11/08/2021
Wow. What a year (or 18 months...).
We appreciate our clients and community more than you can imagine. We have been too busy to keep up with much, but wanted to make a post to clarify our current status and give some updates.
Veterinary medicine has undergone some strange changes over the past year. We (as a profession) have been extremely busy and short-staffed. Our practice has seen unprecedented growth, and as a small operation we have exceeded our capacity. I'd like to outline some general guidelines and policies that will hopefully keep us serving the community going forward.
We have made the difficult decision (because we do this to help pets 😥) that, barring unusual circumstances, to not take on new clients at this time. We WILL still see emergency surgical referrals, as we are able, from local referral centers, as we have in the past. This policy may change going forward, as our patient population is dynamic, and we will provide updates when they do.
Additional reminders and clarifications:
1. Given how busy we are, you may be getting our voicemail more frequently. Please do not hang up and call back immediately. We may have a patient in our hands or having a serious discussion with a distraught client. Please allow at least 5-10 minutes before calling back. If your call can't wait 5-10 minutes, seek emergency care. If you need local ER phone numbers be sure to have them available before it is an emergency.
2. We are in surgery Wednesday and Thursday afternoons. While you are welcome to call during these hours you will most likely get voicemail. Phone calls will generally be returned at the end of the day or the next business day. If your call is more urgent than that, please seek emergency care.
3. If your pet has been admitted to the clinic for surgery, a dental, or as a drop-off day case, please try not to call during the day. We fully understand how worried you are and how difficult it is to leave your pets, however we are only 2 people and to stop to answer a phone can really slow us down or distract us from the task at hand, which is generally caring for a patient (we typically will have 6-8 patients admitted). We assure you we will call you if there are any problems. Please confirm we have your contact numbers correct when you drop off. If it is past 6 pm and you haven't heard anything from us, please do call, as there are sometimes issues with phones, etc. But our surgery days often go until 7 or 8 at night. You may not hear from us until 5 or 6 or even later, do not worry. Your pets are in good hands ❤.
4. We have been seeing patients in the office, one family at a time, everyone with masks (vaccinated or not - and please wear your mask appropriately, up over the nose!!), with some special considerations: Please call when you get here. If you get our voicemail and you see other cars here, no need to leave a message, wait in your car, we will see you and motion you in when it is your turn. If you feel you may have been forgotten please call back 😊. We are also having people remain in the waiting room as we go into our small exam room with the pet. We are keeping the door open, so owners have full visibility of their pet and can communicate with us during the exam, but still keep our distance.
5. This barely needs saying, as our clients are wonderful, but please be patient with us. At the same time please don't hesitate to "poke" us when needed. We have a zillion things going on and over 3000 patients. If we don't get back to you right away it doesn't mean we don't care, we just have 30 other calls to return as well. A voicemail may get lost (or, a few times, it has come through incomprehensible), so please DO call us back if you've gone 36 hours without a reply. If your pet has labwork pending and you haven't heard from us, please call!
6. Since you are reading this on Facebook, please feel free to use messaging the page when appropriate. Appropriate messages are for:
- non-emergency situations
- it is off-hours (non-urgent, message may not be answered until next business day)
- our voicemail is full (for most situations calling first is best, if our voicemail is full messenger is a good option)
7. We may be adjusting our hours for winter. We have been working 55-70 hours a week for the past year and that is not sustainable going forward. We will keep our page hours updated but may start having a few earlier nights to be sure we are caring for ourselves and our children as well as your pets.
8. Why don't we just hire more people? We don't want to "grow" and have more vets, or even technicians, who can't uphold the standard of care we pride ourselves on. Our clients have chosen us to get personalized care, and we want to continue to provide that. We don't want to become a multi-doctor hospital, that was never our goal. If we hired someone to answer phones they would just have to check with us on 90% of the calls, which wouldn't really help. So Moodus Vet will remain small and family owned.
Thanks to all our dear clients, patients, and friends. It's been a tough year for everyone, I know we are not alone in this.
