By Marissa Heflin

Wellness plans are not new; however, the uptick in popularity is fairy recent. Veterinary practices are now incorporating them into their business strategy instead of just casually offering them to their clients.

There are several reasons for practices to consider wellness plans, according to Partners for Healthy Pets, which is led by the American Veterinary Medical Association and the American Animal Hospital Association. No. 1: Pets get better, more dependable care because the frequency of visits increases. No. 2: Clients like having a plan spelled out for them in black and white, and monthly payments that they can work into their household budget. No. 3: When clients have a plan and agree to pay for the year's services, they are more diligent and conscientious about scheduling required services, creating a stronger bond to the given practice.

Banfield Pet Hospital of Vancouver, Wash., implemented its Optimum Wellness Plans (OWP) nearly 30 years ago as a way to help improve access and affordability to veterinary medicine. The company views its plans as proactive, as opposed to reactive, veterinary care. While pet insurance offers coverage for unforeseen circumstances, preventive care plans allows veterinarians to see, treat, and prevent those problems ahead of time, according to Banfield.

"We have more than two million pets on OWPs and have continued to see wellness-plan growth over the years, particularly as it relates to customization," said Alison Hiatt, chief marketing officer of Banfield.

The company's wellness plans are an essential part of its practice, and on average, OWP clients visit Banfield hospitals more often than non-OWP clients, according Hiatt.

The Pet Doctors Animal Clinic and partner Minnehaha Animal Hospital, both based in Minneapolis, recently began offering wellness plans in an effort to set the practice apart from others in the area.

"We have had clients come to us specifically because we offer the wellness plans," said Patti Christie, CVT, practice manager.

Their clients consider preventive care recommendations important, but budgets often get in the way.

"Being able to break up the cost into 12 monthly payments makes it easier on the household budget," she said.

Client request is what spurred Center Veterinary Clinic in San Diego to launch its program two years ago, according to Gail Bigelow, hospital manager. Some clients were transferring from a larger veterinary group because they wanted a smaller, more intimate type practice, but they liked the wellness plans previously offered.

"One of my staff members also had worked in a clinic that had plans, so we decided to try it," said Bigelow.

Offering wellness plans has the potential to turn "C" clients into "A" and "B" clients, according to Bigelow. Clients who hadn't been bringing in pets for wellness care are now more apt to do so. Even clients who are diligent about preventive care appreciate the plans, especially those who are on a fixed income and want to spread out cost, she said.

Designing a plan

There's a lot to consider when designing a great wellness plan. "Preventive Healthcare Plans: An Effective Tool for Improving the Health of America's Pets," published by Partners for Healthy Pets, outlines four key elements:

• Number of plans. Six plans are typical, three for dogs and three for cats, with each set covering puppy/kitten, adults, and seniors.
• Services included per plan. Basic plans should ideally include one or more preventive care/wellness exams, appropriate diagnostics, all recommended vaccinations, and parasite screening. A list of suggested services can be found online at partnersforhealthypets.org.
• Pricing. There are two components to this, one being the fee for each plan and the second is whether to charge an enrollment fee. Practices can consider offering multiple-pet discounts as well.
• Special benefits/discounts offered.This may include complimentary or discounted office visits, and/or a percentage off of the cost of non-plan products and services.

Banfield's OWPs focus on preventive care and early disease diagnosis, such as unlimited office visits, annual comprehensive examinations, regular bloodwork, vaccines, and dental cleanings, according to Hiatt.

"OWPs are not insurance and, therefore, do not provide for full cost of emergency or sick pet care, but they do provide unlimited office visits and additional discounts on services not included in the plan to help lower the overall cost of care," she said. "With an OWP, there are no pre-existing conditions or deductibles to consider."

Like most components of a business strategy, a practice will want to reevaluate its wellness plans every so often to make sure they still fit the clientele base and/or current medical standards.

"Our OWPs have changed over the years as best practices and evidence-based veterinary medicine have evolved," Hiatt said. "We customized our plans over the past five years to make them more flexible. For example, clients can choose to add services to their OWP like flea and tick preventive, heartworm preventive, adult spay or neuter and an additional dental cleaning."

When it comes to implementing the plans, practices can spearhead the rollout or turn to a company that specializes in these matters.

The Pet Doctors Animal Clinic, partner Minnehaha Animal Hospital, and Center Veterinary Clinic use Petly Plans from IDEXX Laboratories Inc. of Westbrook, Maine.

"I never considered or looked into doing this on our own even though our software does allow us to manage an in-house wellness plan," Christie said. "The biggest hassle I saw with an in-house program was the administration time—making sure that services are marked as used and payments are processed."

"[Petly] is totally customizable so we can have as many (or as few) plans as we would like and tailor the services offered in the plans to our clinic's protocols," Christie said. "Petly is a great option for us because we have Cornerstone and it integrates so well with our patient records/database, making the admin time very minimal."

Ironing out challenges

Promoting a new product or service can sometimes be tricky. In fact, Christie said it's still a work in progress for them.

"The biggest hurdle we have is getting the staff to talk to clients about the programs," Christie said. "We've done in-services, webinars, and several staff meetings to get staff to promote these programs. We have had incentive programs for staff—even that didn't help us reach goals … I guess it feels too much like they are 'selling.'"

Christie attributes this in part to working solo on the development of the plans.

"I put these programs together myself and rolled out the programs to the staff," she said. "I think I would have had better 'buy in' and compliance had more team members been part of the process of creating the programs."

Examples of marketing include making plan information easily visible on the practice's website, creating dedicated brochures/fliers, sending out special mailings or emails and/or announcing the availability of the plans through the "on hold" telephone messages.

As Partners for Healthy Pets points out, "It takes commitment, planning, training, and marketing to be successful with preventive healthcare plans."

Life happens … a client moving, a pet dying, a cancellation request … all scenarios practices need to consider how to handle.

"This does happen," Christie said. "The nice thing about Petly is that we have autonomy on how we handle these situations. It is easy to find out how much in services have been provided versus how much has been paid in monthly installments."

Explaining to clients how the program works before any of these situations arise is crucial, Bigelow said. It's important they know what to expect, she added.

When a pet on an OWP dies, Banfield collects payment for the services already provided through the plan, according to Hiatt. Banfield does not collect payment for the services still available through the plan.

"As pet owners and pet lovers ourselves, we realize what a difficult and painful time this can be and are committed to partnering with pet owners to find the most painless outcome," Hiatt said.

Plan cancellations are similar.

Some practices may run into payment challenges.

"At our one location, Pet Doctors, we had a high rate of transactions not processing," Christie said. "Clients would give us their credit card for the automatic payment and too often the card had been compromised and the number had changed. We had to track down the client for their new payment information."

Once the clinics switched to Petly, they were able to add e-check payment as an option. "An auto withdrawal from their checking account is required and clients must provide a voided check to sign up," Christie said. "We found that if [clients] have a checking account, they are a better 'risk' and our rate of declined transactions and defaults went down greatly."

Overall, wellness plans have proved to be successful, Bigelow said, noting their 90 percent renewal rate. About 170 clients are participating in the program generating about $7,000 per month.

Bigelow's advice?

"Try it," she said. "We're lucky because this is my whole job."

It is really important to select someone who can devote the time to organize the program, Bigelow added.

"I'm a firm believer of having everything organized and in place, having the entire staff trained and then rolling it out," Bigelow said.