APPOINTMENTS, DAYTIME EMERGENCY AND MISSED APPOINTMENT POLICY
Our order of priority in attending to patients:
(1) Daytime Emergencies
(2) Scheduled Appointments
(3) Walk-ins and Late Appointments
Daytime Emergencies:
Emergency cases shall always receive top priority, which is why occasional appointment delay is inevitable. If your pet had a life threatening medical crisis you would want our doctors and staff to give them immediate attention - we ask you give the same courtesy to others in this situation.
Scheduled Appointments:
We have chosen to operate a scheduled appointment style medical practice to ensure we are able to see our clients in a timely reliable fashion. We also do this to permit ample time for the proper examination and assessment of our patients and to give our clients adequate time to have their concerns addressed and questions answered.
Our practice does run on schedule the vast majority of time and we consider this an important benefit to our clients. We ask you do your best to arrive at the practice a few minutes prior to your scheduled appointment time. This will give you time to unload your pet from your vehicle, give Fluffy a brief walk to relieve herself, collect your paperwork and enter the practice for your appointment. Staying on a schedule and seeing our clients on time is a valued priority for us, however it requires everyone - staff, doctors and clients - to work together for everyone's benefit.
Drop Off Appointments:
For your convenience, drop-off appointments are available. A 'drop-off' means you may bring your pet to the hospital facility at a time that works for you and leave them with us. Usually we will ask you to drop off sometime on a weekday morning between 7:30-9:00 AM so our doctors can examine the patient between appointments or at a time purposely reserved for admitted patients. Generally, when you drop off we will set up a 15 minute discharge time to have qualified staff go over basic information -or- the doctor will discuss important findings or concerns. We request you call to set-up a drop off. We do not perform this service on Saturdays.
Walk-ins and Late Appointments:
Walk-ins (No scheduled appointment) and those arriving after their scheduled appointment time begins will be seen on a space available basis. Space available means either after other scheduled appointments have been attended to or in an otherwise 'open' appointment time. We simply will not make clients who arrive on time for their scheduled appointments wait while we attend to others who have missed their appointment start time - it is a matter of common courtesy.
In some circumstances late arrivals may be given the option to reschedule for another day / time or to drop off their pet for examination and treatment and schedule a 15 minute discharge time later in the day.
Missed Appointments:
Currently our practice does not invoke a failed appointment charge for missed or "No Show" appointments. However, after two such failed appointments a notation is attached to the client file dictating the client is no longer able to set Veterinarian based appointments. Instead only Staff Schedule appointments will be permitted. This means these appointments will appear on the staff schedule list and will be seen by the veterinarian when the doctor is available - either in between the doctor based appointments or after them which could mean a wait of some measure of time.
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