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Carolyn Sumner, Tufts

"Curious Giraffe", photo"Bath time for Raja", photo

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Having a Plan Can Help Drive Preventive Pet Healthcare

Partners for Healthy Pets is an alliance of more than 20 leading veterinary associations and animal health companies committed to a vision of improved overall health for pets. As an associate member, The Vet Gazette will be regularly posting updates. Check back on Friday for another post and visit thier website to learn more!

The cost of veterinary care often carries with it a certain level of sticker shock for pet owners. But there are ways to help ease your clients’ financial pain. When it comes to preventive care, we can find ways to make sure pets stay healthy while also making it easier for pet owners to afford that care.

As we all know, dogs and cats are visiting the veterinarian less frequently, and their health status shows it. A recent report indicated that preventable and treatable health issues such as diabetes, dental disease, heartworm disease and flea infestations in both dogs and cats are on the rise. This problem is no doubt a source of great frustration to you and other veterinarians. But there is a promising solution that has solid appeal among many pet owners: Preventive healthcare plans.

A preventive healthcare plan is a comprehensive package of annual veterinary services aimed at keeping a pet healthy that includes a little extra pet-owner incentive that you can provide – the choice between a monthly payment plan or lump-sum payment. These plans typically include one or more complete physical exams for routine well care, essential vaccines, certain diagnostics such as heartworm tests and blood work, and internal parasite control.

While the use of preventive healthcare plans may represent a significant change in your business approach, it also pays dividends to everyone involved –

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Meet your Executive Board: Scott Dudis

This post is part of a series made to introduce you to your elected board members, and also to share a little bit about what SAVMA is working on on a national level. The officers are a group of students that are former SAVMA Delegates and were elected by their fellow Delegates to oversee the House. Keep checking back to meet the whole board!

Name, Position on EB: Scott Dudis, Global/Public Health Officer

School and Year: Cornell University (class of 2014)

Hometown: Wyoming, OH

Your area of interest within veterinary medicine: military medicine, public health, epidemiology

Description of office entails: The GPHO and GPHO-elect try to ensure that the Student AVMA House of Delegates works in conjunction with the long-term vision of the One Health Project. The main component of this mission is to coordinate local One Health events at veterinary schools across the nation.  

Your favorite thing about holding that office: There are so many hard-working students and veterinarians that I get to meet through my work on exec board. I love seeing their enthusiasm and pride for the profession, and it helps motivate me to be better as well.

Something exciting that your office has done/is doing for veterinary students this past year:  With financial sponsorship from the GHLIT, we are able to provide funding support to all schools for many of these programs. The most recent themes have promoted awareness of rabies, obesity, and vector-borne illness, and the upcoming theme is food safety & food security.Scott's finest piece

Your favorite  SCAVMA related experience (EB or not): At the 2012 SAVMA Symposium I was able to meet and interact with the celebrity elephant from Water for Elephants – it was an amazing experience with an enormous and impressive creature.

Something fun about yourself: I am currently working toward a future mastery of the fine art of balloon animal creation. My finest piece is a lion, and I'm trying to improve my "monkey in a tree"

Words that Work: Communicating the Value of Preventive Pet Healthcare, March 2013

Partners for Healthy Pets is an alliance of more than 20 leading veterinary associations and animal health companies committed to a vision of improved overall health for pets. As an associate member, The Vet Gazette will be regularly posting updates. Check back on Friday for another post and visit thier website to learn more!

Research shows that pet owners are willing to embrace preventive healthcare visits if they know it will benefit their pets. Unfortunately, research also shows that many pet owners don’t completely understand the value of routine care. Effective communications skills help establish trust between the pet owner and your healthcare team. They also lead to client and patient compliance.

As professionals, we are good at making recommendations about pet health, but we are not always as diligent about effectively communicating the value and benefit of what we are recommending. The more we understand about a pet owner and the pet’s environment, the more we can help the pet owner understand the value of what we are doing and the more willing they are to provide their pet with the care you recommend.

Our clients need to understand the value of veterinary services, and the goal of Partners for Healthy Pets is to help you build appreciation for preventive healthcare by helping you better communicate the value of your services.

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Teri Williams, Georgia