While you may advise protecting pets year-round from fleas and ticks, pet owners average six doses per year.¹ Parasiticides are 42 per cent of pharmacy sales.² Do not risk medical consequences for patients or money losses to third-party pharmacies and retailers for your practice.

The time has come to re-think your refill strategy. How can you improve medication adherence and keep more pharmacy sales?

Refill reminders

Vaccine reminders drive checkups. Apply the same proven strategy to flea and tick reminders. Write text and email templates for each brand so you can promote rebate and reward programs. Refill reminders should include:

• Drug name and purpose
• Refill deadline
• Promote rebates and auto-ship savings
• Link to your online store
• Option to pick up at your hospital
• Drive clients to click (not call) to order

Send reminders 30 days ahead

The purpose of reminders is to increase medication adherence. A late-to-refill study of 735,218 human patients who used 8,000 pharmacies found refill response rates were strongest for reminders sent 30 and 14 days before maintenance medications ran out.³ Further, the study found 46 per cent of patients refilled medications at the 30-day notice, 33 per cent at the 14-day notice, and 17 per cent at the seven-day notice.

Patients who received reminders were more likely to refill medications within the first 14 days of their expected refill date and had higher medication adherence over 365 days.

Sending notices in advance allows time for:

• Shipping through your online store with timely home delivery.
• Letting clients pick up refills weeks before medications run out. (Bonus: Reduces the volume of same-day refill requests)
• Sending a series of reminders as the refill due date draws closer.

Send multiple reminders

Increase the sense of urgency in messages as refill dates near. Clients will choose their preferred communication method of text, app, or email, which will be noted in your practice-management software and sync with third-party reminder systems.

Reminder series for flea and tick preventatives:

Send more texts

Texts have a 98 per cent open rate and 45 per cent response rate.⁴ Most clients will see your messages, and nearly half will respond right away. Research shows 90 per cent of people will respond to texts within 30 minutes.⁵ By comparison, emails average 20 per cent open rates and six percent response rates.³ Emails may get overlooked or buried in clients’ inboxes.

Hospital managers should monitor reminder response rates quarterly. Constantly get more clients to opt-in for text or app reminders due to higher response rates. Each quarter, run a report of clients who have not opted in for texts. Email them about faster scheduling and refills via text. Include a link for clients to opt-in and select texts as their preferred communication.

Your third-party reminder service may have pre-written campaigns to convert clients from email to text. Put a quarterly alert on your calendar to run reports and send email campaigns. Be persistent and persuasive.

Call clients once refill dates reach zero because the prescription is now expired. Your client service team can make calls daily.

Use action words

You want most clients to refill medications after the first notice. Use action words in reminders such as:

• “Needs” indicates the medication is medically necessary
• “Click here” or “order now” is a call to action
• “Instant rebate” lets clients know they do not have to wait for a check or reward voucher in the mail
• “XX days” is a countdown timer, letting clients know the prescription is about to run out or expire (set up a data field to automate the number of days left)
• Use all caps to increase urgency

Best use of time

Your inventory or hospital manager will invest about four to eight hours for a one-time setup of refill reminders. Text and email communication will be automated through your reminder system and go out daily. Your only staff labour will be having client service representatives call clients when prescriptions expire…and counting money because your pharmacy sales will soar!

Wendy S. Myers, CVJ, has taught communication and client service skills for more than two decades. As founder of Communication Solutions for Veterinarians, Myers teaches practical skills through online courses, onsite coaching, and conferences. She was a partner in a specialty and emergency practice for five years. Visit YouTube.com/csvets and Csvets.com for more.

References

¹ Lavan R, Tunceli K, Zhang D, et al. Assessment of Dog Owner Adherence to Veterinarians’ Flea and Tick Prevention Recommendations in the United States Using a Cross-Sectional Study. Biomedical Central. Available at:
https://parasitesandvectors.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13071-017-2217-2. Accessed Jan. 10, 2023.

² McReynolds T. Veterinarians Outselling Online Retailers When It Comes to Pet Meds—But Not for Long. AAHA NEWStat. August 2019. Available at: https://www.aaha.org/publications/newstat/articles/2019-08/veterinarians-outselling-online-retailers-when-it-comes-to-pet-medsbut-not-for-long. Accessed Jan. 10, 2023.

³ Taitel M, Mu Y, Gooptu A, Lou Y. Impact of late-to-refill reminder calls on medication adherence in the Medicare Part D population: evaluation of a randomized controlled study. National Library of Medicine. Available at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5338963. Accessed Jan. 10, 2023.

⁴ Cote S. The Future of Sales Follow-Ups: Text Messages. Gartner. Available at: https://www.gartner.com/en/digital-markets/insights/the-future-of-sales-follow-ups-text-messages. Accessed Jan. 10, 2023.

⁵ Meyer B. 29 Best Text Message Templates to Increase Sales in 2022. Omnisend.com. Available at: https://www.omnisend.com/blog/text-message-templates. Accessed Jan. 10, 2023.