24/7 Emergency Vet - Disruption needed

[HoosierLife]

Oh man. My son dropped something out of the fridge and it landed on my 13-year-old dogs leg

So at 10 o’clock at night with her, not putting any weight on her leg and panting and shaking we go to the only 24 seven emergency vet in the area.

It took 30 minutes for me to get into a room and that was after I signed in Online 45 minutes prior to getting there.

It took another hour for the vet to see my dog. It took another hour for someone to come and find my dog to weigh her so they could figure out how much medicine to give her, and that was after I flagged somebody down in the hallway because I think they forgot about me.

Then it took another hour to take me out of the room and put me in the lobby but they wouldn’t let me leave or give me the medicine until a vet could talk to me.

Another 20 minutes go by and I tongue in cheek say “what does it take to get out of this place ladies?”

They make a call in 10 minutes later the vet checks us out and gives us the medication.

I was there for four hours. Who knows how long I would’ve been there had they actually need to do some x-rays?

Do you want an industry that is waiting for disruption and a little bit of systems and processes to make it more efficient, this is it.

 

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[amp0193]

Do you want an industry that is waiting for disruption and a little bit of systems and processes to make it more efficient, this is it.

Mirrors every experience I’ve had a ER vet, or a human ER for that matter.

Here’s what they got going for them:

- no competition, probably the only one in the area.

- you are extremely emotionally invested in the result (do you want your pet to live or not), so they have alllll the leverage. The value of their service is so high, that everything else can suck and you will still give them your business.

- Little chance of repeat business - if you have a shit experience, doesn’t really matter to them, because it will be years or never before you need to go back. So you will be squeezed for every dollar possible on your visit. And in any case, are you going to remember in 6 years how bad of an experience it was, or are you going to remember that they saved your pet’s life?

- Word of mouth doesn’t really apply either, because when your dog busts through the front window at 9pm and is bleeding out from their severed vein on Christmas Eve (happened to me), are you going to call your friends and ask for ER vet recommendations? Are you reading Google reviews? No, you’re scooping up your dog and going to the closest one immediately because the minutes are ticking down until they are dead and you need a Christmas miracle.


So the business is not incentivized in any way to offer the level of service and experience that most businesses have to (say, a regular vet’s office, for example)

 

[Two Dog]

So the business is not incentivized in any way to offer the level of service and experience that most businesses have to (say, a regular vet’s office, for example)

- Luxury of collecting 50 - 100% of anticipated charges up front plus add'l billing in process as things develop.

At least the ER vets are 1/10 the cost of the ER humans and provide a single consolidated billing statement.

No one in the US knows the actual cost for weeks or months until bills show up from 17 different business entities.