July 2020
To our friends and family,
Those who have frequented our practice in the past year have heard and seen the changes that were taking place at The Family Vet. It was difficult for us to keep you informed as things were changing from one week to the next. Even though certain aspects of our plans may still change if various factors do not proceed as we anticipate, the basic plans are firm enough for us to update you on the future of The Family Vet.
Nearly 20 years ago we began with a mission to provide exceptional affordable veterinary care to the community. This mission required the participation of the community at large. The doctor and staff of The Family Vet were only able to provide the services we do with the trust and support from our clients, patients and, indirectly, the business and regulatory infrastructure of the veterinary and pet care industry. As we are being made painfully aware in this pandemic time, what each of us does ultimately affects those around us. And in many ways, that ripple effect is what brought The Family Vet to the changes we must make now.
Even though COVID-19 appears to be the tipping point, it is by no means the cause of the current changes. If anything, COVID-19 delayed some of these changes. Some of you may recall our aborted relocation plans from earlier this year. In hindsight, the evolution may have started as early as 2015 when we tried to manage our growth without compromising our ethos of personal care for pets. Concurrent with our growth was the continued transformation taking place in the pet care industry. The delivery of pet products, prescriptions, and ultimately information were slowly moving away from the personal interaction that is core to our practice philosophy. Time - the time we spent with our clients and patients - was our strength but it also became our weak point.
Initially, we thought limiting the number of new clients to our practice would help preserve our resources for the clients and patients in our care. We knew that decision would also limit our financial growth and our ability to re-invest into the practice infrastructure. We had hoped that by trimming ancillary services [such as retail sales, grooming and boarding] and focusing on our core of personalized veterinary medicine and surgery, we would come out stronger, delivering on our mission of providing affordable high quality veterinary care to the community. However, what we did not account for was that demand on our time from various sectors would continue to grow regardless of whether we received compensation from them or not. We had to recognize that this shift in veterinary care means we could not afford the overhead expense of a large facility and services that we were providing as various revenue sources dwindled. As more and more of our valuable time was diverted from actual direct patient care to dealing with third parties (from online pharmacies to pet insurance to research on products marketed to clients), we realized that we need to evolve to continue practicing veterinary medicine the way we want. In short, we needed to find a way to deliver high quality personalized compassionate care to our clients and patients without the significant overhead expense that our time-intensive practice philosophy can no longer financially support. Evolution became necessary.
In the midst of all this, The Family Vet was also undergoing our own transformation as Dr. Tran pursued her interest in acupuncture and staff members (Elisabeth, Elias, Jon, and later, Jeremy) explored personal and professional opportunities. Through it all, we still hold dear the belief that well-informed pet caregivers are paramount to a vision of One Health, the recognition that the health of people is closely connected to the health of animals and our shared environment. To that end, The Family Vet will continue to provide personal care for pets to our current clients as much as we possibly can. By collaborating with our colleagues and making use of external resources, we hope to guide our clients and patients to high quality veterinary care, even if not directly provided by us. We chose to change how we deliver this service as this is the only way we can practice veterinary medicine and still be in alignment with our belief that a strong veterinarian-client-patient relationship is the foundation for a healthy family - humans and animals alike.
Thus, the below factors all have some role in getting us to where we are today.
COVID-19 pandemic
Dr. Tran’s professional growth and semi-retirement from conventional practice
Facility improvement and refurbishment that requires significant capital investment
Costs (in terms of staff and doctor’s time) associated with safely fulfilling third-party pharmacy prescriptions, in accordance with our standards
Continued desire to provide high quality personalized medical care
Expansion of complementary medicine services
The confluence of these events (both voluntary and involuntary, some expected and some unexpected) have led to the below changes to The Family Vet, effective immediately:
Phase 1: [Est. 06/2020 - 8/31/2020]
Office hours limited to Thursdays 2pm-5pm & Sundays 8am-1pm & 2pm-5pm. We will continue to be available outside those hours as our schedule allows, with prior arrangement.
To ensure our availability to current clients, we will reserve our appointments and services to patients that have been in our practice within the past 18 months. New patients belonging to current clients will be admitted on a patient-by-patient basis. Ultimately, your pet’s well-being is our top priority, not whether or not we remain the family vet.
To help with the overhead expenses as well as contribute to a worthy organization’s effort to provide basic pet care and spay/neuter clinics to the community, we will be leasing part of the facility to Fix Long Beach.
