How to Design a Pet Wellness Plan for Your Veterinary Hospital

The decisions you make early on in your wellness plan journey are crucial to driving success and adoption of the program. By aligning with medical, operational, and marketing priorities, you can ensure that wellness plans meet the expectations of both staff and clients. 

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How to design the optimal wellness plans

1. Define your standard of care for dogs and cats in different life stages
2. Decide what is core wellness care and what are recommended add-ons
3. Establish what perks you’re going to use to attract clients.
4. Determine your discount strategy.
5. Gather feedback and adjust accordingly
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Wellness plans offer organizations more than high-margin recurring revenue; they are a strategic asset. For leaders navigating this terrain, understanding the nuances of designing optimal wellness plans is crucial. Let's dive into the key components and decisions that can elevate your company's pet wellness offerings.

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1.Define your standard of care for dogs and cats in different life stages.‍

‍To cater to the diverse needs of pets, it's essential to establish standards of care tailored to three distinct age groups for both dogs and cats - juvenile, adult, and senior. This segmentation ensures that pets receive appropriate preventive measures and medical attention at every stage of their lives.
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2.Decide what is core care and what is a recommended add-on.

‍‍At Nest, we believe that wellness plans can be both personalized and scalable. Personalization is key for meeting the medical needs of each pet, catering to parent preferences, and for making your offerings attractive for a range of budgets, thereby maximizing adoption.
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At Nest, we offer organizations the option of using a tiers-based approach or dynamic add-ons.
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We don’t recommend tiers because we believe that every parent who gets a plan should feel like a rockstar; nobody wants to be a third-tier parent. Dynamic add-ons let clinics customize services for each pet, meeting their specific needs and preferences.
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They are dynamic in the sense that we only offer the add-on when specific criteria are met; for example offering a spay add-on to female unspayed dogs under 6 years old. Pet parents prefer this streamlined approach, trusting their vet to make decisions and ensuring their pet gets the best care. 
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While flea, tick, and heartworm preventatives are commonly medically recommended for all pets, we’ve found it crucial to make them an optional add-on that parents can opt-out of. With this change, we’ve seen clinics increase their cat plan adoption rate by tenfold. By decoupling these preventive measures, clinics empower pet parents to select the services they believe to be most essential to their pet's needs, enhancing perceived value and encouraging enrollment. 
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By involving the pet parent in the creation of their customizable wellness plan, you’re more likely to have higher utilization and adoption, and ultimately foster stronger client-clinic relationships.

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3. Establish what perks you’re going to use to foster wellness clients.‍‍

Wellness plans aren’t just a way to engage with your current regular clients, but can be used as a tool to convert clinical appointments and attract new clients. Several key perks can distinguish your wellness plan and incentivize pet parents to enroll. Here are some to consider:

3.1 Complimentary sick exams

Offer one or more free sick exams to promote preventive care and serve as a gateway to converting sick visitors into lifelong wellness plan members. 
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3.2 Unlimited exams

Enhance client loyalty and drive revenues by providing unlimited exams as part of the plan. This perk can be limited to technician visits or telemedicine options, offering pet parents more opportunities to access your clinic's services and view it as their primary healthcare provider for their pets.
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3.3 First month free

Utilize a first-month-free promotion as a marketing strategy to attract new clients, particularly those considering switching from competitors. We ensure payment validity on sign up, but if you have a high percentage of non-paying clients, we don’t recommend this strategy.
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4. Determine your discount strategy.‍

‍A strategic discounting approach can stimulate initial adoption while maintaining long-term sustainability. Launching with a higher discount (ex. 15-20%) and gradually dialing it back (ex. 10-15%) allows for momentum building and staff buy-in. This approach ensures continued growth and profitability over time, as clients will auto renew into updated pricing.
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5. Gather feedback and adjust accordingly. 

‍Wellness plan solutions only work if they work for your staff and clients. Being agile and adaptable to both quantitative metrics and qualitative feedback allows for swift adjustments and improvements as needed. It is crucial to understand from Day 1 why your clients are and aren’t signing up for your wellness plan. Nest measures this for you with exit surveys for non-signups, and sign up surveys for new wellness members.
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Make sure your wellness provider has flexible administrative processes and reporting capabilities so you can improve and adjust your plans over time  without disrupting your administration or client experience.
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Through thoughtful curation, strategic  perks, and building adaptability into your wellness plans, leaders can forge a transformative offering. At Nest, we specialize in providing the technology and partnership to help you achieve this vision - enriching the lives of veterinary staff, boosting clinic profitability, and championing the well-being of beloved pets and their devoted parents.