It took 12 hours for my dog to be seen at the emergency vet I went to recently. It was brutal. And that was the only one that would agree to have us come in. It was over an hour a way. All the local clinics said don’t come in unless it was a last minute euthanization or the animal was unresponsive. Crazy.
I'm not sure if it's just the proliferation of COVID puppies or what, but in the last two years it has become remarkably more difficult to get a vet appointment.
I accidentally stepped on my dogs paw about a year ago and getting an appointment less than a month out took DAYS of calling around. Ended up going to a vet 40 miles away.
My wife's practice has gotten insanely busy post-COVID. She doesn't deal with dogs and cat's so it's not that boom. Decreasing slots due to safety and health was an issue at first, but they've since returned to normal towards the last half of 2020. Staffing shortages, sure, but the slots are still the same as before.
The only thing she can think of is with more WFH, more people are noticing things wrong with their pets.
I don’t think this has anything to do with PE acquisitions of emergency veterinary clinics. It’s just typical post-Covid staff shortages due to retirements and such. Because of the working hours, emergency gets the brunt of the shortage before the normal 8-5 shifts.
I’m familiar with a few clinics that have been hiring DVMs at $120k in low CoL areas for 6+ months without success. It’s hard to raise prices enough to pay more than that in those areas.
