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Solution · Customer serviceThe patient records start speaking up for the animals whose protection is about to lapse
Vaccination reminders straight from the records
A robot reads prevention due dates from the practice system and sends owners reminders with a booking offer: a text first, a repeat after a week, then a short call list for reception. The calendar fills with visits that used to simply lapse.
Executive summary
Vaccination and deworming dates sit in the records, but reminding is manual work reception does in bursts; most arrears come from forgetting, not from a decision.
Every week the robot picks the patients whose protection is about to lapse and runs a sequence: a text with a booking offer, a repeat, and finally a short call list for reception.
Prevention continuity rises, the calendar fills with predictable visits, and the practice owner sees monthly how many reminders went out and how many came back as appointments.
the practice system with patient records (export or API); SMS and email to owners; the appointment calendar; summaries in Microsoft Teams
Business problem
Visits lost to forgetting
Prevention is a veterinary practice’s most predictable revenue: yearly vaccinations, quarterly deworming, check-ups for chronic patients. Every one of those dates is known in advance and recorded in the file. In theory, a reminder is all it takes.
In practice, reminding is manual work. Someone would have to review the records weekly, pick the patients whose protection is lapsing, find the numbers, call or write, note the replies, and return a week later to those who did not pick up. In a practice where reception is weighing a cat, selling food and answering the phone at once, that work loses to everything else. It happens in bursts: after the season, occasionally, not at all.
Pet owners do not refuse prevention; they forget it. A year is enough for the date of the last shot to dissolve from memory and for the vaccination booklet to vanish between a house move and a drawer. Without a reminder the visit does not die by decision; it dies of silence.
For the practice that is a double loss: revenue that was nearly certain, and a patient who returns with a problem instead of with prevention. Meanwhile the chain clinics already send those texts.
How it works today
Below is what the work looks like before anything is automated.
- PersonReception reviews the records and lists overdue patients when there is a moment, which is rarely
- Risk of errorReminders go out in bursts: after vaccination season, occasionally, not at all
- WaitingThe call to an owner waits for a free moment; an unanswered one is never repeated
- Person“I’ll call back later” replies are noted nowhere; the thread dies
- Risk of errorThe owner remembers the vaccination at a problem or before a trip, at the last minute
- Risk of errorNobody measures how many due dates pass without a visit; the scale of the loss is unknown
Why the current process costs more than it appears
The bill that never shows up in a budget.
- Every unattended due date is a nearly certain visit that never happened: revenue handed to silence.
- A patient without continuity returns with an illness instead of prevention; treatment is dearer and more stressful for everyone.
- Manual reminding, when it does happen, eats reception hours at the most expensive time of day.
- Missing numbers hide the phenomenon: nobody knows what share of due dates lapses or what recovering them is worth.
Cost of inaction
The first row is the model practice’s arithmetic: how many prevention dates fall due a year and what share never becomes a visit. Your own numbers come out of the system in one report; they are usually larger than expected, because arrears are invisible in the daily bustle.
The model does not assume reminders recover everything: some owners will not come regardless. It assumes what practices with systematic communication actually see: a difference of a dozen or so percentage points in follow-through, which at this scale is worth five figures a year.
A model organisation with realistic proportions – the numbers exist so you can run the same maths on your own data; they are not a client result.
A veterinary practice in a county town: two vets, a technician, reception at one and a half posts, a practice system with patient records, Microsoft 365.
Around 2,800 active patients, 1,900 vaccinations and dewormings due a year, an average prevention visit worth €45.
Reminders done in bursts: by phone when possible, a run of texts after the season; prevention follow-through around 62%.
Reception has no time to review records systematically; a list of overdue patients does not exist.
Every week the robot pulls patients whose protection lapses within 30 days and runs the sequence: a text with a booking offer, a repeat after a week, then a short call list in Teams; replies and bookings return to the records.
In the modelled case follow-through rises from 62% to about 80%, over 340 extra visits a year. Model numbers, not the practice’s records.
Proposed solution
We start with your prevention calendar: which procedures we remind about, how far in advance, with how many repeats and in what tone. You approve the message templates; the robot does not invent content, it keeps the rhythm. Separately we agree when a patient is marked inactive, so that nobody writes to the owner of an animal that has died.
