26 Apr Forward Booking Campaign
The kickoff of the Ready. Set. Go! Forwarding Booking Campaign on January 1 marked the beginning of an ambitious collaborative effort between the Veterinary Medical Association Executives (VMAE) and Partners for Healthy Pets (PHP) to help ensure healthier pets and healthier veterinary practices. Hopefully you have had the opportunity to take advantage of the wealth of resources available to participating VMAs on the VMAE website. This is such a great opportunity to make a meaningful and positive difference in the lives of your members and their patients – and it’s so easy to do.
In addition to a great introductory video available on the VMAE website from renowned veterinary consultant Karen Felsted, CPA, MS, DVM, CVPM, CVA, entitled “Why Forward Booking?” your members had the opportunity to participate in live coaching sessions with Dr. Felsted. These free sessions allowed participants to ask questions on anything and everything related to forward booking and how it can be implemented in their practices. The coaching sessions have been a big success, with great participation.
As was mentioned during the VMAE Membership Luncheon at the AVMA Veterinary Leadership Conference in January, we are also pleased to present another opportunity to help promote and encourage participation in the forward booking initiative with your members – the Forward Booking WORKS! Testimonial Contest. Beginning on April 15 and continuing through May 15, members of your associations who have stepped up to the challenge and are participating in forward booking will be able to share their experiences and have the opportunity to win cash prizes for doing so.
The Forward Booking WORKS! Testimonial Contest is open to veterinary practices in the United States and Canada through the 45 participating veterinary medical associations that are officially executing the Ready. Set. Go! Forward Booking Campaign. These testimonials will be used by participating VMAs to highlight the success of forward booking in their practices and to encourage additional veterinary hospitals to incorporate this tool into their protocols.
Through a generous grant from PHP, VMAE is able to offer $12,500 in prizes for the best testimonials we receive. The prizes are as follows:
- $2,500 First Prize (1 awarded)
- $1,000 Second Prize (5 awarded)
- $500 Honorable Mention (10 awarded)
Written Testimonials are limited to 500 words or less and should be submitted to ForwardBookingWorks@vmaexecs.org. Video Testimonials can be either 30 seconds or 60 seconds in length. Video links should be sent to ForwardBookingWorksVideo@vmaexecs.org. All submissions are due by May 15 and will be judged by the VMAE Task force on Practice Management. Winners will receive notification on June 1 and all participants will be thanked for their testimonials. Winning testimonials will be available on the VMAE website for your use to download and use in your communications. Specific contest details, rules, and additional terms are available on the VMAE website.
The Forward Booking Task Force has a letter you can send to your members about the contest, and two images you can use on your VMA website to link to the testimonial contest information for veterinary practices. You can hyperlink the images on your website to the following link (http://www.vmaexecs.org/default.asp?page=ForwardBookingWorks) or you can brand this on your own website with the information copied and pasted to your own webpage. These and other Forward Booking tools and resources are available on the VMAE website.
If you have any questions regarding the contest, please feel free to reach out to Tesha or Ralph and the Taskforce will get back to you promptly. Thank you for your help in making this part of our Forward Booking Campaign a success. Ready. Set. Go!
Chris Copeland, JD
Texas Veterinary Medical Association
VMAE Forward Booking Task Force Chair