AAHA Inspection

Well, we just spent the last few weeks dotting our ‘i’s and crossing our ‘t’s, in preparation for our AAHA inspection. And I am happy to report that we passed with flying colors. What is AAHA, you may ask? AAHA stands for the American Animal Hospital Association. It is an organization that accredits hospitals if they meet certain criteria. They have a ¾ inch-thick manual that has guidelines for everything from facility design to patient records to drug protocols. If you live up to their standards, and pay a nominal fee, your animal hospital can become certified as an AAHA hospital. And I know the next question you are going to ask: “So what?”

Good question! The reality of it is that some veterinarians do all this work to try to better themselves, their facilities and their practice modalities, only to have the general public care less about it. That is because most people tend to think that all vets and all animal hospitals are created equal. I mean, if you read Consumer Reports or Reader’s Digest, they’ll have you believing that you should shop for veterinary care like you shop for a pair of pants, and if you can find something cheaper somewhere else, then that’s where you should go. Unfortunately, nothing could be further from the truth. Now, that is not to say that I don’t know exceptional vets that charge low fees, or crummy vets that charge high ones, but every pet owner needs to do a little research on the vets in their area to find one that fits their needs. If you have a backyard dog that the kids play with once a month, and you just want to keep it “healthy”, then maybe the low-cost vaccine clinic at the local pet store is what you need. But if your little “Precious Bon-Bon Smoogums” has food allergies and gets diarrhea every time there’s a bad caper on her steak tar-tar, then you probably want to find a veterinarian that you can develop a strong doctor-client-patient relationship with.

This is why some vets pursue such things as AAHA accreditation. They are trying to raise the bar. These are vets that want you to know that they care about their patients, they love what they do, and they want to be the best that they can be at doing it. They aren’t just in it for a paycheck. The reality is that veterinarians go to school just as long as human physicians, yet they get paid less than half, and often times charge a tenth of what human doctors would for the same procedures done with the same equipment. And that is without any government subsidies! So why didn’t we become human doctors, you may ask? Because we love animals and we love what we do. And some of us want to do it as best we can.

Many veterinarians also pursue board certification for this same reason. Becoming board-certified in a specialty, such as surgery or dermatology, requires completing a post-graduate residency and sitting for board exams. However, the American College of Veterinary Practitioners (ABVP) is an organization that board-certifies general practitioners as specialists with certain species, such as dogs, cats, horses, cows, pigs or birds. In order to take the exam to become certified with ABVP, a vet must have been in practice for at least five years, practicing primarily on the species chosen, have completed 90 hours of continuing education and have submitted two manuscripts for approval. And why do they do this? To make sure that their level of competence is as high as it can be. I know several ABVP-boarded vets here in Memphis, and none of them charge more because they board-certified. Frankly, I doubt if most of their clients even know! But I guarantee that their pets benefit from the extra effort that these vets chose to pursue.

To learn more about AAHA, or to find an accredited practice in your area, visit http://www.aahanet.org. To find out more about ABVP, or to find a board-certified veterinarian in your area, go to http://www.abvp.com.