Veterinary Visit Decline: What the Drop Means for Your Practice

The time between veterinary client visits increased by 48% from 2023 to 2024 compared to three years prior, according to a white paper by Vetsource cited in dvm360. That is not a seasonal blip. It is a sustained behavioral shift that is showing up in revenue lines across independent practices right now.

• How bad is the visit decline actually?
• Is veterinary inflation the main driver?
• Did practices see this coming?
• Why This Matters for Veterinarians

How bad is the visit decline actually?

The headline number from Vetsource is stark. According to dvm360 (2024), the gap between client visits grew 48% in the 2023 to 2024 period compared to the same measure three years earlier. In plain terms, clients who once came in twice a year are stretching that to once a year or longer.

The August 2025 industry tracker data reinforces the trend. According to the New York State Veterinary Medical Society Pulse Report (2025), the Vetsource industry tracker shows a 2.4% decrease in veterinary visits year over year, and the Veterinary Hospital Managers Association reported continued softness in the same period. A 2.4% top-line figure sounds modest until you realize it compounds on top of the longer visit intervals already baked into the trend since 2021.

What this looks like inside a practice: the front desk is not as slammed as it was two years ago. Recall campaigns are getting fewer responses. Wellness visits are being pushed. Clients are showing up for sick pets but deferring preventive care. That pattern is what the 48% interval increase actually looks like on the ground.

Is veterinary inflation the main driver?

Inflation is doing real damage to client affordability. According to VMG (2024), veterinary service inflation rose 8% in the last measured year, running 1.6 times higher than the general consumer price index. Revenue and visits have been trending down since September 2023 by VMG's tracking.

That 8% figure matters because it is not abstract. A client who was paying $180 for a wellness exam and core vaccines two years ago may now be looking at $220 or more for the same visit. For a household already managing higher grocery bills, fuel costs, and rent increases, deferring a routine appointment for a seemingly healthy pet becomes a rational financial decision, even if it is not a medically sound one.

The squeeze is two-sided. Practices are paying more for supplies, staff wages, and equipment, while clients are simultaneously pulling back on discretionary veterinary spending. That is the structural problem here. It is not that pet ownership is declining. The pet population grew substantially during the pandemic years and has held. The problem is that existing clients are visiting less often and spending less per interaction when they do come in. This is a different challenge than losing clients to a competitor. You can't out-market a client who has decided to delay care.

Related context on how online visibility affects which practices clients find when they do decide to book: veterinary visit decline price sensitivity practice outlook.

Did practices see this coming?

Largely no. According to the American Veterinary Medical Association (2025), only 13% of veterinarians expected business to be down entering 2025. By the end of that period, 29% reported that conditions had in fact declined. That is more than double the number who had anticipated a downturn.

The gap between expectation and reality is telling. Most practice owners entered the year with reasonable confidence based on a historically resilient industry. Veterinary services held up well during the 2008 recession and recovered quickly from the early pandemic disruption. The assumption was that pet owners would find a way to keep spending. What changed is that the inflation sustained over three consecutive years has eroded that resilience. Price sensitivity is no longer a temporary response to a single economic shock. It is becoming a durable feature of client behavior.

Practices that planned staffing, equipment purchases, or facility investments based on pre-2023 visit volumes are the ones feeling this most acutely right now. The planning assumptions were not unreasonable at the time. They just did not account for a multi-year inflation cycle hitting both the practice and the client simultaneously.

For more background on the staffing pressures compounding this environment, see: veterinary staffing shortage forecast practice impact.

Why This Matters for Veterinarians

The visit decline is not a visibility problem that marketing alone can fix. When clients are deferring care because of cost, a better Google profile will not bring them in the door. But there are operational levers worth considering.

First, practices that have not revisited their communication cadence with lapsed clients are leaving recoverable revenue on the table. A client who stretched a 12-month recall to 18 months may not have left your practice. They may simply need a direct, non-alarming reminder that prioritizes their pet's specific due items, not a generic reactivation blast.

Second, the data on declining diagnostics is a concrete signal. According to prior reporting on diagnostic revenue trends, clients are declining recommended bloodwork and imaging at higher rates. Practices that have built client relationships strong enough to support honest conversations about the cost-versus-risk tradeoff are better positioned to retain that revenue than those relying on transactional service delivery.

Third, the practices that are holding visit volume better in this environment share one common trait: they have strong enough reputations that new clients choose them over competitors when an urgent need arises. In a declining-visit market, share of new client acquisition matters more, not less. Reviews, response time, and how a practice shows up in local search all determine whether the next first-time client calls you or calls the practice down the road.

The visit decline is a real structural shift, but it is not uniform across every practice. The ones tracking their own recall response rates, monitoring lapsed clients systematically, and staying visible to new pet owners in their area are finding ways to hold their ground while the broader numbers soften.