Animal health certificates and the cost to practices: one year on

When most of us dreamed of becoming vets, we never imagined spending hours filling out export documentation.

Last year was challenging for vet practices. Our workload felt immense and the extra paperwork really didn’t help.

Our clients were requesting services at an unprecedented rate due to increased pet adoptions in 2020, and most of us were dealing with a backlog of routine work that had been delayed by COVID-19 lockdowns.

More staff were needed, but veterinary and nursing professionals were in short supply. As a result, we found ourselves running at maximum capacity caring for our patients, and could have done without the hassle of animal health certificates.

Last year also saw a dramatic change in the requirements for pets travelling abroad: the pet passports we relied on for many years were out and animal health certificates (AHCs) were introduced, in line with new EU regulations after Brexit.

These documents must be issued every time a pet travels to the EU, and at 6 to 10 pages with bilingual requirements depending on the port of entry to the EU, this can eat up many practice hours that we would usually spend doing… well, everything else.

This article seeks to identify the costs, benefits and ways to optimise providing this service to our clients.

The full cost

Each AHC can take up to 1.5 hours to complete – that’s a long time when you are at maximum capacity.

What are the costs of putting off other work to create time for filling in this form, over and over?

Many vets describe filling in AHC forms as stressful – and they’re probably being polite. Many of us regularly leave work late to accommodate AHCs.

There can also be some anxiety attached, as the forms are complicated to fill in and require plenty of checking to ensure that every owner gets a form that they can use without any issues.

The last thing we need is discovering that there was an issue with an AHC by receiving an irate call from an owner who can’t get through a border.

Of course, by the time the owner is at the border it usually isn’t possible to fix the problem, as AHCs have to be wet signed. Local OVs are called on to reissue the corrected AHC and client relationships suffer.

This extra stress and workload could easily contribute to job dissatisfaction and burnout in the longer term.

Despite the many difficulties experienced by vets completing AHCs, some practices have embraced the opportunity to become specialised AHC providers.

Owners can now email their information in advance to a practice at the port of departure, and pick up the document after a quick microchip scan of their pet on their way to the ferry.

These vets are able to build experience and expertise by completing a large number of forms. They are more than happy to take on the work, but have a limited capacity due to the time needed to complete each form.

Is it worth it, from a business point of view, to direct our clients to another vet?

Charging for AHCs

We charge a fee to complete AHCs, but is it a fair compensation for the work done? What about the opportunity cost of not being able to do another job instead? We have to charge what we feel is appropriate and allow the market to decide. We will certainly see prices shift with the forces of supply and demand over the next year.

For the client, going on holiday is a luxury that is budgeted for, and it’s probably more expensive to hire a pet sitter or pay for kennels than take their pets along and pay for an AHC.

Owners can decide for themselves if they want to pay the fee for the convenience and familiarity of their own vet.

Choosing not to offer AHCs

Some practices have decided that they don’t have the capacity to offer this service to their clients at all, which has its pros and cons.

If filling in forms is not your forte, and you would rather serve your patients in ways that you excel at, that’s completely understandable. If it’s a choice between coping and not coping then look after your staff and spare them the extra pressure.

However, clients that are caring and well off enough to take their pets abroad are also often the ones we like working with, so it serves our business to foster our relationship with them.

Those clients are highly likely to choose convenience and feel more comfortable dealing with their home practice than an unfamiliar practice.

Boosting efficiency

Can we shorten the time it takes to complete AHCs, boost efficiency and reduce errors? Yes we can, following these tips:

• The first step to improving this process is good delegation. Use support staff and owners to gather all the necessary information and supporting documents.
• Crossing out paragraphs has recently been made a lot easier on the French and Spanish forms with the addition of checkboxes.
• Support staff (non-vets) can easily learn how to prefill AHCs, freeing up vets to do other vet-specific work.
• The forms need to be checked, stamped and signed by an OV, but this can be done in less than 30 minutes if all the paperwork is prefilled.
• A checklist can be used to make sure every detail is correct before the AHC is given to the owner.

Protocol

Here is a suggested protocol to optimise your AHC process:

• The owner calls, requesting an appointment for their AHC.
• Reception is made aware of the basic requirements (less than five pets travelling to the EU with valid rabies vaccinations) and asks if there is anything different for advice. They book the appointment for less than 10 days before travel, or less than 5 days if a dog needs tapeworm treatment.
• Reception emails a form to the owner to collect the following information:
  • who is travelling with pets
  • date of EU entry
  • port of entry
  • PDF scan of rabies vaccination card
• The vet pre-populates the correct AHC with information provided and crosses out any unnecessary paragraphs.
• The rabies certificate upload is printed out along with the certificate, so it’s all ready for the appointment.
• At the appointment:
  • The vet scans microchip(s), certifies the vaccination certificate copy and administers tapeworm treatment if required.
  • The owner signs his or her declaration.
  • The vet checks information with the owner and makes any last minute corrections if needed.
  • The vet stamps and signs the AHC.
  • A copy is made for records and the original is given to the owner.

AHCs are going to take us a while to get used to, but they don’t have to be a burden to your practice.