A Practice Health Scheme is a marketing system which will bind clients to the practice, which will stimulate them to purchase more preventive health care products from you. Setting up Premvet 5 to manage a Practice Heath Scheme (PHS) is not a difficult task. PHS's will vary depending on your needs and those of your clients. The information in this chapter covers a fairly extensive PHS, you can of course, tailor this to your requirements. While this example does not 'allocate' loyalty points you could incorporate that if required.

Using the PHS

• Registering an Animal

  Go to their record card and enter the procedure setup on your system - using the example below it would be PMSJ - the rest is automatic.

• Summary Status

  The bottom of the management record card will show a quick status of any procedures/services that are overdue. e.g.

  Vaccination : OVERDUE       Recalls    : Due OVERDUE
  Discount    : ----          Insured    : No           Related    : -37
  

• Full Status

  Use the Recall option ('V') on the management record card to show you the details of when an items was done, when it is next due and whether any action is currently required. e.g.

      Recall Type                  Last    Int     Due        Status
  a Vaccination                 17.12.2000   1  Dec 2000   OVERDUE
  b Adolescent Checkup          17.12.2000  20  May 2001   Up-to-date
  c Development Checkup         17.12.2000  36  Aug 2001   Up-to-date
  d Dental Check                17.12.2000  44  Oct 2001   Up-to-date
  e ID Chip                     17.12.2000  12  Mar 2001   Due next 30 days
  f Neutering                   01.02.2001   0             NO DETAILS
  g Flea Control                17.12.2000   5  Jan 2001   OVERDUE
  h Wormers                     15.01.2001   5  Feb 2001   Due next 30 days
  

• Printing a Summary

  Use the Print option on the recall screen to printout the status screen above if required.

Setting up the PHS

• Create the required recalls

  Setup recalls for the aspects of the scheme if they do not already exists. You should also work out when you would like to see the animal again for each aspect e.g.

  Recall Number	Description	When (Weeks)
  1	Vaccination	52
  10	Adolescent Check	20
  11	Development Check	36
  12	Dental Check	44
  13	ID Chip	12
  14	Neutering	16
  240	Flea Prevention	5
  16	Wormers	5

  Tip: Use Pseudo Recalls for those items where you want a pop-up reminder when the record is accessed. In the above example, the 'Flea Prevention', is set as a Pseudo reminder (Recall Number higher then 240).

• Welcome Letter

  Setup a definition file that will give the client the information they require. e.g. Here is a sample form (pmsstart.def).:

  Dear &surname,
  
     Thank you for taking out our preventive health care scheme for your
  pet &animal . We are blah blah blah etc.
  
  		&es&bs Summary for the 1st Year&bs&ef
  
  &bs @date(c) &bf
  
     Start of the scheme, we will carry out a full checkup on &animal,
     make sure all vaccinations are up to date etc. etc. etc.
  
  &bs @date(c +1)&bf
  
     &Animal  will get an invite to a puppy party, receive &hisher  2nd
     vaccination booster 
  
  &bs @date(c +2)&bf
  
     Details for month 3 etc.
  
  or if you prefer a table
  
  &bs              Checks               Flea Control       Wormers &bf
  @date(c +3).  Development           Advantage         Drontal
                Check
  @date(c +4).                        Frontline
  @date(c +5).  1 year Dental                           Drontal
                Check
  @date(c +6).
  @date(c +7).
  @date(c +8).
  
  We are delighted to remind you that now you and &Animal  are members of
  our &bs Platinum Pet Care Scheme&bf  and you are eligible for a discount
  off all purchases of life stage diets and that &Animal's annual booster
  (which is included in this scheme) is automatically provided at a 20%
  discounted rate.
  .pa
  

  Which will appear as:

  Dear Ms Boulton-Lear,
  
     Thank you for taking out our preventive health care scheme for your
  pet Roxy. We are blah blah blah etc.
  
  	         Summary for the 1st Year
  
  Febuary 
  
     Start of the scheme, we will carry out a full checkup on Roxy,
     make sure all vaccinations are up to date etc. etc. etc.
  
  March 
  
     Roxy will get an invite to a puppy party, receive her 2nd
     vaccination booster
  
  April 
  
     Details for month 3 etc.
  
  or if you prefer a table
  
                Checks               Flea Control       Wormers 
  May           Development           Advantage         Drontal
                Check
  June                                Frontline
  July          1 year Dental                           Drontal
                Check
  August      
  September   
  October     
  
  We are delighted to remind you that now you and Roxy are members of
  our Platinum Pet Care Scheme and you are eligible for a discount
  off all purchases of life stage diets and that Roxy's annual booster
  (which is included in this scheme) is automatically provided at a 20%
  discounted rate.
  

  Some care should be taken in setting up your welcome letter to ensure that the initial impression of the practice is maintained e.g.

  • Use If/Else statements to skip the neutering section if the animal has already been neutered.
  • Use the include option to customise for different species.
  • Consider using separate AP codes or Macro's and have different letters to cover different aspects.

• Allocate a Classification

  Allocate a Classification to your scheme, this should be classification 5 or higher. If you are wanting to offer clients discount on a certain range of products you should set this up from the classification menu. e.g. Life Style diets, check the analysis code you are using, specify this by the classification and when prompted enter the % amount. Now anytime a Life Style diet is sold (on an animal with this classification type) they will automatically receive a discount.

• Create the procedure

  Create the initial AP record card for clients starting the scheme, include the welcome letter (^11=) and set the classification (^20=) e.g.

  Description	:	Joined Practice Health Scheme
  Code	:	XPHSJ
  Extras	:	^20=5 ^11=pmsstart.def

• Attach the recalls

  Setup a Macro to enable the recalls to be allocated to the animal e.g.

  Keyword	PHSJ
  Description	PHS Started
  Details	XPHSJ ^2=1.1 ^2=10.20 ^2=11.36 ^2=12.44 ^2=13.12 ^2=14.16 ^2=15.5 ^2=16.5

  As you can see, you enter all the recalls that have to be set here. You can have multiple macro's on the system to allow you to customise even further the options available. We would suggest you use a 'Standard' naming system e.g. Start ALL macro's with PHS, make sure the AP code(s) do NOT start with PHS - this will stop users from selecting the wrong item (the AP card will NOT update the recalls, the macro will).

  Tip: It is the text from the AP card that will be included on the animal record card. Use the Macro Description for more detailed practice comments as the client will NOT see that description.

• Look over your existing procedures

  Check existing AP (and Stock) codes that may affect any of the recalls you have just setup, for example, make sure any neutering procedures zero (or delete) the neutering recall, any stock cards that deal with Flea/Worm control update the correct recall etc.

• Check Colour Events

  This is an optional step, the recall screen on the management record uses Colour Events to alter the colour of overdue/due recalls. Check, if you are using colour screens, that events have been setup so it is easy for users to see the status.

• Customise Reports

  Another optional step, you may want to consider reviewing some of the printing and reporting options to put together a collection of handouts giving the client something to take home and read. e.g.

  • Clinical Reports the History option can scan the clinical records to allow a historic report to be generated showing when specific services were given.
  • Recall Status Print This status report can be tailored to include additional information at the top and bottom to keeps clients up-to-date with the status of the services.
  • General Purpose Form Use this to generate additional handouts explaining why Flea/Worming is recommended. Attach the handout to an AP item so they can be printed easily.
  • Windows Documents Similar to the above option, except prepare handouts with graphical content and possibly add commercial handouts e.g. Lifelearn.