House Paws Missed Appointment Policy
Effective September 7th, 2021

A veterinary/client relationship is built on mutual trust and respect. As we experience high volume and continue to grow, House Paws goal is to provide quality, individualized medical care in a timely manner. As such, we strive to be on time for your scheduled appointments, and ask that you give us the courtesy of a call when you are unable to keep your appointment. As a courtesy to you, we provide reminders via email, petdesk, or a phone call before your appointment. However, you are responsible to remember your appointment regardless.

While we do understand that emergencies happen, no-shows, late shows, and cancellations inconvenience other patients who may need access to immediate veterinary care. If we receive cancellations in a timely manner, we are able to fit these other patients in.

Therefore, we would like to inform you of our outlined updated policy regarding missed appointments.

A missed appointment is when you fail to show up for an appointment without a phone call,
or cancel without at least 24-hour notice.

Cancellation of an Appointment: In order to be respectful of the medical needs of other patients, please be courteous and call our office promptly if you are unable to show up for an appointment. This time will be reallocated to someone who is in need of treatment. If it is necessary to cancel your scheduled appointment, we require that you call at least 24 hours in advance. Appointments are in high demand, and your early cancellation will allow another patient access to timely veterinary care.

How to Cancel Your Appointment: To cancel your appointment, you may do so on our petdesk app, or call/email the hospital in which your appointment is scheduled. If you do not reach the receptionist upon calling , please leave a detailed message on our voice mail. You can reschedule your appointment through our petdesk app, or by emailing/calling the hospital directly.

Late Cancellations: A cancellation is considered to be late when the appointment is canceled without a 24 hour advance notice.

Appointment No Show Policy: A “no-show” is a client who misses an appointment without canceling it. A failure to be present at the time of a scheduled appointment will be recorded in the patient’s chart as a “no-show”. This includes arriving 15 minutes after your scheduled appointment.

The first time there is a “no-show” or late cancellation there will be no charge to the client. A 2nd occurrence will result in a charged the cost of an office call. The 3rd occurrence will result in a charge the cost of an office call and a client may be discharged from the practice.

Surgery Appointment No Show Policy: A surgery “no-show” is a client who misses a surgery appointment without providing 24 hours notice of cancellation. The first time this occurs we will call to offer to reschedule the appointment but our missed surgery fee of $125 will be waived. At the second missed surgical appointment we will call to reschedule and you will be charged a missed appointment fee of $125 If a third incident of a missed surgical appointment occurs you will be charged a missed appointment fee of $125 and may be discharged from the practice

When making your appointment, please let us know if you wish to come into the exam room with your pet or remain in your car while your pet is being seen. This affects our scheduling as we minimize the number of people in the building and also the number of pet interactions that would occur in our waiting room.

One pet parent will be accommodated.

1. Upon arrival, please call into the hospital to check-in. If we are not quite ready for you at that time, we will call you back and ask you to bring your pet into the building. From there, one of our technicians will escort you to an exam room, or go back and wait in your car.

2. Technician and re-check appointments will remain curbside while you wait in your car.

3. When you are waiting in your car, we will call you when your pet’s appointment is finished and review the appointment with you. We will then ask you to come into the building for checkout while the technician gets your pet (and any meds that might be going home) ready for discharge.

4. For surgery or other drop-off procedures and other day-long drop-offs, a technician will come out to your car with the surgical authorization paperwork that you will need to sign and obtain all related medical history. We will call when your pet is ready to be picked up.