"I want to test your pet's blood"
Dr. Robert Stannard educates clients about the importance of blood testing. Compliance is great, he says, and the team often finds problems in what are apparently normal, healthy patients.
Twenty-nine to 36 percent of Adobe Pet Hospitalâs income comes from lab work, says Dr. Robert Stannard. Heâs owned the AAHA-accredited practice in Livermore, Calif., for 26 years. He says those numbers show how receptive clients are to diagnostic testing.
âMost people who come to us want to keep their pets healthy,â he says. âWe stress that the best way to keep them healthy is to identify any problems lurking in the background. Cancer is the No. 1 killer, but kidney disease is the second-leading cause of death. If we catch these issues early, we can prevent bigger problems later.â
Dr. Stannard uses a couple powerful client communication strategies to reinforce the importance of routine testing:
> he explains that pets age faster than humans, and
> he relates a pet wellness visit to the clientâs human wellness visit. For example, he asks clients, âYou wouldnât go to the doctor for an annual wellness exam and skip the lab work, would you?â
> Finally, he reminds clients that pets canât say how theyâre feeling, so testing is even more important for them.
Reach out and test someone
The practice team delivers these messages in the exam room, of course, and also on the practiceâs Web site. Besides providing information about routine blood testing and geriatric evaluations, the site periodically features patients who have benefitted. For example, Dr. Stannard posted a story about Gretta, a 10-year-old dog that suffered from a parathyroid gland tumor that wouldnât have been discovered without regular senior blood testing.
The staff members at Adobe Pet Hospital also review brochures with clients that show how pets age faster than humans. And they put laminated printouts that cover blood testing in the exam room. They provide one for junior wellness blood testing and one for senior wellness blood and urine testing. (See samples at vetecon.com.) Instead of offering the medical explanation of the tests, the sheets concentrate on the benefits. âWe tried to put this information in terms clients could understand,â Dr. Stannard says.
Another strategy that helps compliance: grouping tests together. The practice requires annual heartworm, lyme, and ehrlichiosis testing, so the team offers these with the blood panel as a package deal. âWe wanted to make it cost-effective for clients to do them together,â Dr. Stannard says.
The laminated sheets include the cost of the services, so clients arenât left guessing what theyâll pay. âIf they donât want the full panel, we can do a smaller one, though we stress the benefits of regular screening and blood testing.â
To overcome any price resistance, Dr. Stannard says they work to demonstrate the value of blood and urine testing. âWe point out that the senior wellness panel includes four pages of lab data, which gives us valuable information to help keep their pet healthy,â he says. âClients are very receptive. If they arenât, the veterinarians and team members arenât communicating the importance of blood testing.â
Samples of client handouts about junior and senior wellness blood testing
www.vetecon.com/vetec/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=390794
Client education handout on blood testing
