15 Sept 2025
Health plans have steadily been gaining traction for many decades and are a well-accepted method of providing essential care for pets in an affordable and accessible way. But as anything else, products and services evolve and health plans are by no means immune to needing to match their audience’s needs…
Gerry Harkins
Job Title
Image: Visual Generation/ iStock
Gone are the days when a health plan just consisted of an annual check-up and some flea and worm treatment. To reduce churn and increase sign-ups, clients need to see, understand and receive real value from their plans.
For veterinary practices, this evolution represents more than just a service upgrade; it’s a business opportunity to build long-term client loyalty, generate predictable revenue, and elevate the standard of care.
The skill of forming plans that will work is taking into consideration the many complexities in their creation and producing a simple product for clients to adopt. Initially, this means understanding which plan models are available and deciding which will work best for your practice.
Time should be taken working out which routine health care protocols you recommend for your clients and basing your plan around this. This could include services or products, such as consultations and anti-parasitics, at varying amounts. Perhaps, you would like to offer unlimited consults or maybe you will decide on having a fixed number of visits. You might want to include home delivery or diagnostic tests, or you may decide that your practice would benefit from age-related plans.
If it sounds complex, that’s because it is – health plans are not the static preventive care options offered 10 years ago. They are dynamic, individualised services, and it is advisable to consult with an expert when creating a plan to reduce risk of plan failure.
The second challenge comes in presenting your plan to your clients. It is vitally important to keep your offerings simple. It can often be hugely tempting to provide numerous plans, based on age, weight and lifestyle of pets, and it’s not uncommon to see tiered plans with numerous additions and bolt-ons to the core plan.
It is important not to lose sight of the plan being a vet-led service, and remember that your clients are looking to you to best advise them of what their pet needs. Clients look for a professional recommendation and giving pet owners the choice of numerous plans with different products and services leads to confusion, ultimately resulting in reduced sign-ups or a high level of churn.
Complicated options also make it harder for the whole team to buy into, and good plan health is in part due to every member of the team, from front of house to veterinary professionals, understanding and feeling confident in relaying the benefits of a clear and concise plan to clients.
So, how best to navigate formulating a health care plan when it’s clear that no one size fits all?
Firstly, engaging with a pet health plan provider with experience is advisable, not only to avoid making common mistakes but also to include the fundamental principles that should be followed to ensure success is optimised. Secondly, it is important to understand the four main types of pet health plans to make the right selection.
Preventive pet health plans are based on the species and weight of the pet and are designed to cover essential, routine care for pets that can treat and prevent some of the more common health issues. Plans contain both services and products, which typically include vaccinations, parasiticides and annual check-ups. These plans drive compliance and engage pet owners in the process and importance of preventive pet care. Should more complex work be required for their pet, owners are already bonded to the practice and invested in their pet’s health.
Pet wellness plans focus on services rather than products and often drive compliance of preventive health procedures. They typically include dental checks, consults, telemedicine, and diagnostic tests. Often neutering, as well as additional services such as physiotherapy or ongoing consultations, are included. The plan often changes in its offerings as the pet ages, focusing on services that are relevant to each stage of life.
Membership plans are gaining traction due to their being highly flexible and modular. They have a strong emphasis on exclusivity and allow their members access to a more VIP experience, often including unlimited consultations and telemedicine access.
These plans involve one general payment, often fixed at a low price for maximum entry, with the added options of bolt-on additions to suit the pet’s individual needs.
This model holds high appeal for pet owners, as unique plans can be created for each pet. With that comes a complexity for the practice, but when managed correctly offers high engagement from clients. Practices should aim to provide options that allow easy decision-making from owners without overwhelming choice, while still accommodating a highly personalised and scalable solution.
Subscription models focus heavily on products, such as antiparasitic treatment or food, with the objective of making these products more accessible. They include home delivery and lean on more remote transactions with limited practice interactions.
They are attractive for the convenience and streamlining of practice efficiency. Subscription payments on a recurring monthly basis grant access to a practice’s preventive treatments in a more cost-effective way that places less of a financial burden on the pet owner.
With numerous options available, choosing the right plan can, however, be an overwhelming decision. Investing in expert advice and guidance when creating or auditing an existing plan, is an invaluable exercise. Choosing a pet health plan provider with dedicated coaches and customer support can reduce the risk of creating a plan with an imbalance of plan return versus cost of management, and poor plan uptake. When created from practice data analysis and market insights, pet health plans become an asset to any practice.
The adoption of pet health plans as a concept varies significantly across regions, with practices across the UK, US and Europe embracing preventive health care to different degrees.
As health plans become more prevalent, misconceptions inevitably arise that can damage their reputation and undermine their value.
A common misconception is that health plans only promote annual compliance versus reactive “test and treat” approaches. Health plans have a heavy focus on proactive and preventive care and treatments.
Due to their bespoke nature, a practice’s health plan can fully back up and support each clinic’s key messaging. If test and treat is a core value of a practice, it can be included within a pet health plan with ease.
Some practices resist using plans as they believe owners struggle to see their value. A well thought out plan in the early stages reduces this risk as the plan is curated for optimal routine health. It is also important to have the whole practice buy into the health plan and consistently communicate the benefits to owners. Letting clients know how much they have saved or reminding them that their consultation has been free of charge are great ways to reinforce value. So, too, is encouraging clients to use all of the benefits of their plan, and home delivery can greatly assist with this.
Another common misconception is that health plans are more hassle than they are worth for the practices themselves. In reality, health plans offer tremendous levels of value that far surpass any additional admin tasks that their implementation may bring. Health plans create a steady, predictable revenue stream that boosts financial stability within the practice and offers an excellent opportunity for enhanced client loyalty.
Furthermore, plans can help to reduce client churn, foster positive relationships between practice and owner and improve the overall efficiency by streamlining processes in the practice, boosting the standard of care and offering win-win situations for the practices and clients – enabling sustained growth and deeper client relationships.
