Chart of the month: Wait times for dog and cat visits

During the COVID-19 pandemic, veterinary practices faced immense pressure: physical distancing requirements, curbside protocols, and staffing disruptions—plus an increased demand for veterinary services. One result? Longer wait times for both routine and emergency veterinary care.
 
Fast forward to 2024’s results, and the landscape looked markedly different.

What the data show

Today’s charts show how quickly dogs and cats were able to be seen by a veterinarian for their most recent veterinary visit in the previous calendar year. For emergency visits, the wait time was quite short, with nearly 1 in 2 pets being seen within 30 minutes. Just 8.4% of dog owners and cat owners reported waiting more than 2 hours. 

For nonemergency visits, the majority of dog owners and cat owners were able to book an appointment within 1 week, and almost 1 in 5 were able to book one within the same day.

What does this mean?

These findings echo the results of the 2023 AVMA Pet Owner Attitude Survey, in which most pet owners said they had not experienced long waits for emergency or nonemergency visits. Taken together, the data suggest that the pandemic’s effect on veterinary wait times has largely subsided.

What can we do with this information?

How do these wait times compare with yours? If yours are at the higher end, then taking steps to reduce them can serve multiple purposes: boosting client satisfaction while also supporting timely, high-quality care. 

Here are three ways to help shorten the time clients and their animals wait to see you:

• Empower your team to work at the top of their education. Leveraging the full skill sets of veterinary technicians and other team members supports practice success by enhancing efficiency and productivity. Here are tips on how to fully engage veterinary technicians.
• Identify and remove hidden barriers to efficiency. Even small workflow frictions—like redundant steps or unclear protocols—can slow your team down.  Find out how technology can help in this AVMA Tech Talk webinar.
• Forward book the next visit. Scheduling a patient’s next visit before they exit your doors helps maintain continuity of care and creates a more predictable booking calendar. This can help eliminate last-minute scheduling pressures and allow you to accommodate patients more quickly. Here’s how to get started quickly.