Veterinary Vexations/Calendar crashers: Managing the surprise walk-in

WHEN A CLIENT WITH a sick animal shows up on the spur of the moment, they want to be seen quickly. But you have a full schedule, with appointments booked by owners who also expect timely service. How can you keep everyone happy without overstretching yourself?

The Problem:

That dastardly broken nail! It never fails to send the owner rushing the afflicted pet into your lobby in a fit of panic that rendered them incapable of picking up the phone to announce their impending arrival. Embedded ticks seem to have the same effect, as do sudden limps. And sometimes itchy ears. And…. It often doesn’t occur to these owners that they are entering a waiting area full of people there for scheduled appointments. Your receptionist tells the walk-in pet owner, “We don’t have any open exam slots today.” To which they spout, “But I’ve been coming to this practice since the Ming Dynasty.”

Of course, not every client shows such entitlement. In fact, many are apologetic. Some even express embarrassment for their state of alarm.

Addressing the problem:

For a variety of societal and economic reasons, pet owners have become more reactive when it comes to pet care. Where sick—and sickish—dogs and cats are concerned, watch-and-wait, makeshift, and DIY have gone the way of the original Gaines-Burgers.

The need to fix now and the quest to know now have breathed life into several relatively new sectors within veterinary health in recent years. Urgent care practices, which bridge the gap between critical and preventive care by addressing the “Uh-oh, this little thing just happened!” situations, raked in $2.7 billion in revenue globally in 2025; this number is forecast to climb to almost $4 billion over the next 5 years.¹

Also addressing impulse care is the veterinary telehealth market, which is expanding worldwide at a compound annual growth rate of 19% and tracking to hit over $800 million by the year 2030.² And sales of pet wearables—digitally connected collars, cameras, and other health monitoring devices that deliver wellness metrics to owners in real time—have already reached a staggering $3.5 billion worldwide.³

So when your client unexpectedly attempts to wedge an ailing pet into your day’s organized workflow, what do you do? The answer lies at the intersection of customer service, marketing, human resources, and your own self-preservation.

Triage is the key to handling walk-ins. If the owner phones first, your receptionist should mine them for information that could help determine whether your hospital is the best first stop for that medical issue. Factors such as urgency and severity of the problem, their distance from your hospital, and your current patient load and staffing level play into whether they might be advised to go straight to emergency care or to schedule an appointment. These scenarios can be complicated: Front-end staff should be trained on the questions to ask and directed to consult with a technician or veterinarian if they are unsure how to handle a specific case.

For walk-in clients who show up without calling first, the technician should conduct a brief initial evaluation to determine next steps. Sniffing out the acutely critical is essential, said Christine Smart, VMD, owning partner at Pend Oreille Veterinary Service, in Ponderay, Idaho. “In a life-threatening emergency, a technician would triage the pet, and a veterinarian would start lifesaving care,” Smart said.

For less imminent emergencies, the pet might be directed to a nearby emergency hospital, where diagnostics, personnel, and 24-hour care might better suit its medical needs. Most pet owners are quite capable of matching the level of care to the specific problem. For minor pop-up problems, many hospitals set aside a few slots to handle them. This way, the regular appointment schedule is not impacted.

But be ready to pivot, and sometimes apologize, to your scheduled clientele. Consider that simple broken nail you thought would be a 15-minute in-and-out visit. It turns out the nail broke because it was brittle and curved. Because of a destroyed nail bed. Because of a swollen phalanx.

Now you need x-rays, which means shuffling technicians around. It turns out to be a tumor. You do the oncology talk and answer lots of questions. Maybe you prepare an estimate for the amputation. Maybe you put together a referral list of oncologists. Perhaps you perform euthanasia.

Whatever the outcome, your appointments are suddenly running behind. You are already going to work some 42 hours this week, according to American Veterinary Medical Association research data,⁴ and this single walk-in visit has added an hour to this. Your staff is stressed and your scheduled customers are antsy.

To prevent such dismantling of his appointment roster, Bob DiGregorio, VMD, practice owner of Boot Road Veterinary Clinic in Malvern, Pennsylvania, gives walk-in owners with stable pets the option to wait until he can attend to them. “I will tell them they can’t get upset if they have to wait an hour or longer to be seen, because I’m not going to bump back the other people who have scheduled appointments,” DiGregorio said.

At Smart’s hospital, they factor unexpected visits into the daily calendar and encourage drop-offs where appropriate. “We accommodate a limited number of walk-ins each day,” Smart said. “Unless the pet is actively dying, we...admit the patient, and we charge a walk-in fee.”

In the ideal situation, everyone’s needs are met by thoughtful choreography that anticipates the unanticipated.

References

1. Global Pet Urgent Care Market Growth (Status and Outlook) 2025-2031. Reliable Research IQ; 2025. Accessed April 27, 2026. https://reliableresearchIQ.com/pet-urgent-care-r3099770
2. Veterinary Telehealth Market Size and Share Analysis: Growth Trends and Forecast (2026-2031). Mordor Intelligence; 2026. Accessed April 27, 2026. https://www.mordorintelligence.com/industry-reports/global-veterinary-telehealth-market
3. Pet Wearable Market Size and Share Analysis: Growth Trends and Forecast, 2026-2031. Mordor Intelligence; 2026. Accessed April 27, 2026. https://www.mordorintelligence.com/industry-reports/pet-wearable-market
4. 2026 AVMA Report on the Economic State of the Veterinary Profession. American Veterinary Medical Association; 2026.