House Paws Missed Appointment Policy Effective May 27th, 2022

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 cannot 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 for remembering your appointment regardless.

Recently, we have experienced an increase in pet owners missing scheduled confirmed appointments. We attempt to manage our appointments in a way that allows us to see patients for routine care as well as unexpected injury or illness.

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.

Missed appointments deprive other pet owners of the opportunity to get routine or urgent care for their pets. It is difficult for us to rebook or determine how many additional urgent care appointments we can see in a day when we have an unpredictable number of missed appointments.

We continue to welcome new clients, but we will require a deposit to secure an appointment for each pet equal to the exam charge. The deposit will be credited toward the appointment or kept as a fee if the appointment is missed.

If current clients have a record of missed appointments, they will be asked for a deposit equal to an exam charge. The fee will be non-refundable if their scheduled and confirmed appointment is missed. We understand that sometimes life happens. Deposits will be refunded if a cancellation notice is received a minimum of 24 hours before the appointment.

If you have a missed surgery appointment, you will be charged (25% of the deposit instead of a set fee). We allocate a fixed number of time slots depending on the type of surgeries that are scheduled and are unable to rebook after a missed appointment due to the prerequisites for surgery.

We hope this allows us to serve you and your pets better.

How to Cancel Your Appointment: To cancel your appointment, you may do so on our Petdesk app, or call/email the hospital where 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.

New modified Curbside Service Policy

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.