We are so excited that you’ve decided to make us your veterinarian! This is a responsibility we don’t take lightly. When new clients come to our clinic we truly believe they are now part of our family and we treat them like that. Since we opened in 2015, we have built incredible relationships with our clients and we feel fortunate every day to have what we consider the best pet owners and people in all of Charleston to call our family!
As we’ve grown, the demands on our schedule have as well. When you join our clinic family, it’s important to us that you can count on us to not only provide the best medical advice possible, but also to be available to you. This is why our team takes a variety of steps to try to make sure you can be seen and receive care when you need it and not wait days or weeks to get an urgent appointment. We actively block out a large number of same day sick and urgent appointment slots on a daily basis for our existing clients and we go out of our way to offer drop off options and work-ins when all else fails. As a result, we are confident that should you ask any of our existing clients if they feel they have appropriate access to their vet when they need it, their answer would be a resounding yes!
This brings us to our decision to require deposits for our new client appointments. Unfortunately back around the covid shutdowns, we began to see an uptick in no shows especially from new clients that had never been here before. This seemed to be an issue across the entire industry as it became more and more difficult to get veterinary appointments especially on short notice. Therefore some individuals began making multiple vet appointments at different clinics only to attend the one that ended up being most convenient for them or soonest all while never notifying the other clinics of their change of plans. Clearly, this creates a big problem especially for a clinic like ours that is in high demand and already doing our best to be sure our existing clients can see us as these no shows take away valuable appointment slots that could have been used.
Our hopes are that by requiring this initial $60 deposit, we will better prevent those types of no shows from happening and in turn, have more appointments available to you once you are an established part of our clinic family so your pet can be seen when they need it most! We hope you in no way take it personally when we ask for a deposit for your first appointment. The vast majority of our new clients are very respectful to our team and understanding of the demands of serving all of our clients. This is a blanket requirement of all new clients and in no way singling out any specific individuals or claiming they they are not to be trusted.
So with all that said, we hope you better understand this policy and how it potentially helps you in the future! Here are the further details:
- All new clients will be required to make a one-time $60 deposit in order to reserve their first appointment. $60 is the equivalent of our standard exam fee and the deposit will be adjusted should that fee change in the future.
- Your deposit will be applied to your first invoice. This is not a fee, it is only a deposit to be used for future expenses incurred.
- If you need to cancel your appointment, we will fully refund your deposit so long as you have notified us at minimum 1 full business day prior to your appointment. Our office is open Monday-Friday 7:30a-5:30p. Therefore, if you are needing to cancel an appointment scheduled for Monday at 12 noon, you will need to notify us by 12 noon the prior Friday in order to receive your refund.
- Emergencies happen. Should something occur that prevents you from making your first appointment, but you have less than 1 business day to notify us, so long as you notify us before your scheduled appointment and then reschedule with us, we will move your deposit to the new appointment.
We are looking forward to serving you and your pets for years to come. Thanks for your decision to join the CHV family!