Efficient Scheduling for Spay/Neuter Clinics Based on Animal Parameters
Our unique scheduling system lets spay/neuter clinics make appointments based on the animals’ sex, species, and weight. The system will look at these parameters and let you know how many spots you have available. It can also look for the availability of mobile locations. Appointments can be scheduled online or within the clinic. It should be noted that only public appointments can be made online. All volume client appointments must still be made internally by your clinic. However, volume clients can fill in all the details about the animals and the volume client portal.
External Appointments
An external appointment refers to one that is made online through a scheduling link. Clients can schedule appointments for spay/neuter and wellness services online. This should be the primary strategy for any spay/neuter clinic. Our system is designed to prevent overbooking, ensuring smooth scheduling. You can also collect deposits online and gather necessary information about the animal in advance. If your clinic isn’t offering online scheduling, you’re likely working harder than you need to.
Only public appointments can be made online.
Internal Appointments
An internal appointment is one where your staff schedules the appointment inside Clinic HQ. Both public and volume client appointments can be made this way.
Walk-Ins
Walk-ins are still considered “appointments.” It does not matter that you “schedule” them the moment they walk in at the time they have walked in. The concept here is that any patient seen at your clinic has an appointment. Ideally, appointments are made ahead of time so you can know what to expect, but if you get walk-ins, you can schedule them the moment they walk into the clinic.
Spay/Neuter Appointments
Spay/neuter appointments are appointments made to get a spay/neuter. Vaccinations, microchips, and other services can also be rendered when they get their spay/neuter. Occasionally a clinic will do a dental and the spay/neuter together. In this instance, the primary intention of the appointment should be spay/neuter, and a dental can be added as a service.
Most of the time, spay/neuter appointments are not assigned a time because check-in is done in bulk at the same time every day. For example, you may have your check-in set from 7:30 to 8:30 AM. Therefore, the primary scheduling concept for spay/neuter is to balance the dogs and cats and the males and females. Your capacity will also be determined by how many large kennels you have available and how many veterinarians you have on staff.
HQ supports scheduling for mobile locations as well. We also do support the ability to schedule spay/neuters by timeslots. However, spay/neuter by time is not a feature most stationary clinics will use since it spreads appointments across a larger drop-off time frame. Spay/Neuter by time is often useful for mobile clinics that are unable to house all scheduled surgeries at one time. Also, as mentioned above, you can add a walk-in spay/neuter appointment.
Wellness Appointments
Wellness appointments come in many shapes and sizes. The vast majority of wellness appointments are for vaccine clinics in Clinic HQ. However, you can also have many other wellness appointments, including medication pickups, dentals, mass removals, basic exams, end-of-life services, or any appointment that is not for spay/neuter.
All wellness appointments should be prescheduled, including vaccine clinic appointments. You can still have walk-in vaccine clinic appointments at the risk of belaboring the point. However, this is not the fastest way to do a vaccine clinic. By far, the quickest way is to have clients prescheduled appointments.
Recheck Appointments
Recheck appointments are specifically for spay/neuter. A recheck refers to the idea that the incision needs to be rechecked after a spay/neuter appointment. If the animal needs to be rechecked for any other type of anesthetic procedure, this should be set up as a subsequent wellness appointment. We have over 10,000 items in the database of our service that you can select from to describe what kind of appointment this should be. For example, you may want to say dental follow-up. If that’s the case, you can request that item or see if it’s already in our database. There are many statistics and other things tied to recheck appointments specifically. You must only schedule an animal for a recheck if they have had a spay/neuter surgery.
Anesthetic versus Non-Anesthetic
In Patient Flow, you will notice a drop-down called “anesthetic/non-anesthetic.” What this means is that the patient is scheduled to receive anesthesia. Anesthesia does not only refer to sedation drugs; it is when the animal is given a medical treatment that prevents them from feeling pain during procedures like surgery. Most commonly in spay/neuter clinics, anesthesia is given for spay/neuter. Many clinics, though, also do things like dental cleaning, mass removals, and other types of surgeries.
We divide these out in patient flow because it has to do with the types of drugs that are given to anesthetize an animal. It is also important because this information flows to the treatment sheet and the drug log. We think that for non-anesthetic procedures, mostly, these will be vaccine clinic patients. You may find it advantageous to use patient flow for vaccine clinics and keep the toggle on non-anesthetic. Many clinics prefer the compact view that patient flow offers to move patients through your clinic.
