Advenno built PetCare Plus, a cloud-native veterinary practice management system unifying scheduling, EMR, billing, pharmacy, and a pet owner portal across 22 clinics. Appointment capacity grew 38%, administrative costs dropped 52%, and per-clinic revenue increased 24%.
The Challenge
Companion Animal Hospital Group's growth strategy of acquiring successful independent practices created clinical scale but technology chaos. Each of the 22 clinics came with its own practice management system — or in three cases, no system at all beyond paper charts and a handwritten appointment book. The operational consequences were pervasive. Front desk staff at every location spent approximately 40% of their working hours on phone-based scheduling, hold time callbacks, and appointment confirmations — time that could have been spent on patient care coordination or client service. When a pet visited a different Companion Animal location — common for emergencies or specialist referrals — the receiving clinic had no access to medical history, requiring either a faxed records request or starting from scratch. Veterinarians documented visits using whatever system their clinic happened to have, with documentation quality varying enormously across locations. The billing process required manual charge entry from handwritten service tickets, producing a 9% error rate split between undercharges (lost revenue) and overcharges (client disputes). Pharmacy management was equally fragmented — medication inventory was tracked independently at each location with no visibility into network-wide stock levels, resulting in emergency transfers between clinics and occasional stockouts of common medications. Pet owners bore the brunt of these inefficiencies: long phone hold times for scheduling, no ability to access records or request prescription refills online, unclear and sometimes incorrect invoices, and a general experience that felt stuck in the past compared to their own healthcare providers and virtually every other service they interacted with digitally.
- 40% of front desk staff time consumed by phone-based scheduling, confirmations, and callbacks
- 4 different practice management systems (plus 3 paper-only clinics) with no cross-location data sharing
- 9% billing error rate from manual charge entry — split between lost revenue and client-facing disputes
- No pet owner self-service: no online scheduling, records access, refill requests, or digital payments
- Medical records inaccessible when pets visited a different clinic for emergencies or referrals
- Pharmacy inventory managed independently per clinic with no network-wide visibility or coordination
Our Solution
Advenno built PetCare Plus as a unified cloud platform with modules for scheduling, electronic medical records (EMR), billing, pharmacy management, laboratory integration, and client communication. The scheduling module offers online booking with real-time provider availability, intelligent appointment type matching (wellness visits, sick visits, surgeries, and dental procedures each have different duration and preparation requirements), automated SMS and email reminders with confirmation links, and a waitlist system that fills cancellations within minutes. The EMR module provides veterinarians with tablet-based documentation featuring voice-to-text input and an AI-powered SOAP note assistant that generates draft clinical notes from voice recordings and structured data entry — reducing documentation time from 12 minutes to 5 minutes per visit. All records are accessible across every clinic in the network instantly. The billing module automatically generates charges from documented procedures and dispensed medications, with a verification step before client-facing invoice generation. The pet owner portal — accessible via web and mobile app — gives clients 24/7 access to their pet's vaccination records, visit summaries, upcoming appointments, medication schedules, and invoices. Automated alerts notify owners when vaccinations are due, heartworm prevention needs refilling, or annual wellness exams are approaching. The pharmacy module provides network-wide inventory visibility with automated reorder triggers and inter-clinic transfer coordination.
- Online scheduling with real-time availability, intelligent appointment matching, and automated reminders
- AI-powered SOAP note assistant reducing veterinary documentation time from 12 to 5 minutes per visit
- Cross-clinic electronic medical records accessible instantly from any of 22 locations
- Automated billing from documented procedures with verification workflow eliminating manual charge entry
- Pet owner portal with records access, appointment booking, prescription refills, and online payments
- Network-wide pharmacy inventory management with automated reordering and inter-clinic transfers
- Automated wellness alerts for vaccinations, preventive medications, and annual exam schedules
Our Approach
Practice Operations Assessment
Visited 8 representative clinics over 3 weeks, shadowing front desk staff, veterinarians, technicians, and practice managers through complete workdays. Documented 42 workflow pain points, timed every administrative process, and interviewed 60 team members and 40 pet owners to build a comprehensive understanding of needs from every stakeholder perspective.
Data Migration Strategy
Developed migration tools for each of the 4 legacy systems and a digitization workflow for the 3 paper-based clinics. Migrated 180,000 patient records, 620,000 medical history entries, and 85,000 client accounts with zero data loss. Paper records were scanned and OCR-processed, with veterinary technicians validating critical data like vaccination dates and allergy alerts.
