Around holidays, your phones buzz with clients asking for same-day appointments for sick pets and wellness visits to prepare for travel. Because the days before and after holidays are guaranteed to be frenzied, why not control the chaos this year? Here are nine easy ways to plan for the rush you know is coming. 1) Share your holiday schedule with staff now Let employees know about holiday hours and closures for the entire year. Email your team, post it on an employee bulletin board, and update your scheduling module. Your holiday policy should list all mandatory holidays and information about days that will not be observed.1 Share your holiday policy when employees are hired and when updates are made. Note what will happen when a mandatory holiday falls on non-workdays. Will the hospital be closed on the business day before, the following day, or both? Identify how much staff coverage you will need for holidays.2 Holidays are busy times in employees’ personal lives. Be mindful of preserving their work-life balance and preventing them from disengaging from their work. Consider setting blackout dates if you need a full staff to handle a specific holiday rush. Employees need to know about blackout dates well in advance, which promotes transparency and gets everyone to support the all-hands-on-deck approach. 2) Communicate PTO handling, holiday pay, and incentives You do not want internal conflict or accusations of favorite employees always snagging the prime holidays. Share how to submit a request, the approval process, deadlines for holiday paid time off (PTO) requests, and how many employees can have time off at the same time. Similarly, avoid the frustration and hurt feelings of confusion about money. Your policy should state how staff will be compensated for these holidays. While hourly employees who work on holidays may enjoy overtime pay, provide small incentives to everyone who works on the days before and after holidays. Consider snacks, meals, gift cards, and an array of prizes. Thanking employees and making them feel valued will remind them of their purpose. 3) Let clients know about upcoming holidays Once your team has clear expectations for holidays, make clients aware. One month before scheduled holidays, send communication to clients. Notify them through emails, app notices, social posts, your online booking page, message on hold, the practice website, and signs in the lobby and on the front door. You may also offer self-scheduling to help clients plan their vet visits. Allow clients to book their own appointments through online portals on your website or app that sync with your practice information management software. Clients love self-scheduling—especially Millennials and Gen Z—who prefer digital scheduling over phone calls. Client service representatives (CSRs) would appreciate reduced phone time spent booking appointments. Hospitals using direct booking report up to 44 percent of appointments made online occur after business hours.3 4) Update scheduling module Block closures and adjust hours when closing early. Because appointment requests will increase a few days before and after holidays, put alerts on these dates. Schedule fewer wellness appointments on days before and after holidays so you can accommodate more sick patients. For example, July 4, 2025, is on a Friday. Because many clients may want to travel for the three-day weekend, expect more wellness visit requests to prepare for trips. Frontload more wellness appointments on Monday, June 30, and Tuesday, July 1, so you will have appointments available on Wednesday, July 2, and Thursday, July 3, for sick patients. 5) Prioritize urgent care for same-day care Pre-block more urgent care slots on the days before and after holidays. Check last year’s holiday schedules to see how many same-day sick patients you saw, which will help you predict how many urgent care appointments to reserve in this year’s holidays. I advise holding at least six to eight urgent care appointments per doctor per day for one to two days before and after holidays. If your practice will be closed for the Independence Day three-day holiday weekend, pre-block six to eight urgent care appointments on July 2 and 3—two days before the closure—and again on July 7 and 8 when you reopen. Stagger urgent care blocks by one hour in multi-doctor practices. This eliminates bottlenecks in the treatment area, laboratory, and radiography when several patients will need workups. Block urgent care appointments about every 90 minutes. Table 1 is an example of six urgent care blocks per doctor when two veterinarians are seeing outpatient appointments. Doctor 1 urgent-care slots Doctor 2 urgent-care slots 9:00 a.m. 10:00 a.m. 10:30 a.m. 11:30 a.m. 12:00 p.m. 1:00 p.m. 1:30 p.m. 2:30 p.m. 3:00 p.m. 4:00 p.m. 4:30 p.m. 5:30 p.m. 6) Schedule from noon Book morning appointments from noon backward and afternoon appointments from noon forward.4 When clients call in the morning, you can offer available early morning and late afternoon appointments. If these slots do not get filled, call clients on your waitlist. 7) Have a waitlist Cancellations and no-shows are inevitable. Depending on your client communication app, you could maintain a virtual waitlist that automatically notifies clients on the waitlist when openings become available and lets them book. If you can’t automate notices to your waitlist, manually text those clients. Texting will get faster responses and be more efficient than time-consuming outbound calls. You will fill open slots quickly. 8) Offer day admission appointments When a sick patient needs to be seen today but your schedule is full, offer a day admission appointment. You will admit the patient to the hospital for the day. Upon intake, a technician will take vital signs and ask history questions to prioritize the urgency of the case. Never call this a drop-off appointment, which devalues professional services and is defined as a brief delivery—hand you the leash or cat carrier and go. Explain the process and fee upfront. Say, “I’m concerned that your pet is sick. Although our schedule is full, we can admit your pet to the hospital for the day. For 15 minutes, you will meet with a technician, who will ask you questions about your pet’s symptoms and get its vital signs. A doctor will examine your pet during the day based on medical urgency, and then contact you about next steps. We will provide a treatment plan with services and fees and get your approval in advance. You may pick up your pet between 4 and 6 p.m. Because we will provide nursing care for your pet throughout the day, there is an additional day admission fee of $__. We can admit your pet this morning. What time will you arrive so a technician can prepare to admit?” Limit the number of day admission appointments based on the number of doctors and technicians scheduled. Charge a day admission fee equivalent to an outpatient hospitalization or boarding fee to cover nursing care in addition to fees for services delivered. (Note: The AAHA Veterinary Fee Reference, 11th ed., uses “no overnight stay” and “overnight stay” as hospitalization fee categories.) Send clients pickup instructions and request payment the day before boarding checkout. Your team will efficiently manage high-traffic boarding checkouts and have less stress. 9) Provide express checkout for boarding Eliminate pickup lines on the day after the holiday. On the morning of checkout, text clients with pickup instructions, digital invoices, and text-to-pay links (See: “Boarding Express Checkout”). Attach pets’ photos for a personalized touch. Clients will appreciate your high-tech and high-touch service. With planning and preparation, you can better manage holiday schedules, reduce stress at work, and delight clients. Wendy Myers, CVJ, knows the right words will lead clients to accept your medical advice, driving patient and practice health. As founder of Communication Solutions for Veterinarians, she teaches practical skills through online courses, conferences, and onsite consulting. Myers’ experience as a partner in a specialty and emergency hospital helped her understand issues that owners and managers face. Learn how she can train your team at csvetscourses.com. References Four Tips for Preparing Your Medical Office for Holiday Hours. National Organization of Rheumatology Management. https://normgroup.org/four-tips-for-preparing-your-medical-office-for-holiday-hours/. Accessed Nov. 19, 2024. How to Manage Holiday Scheduling. Indeed. https://www.indeed.com/hire/c/info/how-to-manage-holiday-scheduling. Accessed Nov. 19, 2024. Why Flow: Book Appointments in Your Sleep. https://otto.vet/otto-flow/. Accessed Nov. 19, 2024. 6 Ways to Improve Patient Scheduling. https://www.solutionreach.com/blog/how-to-schedule-patients-effectively. Accessed Nov. 19, 2024.
