) Preventive and proactive veterinary care needs to be the focus of every veterinary professional.
We need to transition from an exclusive paradigm of reactive, “fire truck” veterinary medicine to utilizing emerging technologies such as genomics and AI to identify risk factors and use that data to educate pet parents on how to maintain optimal health, extend longevity, and enhance the quality of life of the pets we love to serve.
This renaissance is rapidly happening in the human medical field, and the revitalization is underway in veterinary medicine. Keeping pets healthy by providing personalized wellness plans and routine, targeted monitoring helps keep pet parents bonded to veterinary professionals. Individualized evidence-based pet care recommendations also empower pet parents and strengthen the relationships between pets and people. Everyone wins when pets (and people) live longer, healthier lives.