AI phone answering for independent veterinary clinics
When your team is with a patient, on another line, or gone for the day, callers reach voicemail — and most never call back. VetAnswering answers your overflow and after-hours calls in your clinic's name, books the appointment, and sends your staff a written summary of every call.
$349/month flat · No contract · If we catch fewer than 20 calls in your first month, month two is free
67%
of callers in a 5,053-clinic study actually got an appointment
15.1%
reached an answering machine instead
8.2%
were left on excessive hold
Secret-shopper study of 5,053 veterinary clinics, Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association.
Hear it for yourself
This is a live line, not a recording. It answers right now as Riverbend Animal Clinic, a demo practice, and it will do for you exactly what it would do for your callers — book, route, take the message, and stay inside its rules.
The line answers live as Riverbend Animal Clinic, a demo practice. No signup and no sales call — the demo line is the trial. Three things worth trying:
Prefer a test call set up for your clinic instead? Email help@vetanswering.com and we'll record one for you, free.
What your staff receive after every call
An actual summary from a call to our demo line.
Why clinics lose clients on the phone
67%
of callers in a secret-shopper study of 5,053 veterinary clinics actually obtained an appointment
15.1%
reached an answering machine instead of a person
8.2%
were left on excessive hold before anyone picked up
Secret-shopper study of 5,053 veterinary clinics, published in the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association. The callers who don't get through don't leave a message — they call the next clinic.
How it works
Your clinic keeps its existing number and phone setup. You simply forward the calls that would otherwise be missed — when your lines are busy, when the front desk is tied up, and after you close — to your dedicated VetAnswering number.
Callers hear a greeting with your clinic's name. The assistant is upfront from the first sentence: it introduces itself as a virtual assistant and lets callers know the call is recorded. No one is ever misled about who — or what — they're talking to.
The assistant books and reschedules appointments, takes messages, and logs prescription refill requests with the caller's name, pet, and callback number — following the exact rules and hours you give us.
After every call, your team receives a complete summary: who called, what they needed, what was booked, and anything that needs a human follow-up. Nothing disappears into a voicemail box.
VetAnswering is not an emergency service and never attempts emergency triage. The moment a caller describes an emergency, the assistant directs them to your clinic's chosen emergency partner — the hospital you designate — and repeats that contact information so they can act immediately. Routine booking and messages are our job. Emergencies go straight to the people equipped for them.
Hear how it handles an emergency call: (833) 762-4861 — or request a test call set up as your clinic.
Founding clinics
We're onboarding our first five clinics by hand — every setup configured individually, tested with a recorded call, and approved by you before it answers a real client. For those five clinics, the one-time $500 setup fee is waived in full — you pay $349 a month, month-to-month, and nothing to start.
And the floor under it: if we catch fewer than 20 calls in your first month, your second month is free. If the service isn't catching real calls, you don't pay for it.
When the five spots are gone, setup returns to $500 and this block comes down.
What's included
When every line is busy or your CSRs are with clients at the counter, the next call still gets answered by a voice that knows your clinic — not a voicemail greeting.
Evenings, weekends, and holidays: callers can book tomorrow's appointment tonight, instead of finding another clinic in the morning.
New and existing clients booked into the times you make available, with caller, pet, and reason captured every time.
Detailed messages and prescription refill requests logged and passed to your staff — never approved or commented on by the assistant.
Every call produces a written summary for your team, so follow-ups happen on time and nothing depends on someone remembering to check voicemail.
Callers describing an emergency are directed immediately to the emergency hospital you choose. Your protocol, followed exactly, every time.
Every one of these is live on the demo line: (833) 762-4861
Tested before it's trusted
Before any version goes live, the assistant is run through 38 test scenarios — routine bookings, reschedules, refill requests, distressed callers, emergencies, price questions it must not invent answers to. Weak spots get fixed in testing, not on your clients.
Your services, your doctors, your bookable times, your emergency partner. The assistant offers only what you've approved — it never guesses at prices, policies, or medical questions.
We record a test call with your clinic's setup and send it to you before launch. You listen, you tell us what's wrong, we fix it. Nothing answers a real caller until you've heard it and said yes.
Your clinic's test call is recorded and sent to you before launch — you approve it, or we fix it and re-record. Request yours.
Pricing
$349/month per clinic
Setup: $0 for the first 5 founding clinics — $500 one-time setup, waived in full.
Questions
The assistant does not assess or triage emergencies — ever. As soon as a caller describes an emergency, they are directed to the emergency hospital your clinic designates, and the assistant repeats that hospital's name and phone number so the caller can act right away. You choose the emergency partner during setup, and that instruction is followed on every call.
Yes. The greeting introduces the assistant as your clinic's virtual assistant, and callers are told the call may be recorded. We believe that honesty is non-negotiable — for your clients' trust and for yours.
No long-term contract. The service is month-to-month, and you can cancel anytime with a simple email. There are no cancellation fees and no retention gauntlet to run.
Within 48 hours of receiving your clinic's details. Onboarding is handled entirely by email and a short form — no sales calls, no on-site visits. Before go-live, we place a recorded test call configured with your clinic's information, and you approve the setup by listening to it. Nothing goes live until you've heard it and said yes.
It can answer calls in your clinic's name, book and reschedule appointments, take messages, log prescription refill requests, share your published hours and location, and route emergencies to your chosen partner. It cannot give medical advice, comment on symptoms, medications, or dosages, quote prices it hasn't been given, or approve refills. Anything outside those lines becomes a detailed message for your staff — which is exactly where it belongs.
Every call generates a complete summary for your team: the caller, their pet, what they needed, what was booked or requested, and anything flagged for human follow-up. Your staff start the day knowing, instead of digging through voicemail.
Not through an integration project — deliberately. Your practice software stays exactly as it is, and your staff keep working in the system they already know. Bookings and requests arrive as instant written summaries, and your team confirms them in your own system in seconds. No new logins, no sync errors, and nothing that can break during your busiest hour.
No. You keep your existing number and phones. You forward the calls you want covered — busy-line overflow and after-hours calls — to the dedicated number we set up for your clinic.
Who's behind this
VetAnswering is a small, independent service. We're not a call-center giant and we don't want to be: we work with a limited number of independent clinics so that every setup is configured by hand, tested with a recorded call before it goes live, and checked against the standard we'd want answering our own phones. When you write to us, you reach the people who built and run the service.
Call the demo line and put it through its paces — then send the form and we'll record a test call set up as your clinic.
Get started
Send the form — or just email us at help@vetanswering.com. We'll reply with the few details we need, set up your recorded test call, and you can hear exactly how your phones would sound before you pay a cent.
Everything happens by email. No sales calls — we'd rather you judge the test call than a pitch. That's the whole sales process.