AI for Veterinary Clinics: Better Pet Care with Less Admin Work

If you run a veterinary clinic, you already know the bottleneck isn't medical expertise — it's your front desk. Your phone rings 80 to 120 times a day. Half are appointment requests. A quarter are prescription refills. The rest are questions you've answered a thousand times: "Do you see exotic pets?" "What are your hours?"

Meanwhile, your vet techs are triaging in the back, your veterinarians are running behind, and clients are sitting in the parking lot wondering why nobody's picking up.

Appointment Scheduling Without the Phone Tag

The average vet clinic phone call lasts 4 to 6 minutes. For a clinic receiving 100 calls per day, that's 8 to 10 hours of phone time — one full-time employee doing nothing but answering calls. During lunch breaks or surgical mornings, calls go to voicemail. And 60 to 70% of callers who reach voicemail never call back. They just find another vet.

An AI employee handles appointment scheduling via text, web chat, and email — 24 hours a day. A pet owner texts "Max needs his annual checkup" at 9 PM on Sunday and gets available slots back. The AI knows which appointment types need which time blocks, which vets see which species, and which slots are full.

One four-vet practice in suburban Atlanta implemented AI scheduling and saw a 34% increase in booked appointments within three months. Not because demand increased — because they stopped losing people who couldn't get through on the phone.

Vaccination Reminders That Actually Get Opened

Most clinics send vaccine reminders via postcards or email. Open rates hover around 15 to 20%.

AI-powered reminders go via text — where open rates are 95% or higher — and they're personalized. Not "your pet is due for vaccines" but "Hi Jennifer, Bella is due for her DHPP booster and rabies vaccination this month. I have openings Tuesday at 10 AM or Thursday at 2:30 PM. Which works?"

That specificity makes it easy to reply with a single word and get booked. Clinics using this approach report vaccination compliance of 70 to 80%, up from 40 to 50%.

A single missed annual visit costs $250 to $400 in exam fees, vaccines, and preventive products. Across 1,500 active patients, improving compliance by 20% means $75,000 to $120,000 in recovered annual revenue.

After-Hours Triage: Peace of Mind for Everyone

Every clinic owner dreads the after-hours call. But 80% aren't true emergencies. A dog ate a sock. A cat is sneezing. A puppy has diarrhea after too many treats.

An AI triage system asks structured questions about symptoms, severity, and timeline, then provides guidance based on your clinic's protocols. True emergencies get flagged with a recommendation for the nearest emergency hospital. Non-emergencies get reassurance and a next-day appointment booking.

This isn't replacing medical judgment. It's applying the same triage logic your experienced techs use — consistently, patiently, and at 3 AM without pulling anyone out of bed.

Prescription Refills: Zero Phone Calls Required

Refill requests are the most automatable task in vet medicine. With AI, clients text "refill Baxter's heartworm medication" and the AI confirms the pet, medication, dosage, and last fill date. Active prescriptions get queued for your team. Expired ones trigger a recheck appointment.

One clinic tracked their refill workflow. Before: 35 to 40 refill calls per day, averaging 3 minutes each — nearly 2 hours of phone time. After: 90% handled via text with zero phone time. Their techs got two hours back every day.

What This Means for Your Clinic

A two-to-three vet practice with 2,000 active clients can expect:

Phone volume reduction: 40 to 60% fewer inbound calls
Recovered revenue from compliance: $50,000 to $100,000+ per year
Staff time saved: 15 to 20 hours per week
After-hours coverage: 24/7 triage without on-call burnout
Cost: $500 per month

Your veterinarians went to school to practice medicine, not to manage phone queues. AI lets everyone do what they're actually good at.

Schedule a demo to see how Stoke works for veterinary clinics.