Scheduling Surgery Appointments

Dr. Erica, Dr. Irina and Dr. Gloria all have surgery days. 

Surgery bookings begin at 9am. This means nothing else should be scheduled until the day before if we have openings that aren't filled. Doctors will speak with treatment coordinators who will discuss with front team and let them know if there is time after surgery to see appointments. 

You can add the appropriate amount of time to each surgery booking by right-clicking the "Tx" box at the top right corner of the appointment screen, "Choose" and "Treatments". You will then type in the name of the procedure (most common, dental, ohe, castration) and select by highlighting, then clicking done. The appointment will then auto-populate the correct amount of time for that procedure.

Clients should be prepared to come pick up anti anxiety and anti nausea medications to help prepare their pet the morning of surgery. Anti nausea tablets are not optional, and if the client does not pick them up prior to the appointment, their pet will be administered a Cerenia injection the morning of the procedure. 

New clients requesting surgery must have a consult prior to receiving an estimate if it is anything other than a young pet spay or neuter (3 years and under). 

Surgeries should be marked as such in the appointment screen, either Surgery or Pocket Pet Surgery on the drop-down menu to make sure PetDesk sends the correct reminder. 

BE MINDFUL of scheduling surgeries for multiple sites on the same patient or lengthy procedures, this can count as more than one surgery...example, ohe and mass removal, dental and mass removal. Watch to see what type of dental cleaning it is (multiple extractions? check the medical notes), understand how many masses or the size we are taking, etc. When this happens, schedule only that and a simple neuter (no crytpo). 

EJG (Monday, Thursday, Friday): Maximum 3 surgeries - Erica is the ONLY pocket pet surgeon. Pocket pets must have a consult with the surgeon prior to scheduling procedures (routine exam). Only one dental or mass removal per day unless authorized by EJG.

EJG: 2 spays max per day, or 1 mass removal and 1 spay or 1 dental and 1 spay 

IR (Tuesday): 2 routine surgeries per day - appointments made for the same day prior to her surgeries should be healthy pets only. 

IR: 1 cat neuter can be scheduled with any of the following: 1 dental, 1 cat spay, 1 dog neuter, 1 small mass removal

GL (Wednesday): 3 routine surgeries per day - appointments made for the same day prior to her surgeries should be healthy pets only.

GL: Comfortable with routine surgeries (dog/cat spays and neuters, dentals, mass removals) - please ask if attempting to schedule anything outside of that.

A deposit of $25 is required to book surgeries. 

If they are booking multiple surgeries, they will need to place a deposit per pet. 

This deposit is refundable up to 48 business hours prior to the appointment. If the client has to reschedule or cancel within 48  hours of the booked surgery, we will absorb the deposit and they will have to make another payment. Monday's surgery's last day to cancel without penalty is the Thursday before.

NEVER schedule surgery without the deposit on the account. They will have to call back when they are prepared to make the deposit, we cannot hold spots and cannot guarantee the spot will still be available when they call back. 

Make sure the client knows we need them to set aside up to 20 minutes for check-in on the day of surgery.

The person bringing in the pet should have the authorization to approve charges, they should be on the account in Avimark

If the person bringing the pet in does not have the authorization to approve charges, the surgical assistant is in charge of getting that person on the phone to verbally approve the charges. A second person should hear the total cost approval once the surgery assistant has completed the check-in.

Surgeries are dropped off between 8:30-9:00 AM. 

• Dogs & cats; no food after midnight. Water is okay

• Pocket pets; no fasting is indicated, bring food/hay for recovery

Surgery discharges are scheduled as tech appointments. Give the client an appointment time to come in.