House Calls vs. Stationary Hospital Visits

We can make house calls for your convenience as well as your pet’s, a service that many don’t provide anymore. We offer the same quality care in our mobile work as other veterinarians in a stationary hospital. There are advantages and disadvantages to using mobile care over stationary hospital visits:

• Geriatric, juvenile, mobility compromised, and sick pets are prone to trauma from being shaken around in the car during transportation to a stationary hospital.
• Travel and confinement stress can lead to unusual behaviors like panting, vocalizing, restlessness, and inappropriate urination or defecation.
• Upon arriving at the veterinary hospital, transitioning from the car to the facility also poses challenges.
• Once inside the hospital, pets can potentially pick up infectious organisms (bacteria, viruses, parasite, etc.). Exposure could come from direct contact with other animals or surfaces that have been contaminated with a microorganism (including the hands and clothing of hospital staff members).
• Clients are often busy with their own lives and schedules so the time management advantages of having a mobile veterinarian is a tremendous relief. You don't have to sit in a waiting room for an average of 30 minutes in addition to sitting in traffic on the way to the hospital and on the way home.
• House call visits and consultations allow the opportunity to thoroughly examine a patient without rushing and to examine for possible negative stimulation in their every day environment.
  
• One major reason clients choose a mobile vet is for in home euthanasia. People much prefer to have their pets in the comfortable, familiar, and calm setting of their own home instead of the more public and stressful hospital environment
• Mobile veterinarians cannot offer certain diagnostics to be performed, including radiographs (X-rays), CT scans, MRI, and ultrasound.
• Surgical procedures are best done in the more controlled environment of hospital facility.
• Most specialty veterinary care needs to occur within a hospital.
• Nearly all emergency situations, such as severe trauma (lacerations, bite wounds, hit-by-car, etc.), toxicities, allergic reactions, and heat related illnesses also merit hospital-based treatment.