Why Are Pet Veterinarian Visits Going Down?

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

It's not just the recent recession that has caused a decline in the number of times people are taking their cats and dogs to the vet since the declines been noted since 2001. What has caused this?

Since this is a very important question to understand in the veterinary world, Bayer Animal Health did a study on why people are going to the vet less and the results of the Bayer Veterinary Care Usage Study was just released.

Here are the top 6 root causes given for the decline:

The economic impact of the recession;
Fragmentation of veterinary services;
Consumers substituting Internet research for office visits;
Feline resistance;
Perception among pet owners that regular medical check-ups are unnecessary; and
Cost of care.

I can see most of these reasons contributing to the decline.

For example, in the case of Cost of Care, veterinary inflation has historically been closer to 7% than the 3% it is now, which means that regular visits are becoming a larger chunk of our take home pay than before and do seem more expensive than one might expect.

Also, in the case of Fragmentation of Veterinary Services, pet parents have more options for some of their routine care with some local shelters offering low cost vaccinations and spay/neuter clinics; however, they are still getting care so that's not really a decline in care of the pet, just a decline in going to their vet for those services.

I have to say though that "Feline Resistance" might be stretching it a bit. This was explained in the study report as:

Among the most surprising findings was that one-third of cats owned by study respondents have not seen a veterinarian in the last year. This in part is attributed to "feline resistance," a catch-all term defining the hiding, aggression, vocalization, and stressed/fearful behavior cats exhibit when crated and transported to unfamiliar surroundings. Unwilling to do battle with their pets, cat owners become more comfortable with longer time between exams. This can be especially harmful for older cats, which are more prone to diabetes, kidney failure and cancer than dogs.

Has the vet become more scary over the years? Have we as cat owners become soft and give in to our complaining kitties more than before? Why this has become a reason to go to the vet less, I'm not sure. It certainly should not be a reason to go to the vet less for cats. In fact, cats need to go to the vet more than dogs for regular care as they do not show their sickness in the way dogs do.

Are you going to the vet less than you might have before? If so, do you agree with the reasons above?