Phase 2: [Est. 9/1/2020 - 12/31/2020]
Reduction of on-site office hours further to Sundays 8am-1pm & 2pm-5pm
Continued and expanded facility lease to Fix Long Beach.
Opening limited hours at a secondary location - Animal Wellness Center of Orange County.
Phase 3: [Est. 1/1/2021]
Closing hours at our current location as Fix Long Beach assumes full residence at 1749 Magnolia Ave.
Increased hours at our new location
Although the phase timeline is uncertain, we are aiming for completion by 12/31/2020. (Please check https://thefamilyvet.net/blog for further updates.) During this time patients beyond the 18 month window from their last visit will be referred to other local practices for their care. Clients electing to continue with us for their companion care will be welcomed at our new location, again, subject to 1+½ years sunsetting rule. Additionally, for now clients wishing to have pets seen for urgent/same day visits are urged to call the office within the first hour of opening (for now 8-9 am on Sundays and 2-3 pm on Thursdays) and will be instructed to drop-off if medically appropriate. Dr. Tran may advise referral to an emergency or local practice if she assesses that to be the best option for your pet’s condition. Clients should be aware of our office hours and replies to messages/emails/texts may be delayed until Thursdays and Sundays. Since we will not be providing anesthetic/surgical services and our practice will be focused more on medicine and health maintenance and wellness, we understand a shared primary veterinary provider role may benefit our patients. In those situations, we ask that you have records forwarded to us as needed and be mindful of the 18-month timeframe. Clients electing not to visit our new location will be encouraged to seek a new veterinary facility for care and request medical records be transferred no later than 3 years from the last exam date.
It is not without deep consideration that we are fundamentally changing. Delivery of honest, high quality care has always been our goal. Yet current economic and social environments mean that continuing pursuit of this goal demands significant change. Simply, given all of the factors noted above, this ability has become impossible to provide in our current environment. Our ability to perform services up to our standards has already been compromised. For example, our response time to client emails and questions has been extended much longer than we’d prefer, and our ability to see patients for urgent visits has been severely restricted.
One alternative would have been to try to do things as we currently do. But this was simply untenable; costs in providing service at a level that we are comfortable with were simply too high, and importantly clients that depend on us (and support us by purchasing products through us and visiting our office regularly) were having to pay a price in terms of decreased level of service or higher prices to offset lost revenue. Another option was to become larger, offer more types of services, and leverage our resources. However, that would invariably result in becoming less of who we are and forcing us to practice veterinary medicine in ways that are not well-suited to us, professionally and personally. Simply stated, that would not have been what we do best.
What we have done best for over 17 years is provide Personal Care for Pets. Our strength has always been providing high quality, honest medical care and advice to clients and animals that we are deeply familiar with. We strongly believe that these difficult but necessary changes will maintain and increase our ability to keep providing this service, albeit to a more limited number of clients. We know the above changes will no longer make us a good fit for some of our current clients. We understand and will do our best to help you transition to another veterinary provider so that your pets continue to receive the care they need.
We chose to name our practice The Family Vet because we believed that embodied what we wanted to be to our clients, no more and no less. Over the years, we succeeded in doing so with the collaboration from our colleagues (such as emergency clinics, specialists and referral practices, as well as other general practitioners) and the trust and loyalty from clients who have all become our extended family. We had the privilege and honor of not only caring for puppies and kittens living full lives into senior years, but also seeing clients become parents then having those kids grow up and become our clients as well. To all our clients, past and present, thank you for allowing us to be part of your family. These difficult but necessary changes will allow us to continue to provide the personalized care and compassionate veterinary guidance that made you choose us as The Family Vet.
Writing and re-writing this letter was bittersweet. We wanted to tell you of the changes as soon as possible but there were so many moving parts and so many involved parties that detours were taken and plans were changed numerous times over the past year. The above phases are our roadmap as we venture on these new endeavors, though things beyond our control may significantly delay or otherwise change these plans. Leaving the community of Long Beach for the time being will be sad, but we are also excited at the opportunity to work with causes such as Fix Long Beach, Sparky and the Gang, and Animal Wellness Center of Orange County.
As alluded to earlier, our actions affect others around us; sometimes in ways we never imagined and find hard to believe. We hope our collaboration with other organizations will enable them to expand their mission and improve the lives of pets in the community as well as allow us to continue exploring and delivering exceptional personalized health and wellness to pets and their families.
Until next time, please stay safe and healthy.
The Family Vet
T-na Tran, DVM
Jon Anita
Elias Zuniga
“When one door closes another door opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the ones which open for us.” --- Alexander Graham Bell
