AI and automation for veterinary practices
Every practice knows roughly what an unworked booster list costs and almost none can say what it costs today. The reminders that should recover it are the same reminders that, badly built, tell a grieving client their dog is due a vaccination. Both of those are the same problem, and it is an admin problem rather than a clinical one.
Book the free AI consultationAstraeus builds this for independent Irish veterinary practices, companion animal and mixed. The work sits around the practice system you already run, whether that is Provet Cloud, ezyVet, Digitail or something older: driving boosters and parasite schedules from your own due dates, catching the calls that ring out while the team is in consults, routing out-of-hours contacts to your actual cover arrangement, and chasing health plan lapses and insurance claims that currently sit on a desk.
The boundary comes first because it should. These builds handle appointments and administration only. Nothing triages, interprets a symptom or offers advice, and a message that looks clinical routes to a person unanswered. Prescriptions are authorised by a vet every time. And no automated message goes anywhere near a client whose animal has died, which is a build requirement here rather than a setting somebody remembers to tick.
Workflow catalogue
Each row is a pattern to assess, not a claim that every business should implement it.
Before
Due dates sit in the practice system and get worked when somebody has a quiet afternoon, which is never.
After
Recalls run from your own due dates on an escalating ladder across text, email and a call list, per species and treatment type, until the appointment is booked.
Human checkpoint
The vet sets every clinical interval. Nothing generates a recall date.
Before
A reminder goes out weeks after a euthanasia because the list was built before the record was updated.
After
Deceased, rehomed and moved-away statuses are checked at the moment of sending rather than when the list is built, so nothing gets through.
Human checkpoint
Reception owns the status change, and bereavement correspondence is written by a person, never drafted.
Before
The phone rings through a consult; the client rings the practice down the road instead.
After
A missed call gets a text back within a minute, and booking requests from every channel land in one list for reception.
Human checkpoint
Reception confirms every booking; nothing is scheduled automatically.
Before
An answerphone message explaining the emergency arrangement, which an anxious client does not wait through.
After
Time-aware routing states the cover arrangement immediately by text as well as by voice, and logs the contact for the morning.
Human checkpoint
Every clinical contact reaches a person. The system routes and records; it never assesses urgency.
Before
Plan sign-ups happen when somebody remembers, failed direct debits surface months later, and claim forms sit half-finished on a desk.
After
Sign-up prompts at defined moments, a lapse and failed-payment chase ladder, and claim tracking that chases whichever side is holding it up.
Human checkpoint
The practice owns pricing and eligibility, and a vet checks and signs every clinical section of a claim.
Veterinary practices are right to be careful here, and two of these four are specific to this sector rather than general caution.
No triage, no symptom interpretation, no advice. A message that looks like a clinical question routes straight to a person, unanswered by the system.
Suppression is checked at the point of sending, not when a list is compiled. Bereavement correspondence is written by a person and is never automated or drafted.
Repeat requests are captured and queued with the dispensing history attached. Authorisation is human, every time, and controlled drugs never touch an automated path.
Provet Cloud, ezyVet, Digitail or whatever you run remains the source of truth. Automations write around it, never over it, and client data stays in EU-hosted tools that do not train on it.
The first step is a free 45-minute consultation, not a project.
We walk through how a client actually reaches you, how recalls are worked today, what happens to a call at 11am on a Tuesday, and where the front desk’s day goes.
Within 48 hours you get a one-page note with one recommended next step and its price. If your practice system already does this and needs configuring, the note says exactly that.
Usually the recall engine, because it carries the revenue and proves the suppression rules in the same piece of work.
The honest boundary
The question worth asking before any of this is how many animals are overdue a booster today. Most practices cannot answer it, and the answer decides whether there is a project here at all. Automation will not fix a diary that is structurally overbooked, and a recall engine is only as good as the statuses in your practice system, so part of the first engagement is usually cleaning those up. If your platform already ships this and simply needs configuring, that is the recommendation and it is a short note.
Direct answers
Suppression is checked at the moment of sending rather than when the recall list is built, which is where this normally goes wrong. Deceased, rehomed and moved-away statuses all block every outbound message, and bereavement correspondence is written by a person and never drafted by anything.
No, and it is a routing rule rather than a policy. Replies draft only from an answer bank the practice writes, which contains no clinical content at all. Anything resembling a clinical question goes to a person untouched.
Then the first job may be configuring what you already own, and the findings note will say so. Most practices use a fraction of their system. The leak is usually between the practice system and the outside world rather than inside it, which is the part that is worth building.
Then do not pay anyone to rebuild it. Anything your platform ships natively is off the table, and saying so is part of the job. What survives is the work that crosses between your system and everything else, plus the approval gates and audit trail your platform does not ship.
Then the diary and recall work matters less and the call routing, out-of-hours logging and chase ladders matter more. Worth saying on the call so we do not spend it discussing a diary you do not run that way.
Tools are EU-hosted and configured so nothing trains on your data, each workflow carries the minimum it needs, and the data path is documented end to end so it can be shown to anyone who asks.
The consultation is free. Everything after that is a fixed, quoted price agreed before work starts, and the findings note only ever recommends one next step rather than a menu.
If you run an independent Irish veterinary practice with 5 to 30 staff and your recall list is not being worked, book the free 45-minute consultation. You get a one-page findings note and one priced recommendation, implemented by Astraeus.
Book the free AI consultation