As a result, clients of LV=GI and Waggel will be able to book an online appointment with a veterinary surgeon within 30 minutes, without having to pay FirstVet's normal £20-30 charge.
Waggel is FirstVet's 26th insurance partner globally, and its third in the UK. The company now has 150 veterinary surgeons working on the platform.
Lucy Broadbridge, LV= GI Pet Product Manager, said: “At LV= GI we’re always looking for ways to help our customers protect what they love, so we’re very excited to be able to work with FirstVet to provide this service to our pet customers. With access to a vet from your smartphone or device, our pet customers will have peace of mind knowing that qualified veterinary advice is on hand 24/7, avoiding unnecessary time, cost and distress of visiting their vet if they don’t really need to."
Under current legislation, there is very little practical assistance that can be offered via an online consultation, other than recommending whether or not the animal needs to be seen by a veterinary surgeon in person. It may also be the case that the online consultation offers little more than a pet owner would get by ringing their normal vet. Nevertheless, online consultations will doubtless grow significantly in 2020, as the players line up to take advantage of any relaxation in the regulations that they hope will allow veterinary surgeons to prescribe medicines for animals they have not seen in person.
Regardless of whether that happens, there is a value in face-to-face communication between a veterinary surgeon or nurse and a client, whether it be for triage or follow up consultations. Independent practices might therefore be well advised to start implementing this kind of technology in practice sooner rather than later, in particular looking at ways that online appointments could be scheduled (perhaps between normal consultations) so as to compete with the short waiting times offered by companies like FirstVet.
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