AI Documentation Assistant
Fine-tuned GPT-4 on 50,000 anonymized veterinary SOAP notes to build the AI documentation assistant. Veterinarians speak or type abbreviated observations, and the AI generates properly formatted clinical notes with correct medical terminology, drug dosages, and follow-up recommendations. Each generated note requires veterinarian review and approval before saving.
Pet Owner Experience Design
Conducted UX research with 40 pet owners spanning demographics from tech-savvy millennials to retirees. Designed the portal with extreme simplicity as the primary constraint — key tasks like booking an appointment, viewing records, or requesting a refill require no more than 3 taps. Tested with 200 pet owners in a 4-week beta at 3 clinics.
Phased Clinic Rollout
Deployed to clinics in waves of 4, spending one week of intensive on-site support at each wave before progressing. Maintained legacy systems in read-only mode for 30 days post-migration as a safety net. Achieved 100% adoption across all 22 clinics in 10 weeks with minimal disruption to appointment schedules.
The Results
PetCare Plus unified Companion Animal Hospital Group's operations into a seamless digital platform that transformed both the practice experience and business performance. Daily appointment capacity increased by 38% — not through longer hours but through eliminated scheduling friction, reduced no-shows (from 16% to 7%), and the AI documentation assistant freeing veterinarians from paperwork that had been consuming 90+ minutes daily. Administrative overhead dropped 52% as online scheduling replaced phone-based booking for 68% of appointments, automated billing eliminated manual charge entry, and the pet owner portal absorbed routine inquiries about vaccination records and appointment availability. Per-clinic revenue increased 24% as the combination of higher capacity, reduced no-shows, and improved wellness alert compliance (vaccination and preventive medication reminders achieved a 73% response rate) drove more visits and higher average transaction values. Billing errors plummeted from 9% to 1.2%, simultaneously recovering lost revenue from undercharges and eliminating the client disputes from overcharges. Pet owner satisfaction scores improved from 3.6 to 4.8 out of 5, with the most frequently praised features being online booking convenience, vaccination record access, and automated medication reminders. Veterinarian satisfaction improved markedly as well — AI-assisted documentation returned an average of 90 minutes per day to clinical care time, and cross-clinic record access eliminated the frustrating experience of treating patients blind. Google reviews across the 22 clinics improved from an average of 3.9 to 4.7 stars, driving a 31% increase in new client acquisition from organic search.
Return on Investment
Technologies Used
Integrations
PetCare Plus is the most significant operational improvement in our group's history. Our vets are spending 90 more minutes per day with patients instead of typing notes, our clients can book at midnight, and for the first time ever, we can see any pet's complete history at any of our 22 locations. It's what veterinary practice management should be.
Project Gallery
Lessons Learned
- Visiting 8 clinics and interviewing 60 staff members revealed that the biggest time sink wasn't any single task but the constant context-switching between disconnected systems
- AI documentation needed veterinary-specific fine-tuning — generic medical AI models mishandled common veterinary terminology and species-specific drug dosages
- The pet owner portal's 3-tap simplicity requirement forced hard design trade-offs but resulted in adoption rates that exceeded every projection
- Maintaining legacy systems in read-only mode for 30 days was a safety net that was never needed but gave staff the confidence to commit to the new system
Summary
Advenno built PetCare Plus, a comprehensive veterinary practice management system for Companion Animal Hospital Group's 22 clinics. The platform unifies scheduling, EMR with AI-assisted documentation, billing, pharmacy management, and a pet owner portal. Capacity grew 38%, admin overhead dropped 52%, and per-clinic revenue increased 24%.
Key Takeaways
- AI-assisted SOAP notes reduced vet documentation from 12 to 5 minutes per visit, returning 90 minutes daily to patient care
- Online scheduling replaced 68% of phone bookings, dramatically reducing front desk administrative burden
- Cross-clinic record access solved the critical emergency care blind spot for multi-location practices
- Automated wellness reminders achieved 73% response rate, driving recurring visit revenue
- Phased rollout in waves of 4 clinics with one week intensive support ensured smooth adoption
Frequently Asked Questions
Key Terms
- SOAP Notes
- A structured documentation format used in healthcare: Subjective (patient/owner observations), Objective (clinical findings), Assessment (diagnosis), and Plan (treatment and follow-up).
- Practice Management System
- Software that integrates scheduling, medical records, billing, inventory, and client communication into a unified platform for managing healthcare practice operations.
- Preventive Care Compliance
- The rate at which patients (or pet owners) follow through on recommended preventive health measures such as vaccinations, screenings, and medication protocols.
Facts & Statistics
Sources & Citations
- AVMA 2025 Veterinary Economic Report
- Bayer Veterinary Care Usage Study
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