You know how important heartworm preventive is and likely prefer clients buy 12 months worth of preventive at once, so they don't delay when they need more and risk the pet's health. After sending a practice manager to an AAHA pilot program on compliance in 2003, Suburban Animal Clinic in Columbus, Ohio, implemented a few changes to increase 12-month heartworm preventive compliance.

More extensive training got the whole team at Suburban Animal Clinic on the same page. The goal was for clients to hear the same message three to five times before leaving the clinic, and they found that word choice alone made a difference. For instance, because "need" conveys how important this care is, they use it instead of "recommend." So now when a client comes in, a team member might say, "Oh, Buffy needs a heartworm test today, and she needs more heartworm medication."

Training to increase compliance occurred during regular monthly staff meetings. The practice also asked its pharmaceutical sales representative to hold an in-house seminar about heartworm disease and treatment.

Of course, dollars-and-cents savings is an easy way to explain the benefit; $60 for a year's supply of preventive is better than spending $500 to treat a preventable disease. As an incentive to buy a year's supply, the practice offers a 15 percent discount. Sales of 12-month preventive from July 2004 to July 2005 were up 7 percent compared to the July 2003 to July 2004 figure, while six-month preventive sales stayed the same. Fifty-one percent of clients buy in 12-month supplies.