The robot reads due dates from the practice system: via API where one exists, via a weekly export where it does not. It sends reminders by text, repeats when there is no reaction, and handles replies directly: a wish to book becomes a slot offer, a question goes to reception, a request for quiet is recorded and honoured. Every contact stays in the patient’s history.
Reception gets a short list in Teams: owners to call after two unanswered texts, questions needing a vet, animals reported deceased to be flagged in the records. Once a month the owner of the practice sees the numbers: reminders sent, visits booked, effectiveness per procedure type. Prevention becomes a process rather than a burst.
UiPath Orchestrator: a weekly schedule, a reminder queue, repeats and a full record of every message; UiPath Integration Service connectors for Microsoft Teams and Outlook 365; the SMS gateway you already use
Reminder sequences with approved templates, reply handling, a reception case list in Teams and a monthly effectiveness report for the owner
The practice system: via API where it offers one, via a regular export where it does not; the appointment calendar; the SMS gateway via API
How the automated process works
- AutomationWeekly, the robot picks patients whose protection lapses within 30 days
- AutomationA reminder text with a booking offer; no reaction triggers a repeat after a week
- SystemA wish to book becomes a slot offer; the confirmation lands in the calendar
- SystemA request for quiet or a report of a pet’s death is recorded; the robot never returns
- PersonReception gets a Teams list: calls after two texts, questions for the vet
- PersonThe owner sees monthly: reminders sent, visits booked, effectiveness per procedure
Human-in-the-loop model
Automation handles
- The weekly records review and the full reminder sequence with repeats
- Reply handling: bookings, refusals, inactive patient flags
- Monthly numbers: reminders, visits, effectiveness per procedure type
People decide
- The prevention calendar, message templates and decisions about tone
- Conversations with owners: medical questions, sensitive cases, patients who need a call
- Pricing and package decisions: what gets reminded, what does not, which offers ride along
Before and after
Systems and integrations
The stack is short on purpose: one engine, one execution layer, one place where a person decides.
Inputs
- patient records with prevention dates (API or export)
- the appointment calendar
- reminder templates and rules
- owner replies from SMS and email
Automation layer
- UiPath Orchestrator
- UiPath Robots
- UiPath Integration Service
- UiPath Action Center
Target systems
- sent reminder sequences with history
- booked visits in the calendar
- the case list and monthly report in Microsoft Teams
Human touchpoints: reception cases in Microsoft Teams; a monthly owner report; a quarterly template review
Technologies used
the weekly schedule, the reminder queue, repeats, a record of every message
Areception cases, owner reports, email where SMS is not enough
Aonline booking offers, if you want owners to pick their own slot
Asending and receiving replies; we work with your current gateway or help you choose one
Bthe source of prevention dates; integration scope depends on its interface
BHow we deliver this
From this description to a running process
We deliver this solution through our process automation service: first we measure the process on company data, then we build, test and maintain the robots.
Industry
Case studies
Delivered client work is described under Case studies.
Illustrative economic model
Numbers you can check against your own data.
The model assumes follow-through rising from 62% to 80%, which is what systematic, repeated communication delivers; it does not assume everyone comes. Volumes and rates belong to the scenario; your own numbers go into the calculator alongside.
Run the numbers on your data
An illustrative estimate based on your inputs. It models freed capacity, not promised savings.
Business benefits
- Predictable prevention revenue stops depending on whether reception had time
- Patients keep protection continuity; less treatment, more prevention
- Reception recovers the hours of records reviews and phone rounds
- Pet owners get the communication they expect from a modern practice
- The practice owner sees the numbers for the first time: dates due, visits recovered
The management view
- The records turn from an archive into a revenue engine: data that lay idle starts working
- The client relationship lives between visits, not only at the desk
- Growing the patient base does not require growing reception for reminders to keep going out
Board-level KPIs
prevention follow-through · visits booked from reminders · time from due date to visit · share of repeats ending in a booking · reception hours spent reminding
Security and governance
The automation has exactly the permissions it needs. Not one more.
- The robot works on a minimal data scope: owner, contact, animal, procedure type and date; no medical data in messages
- Every message and reply has a record: what, when, to whom, from which rule
- Communication templates are versioned and changed only by an authorised person
- A request to stop contact is honoured immediately and permanently
- Data stays in your Microsoft 365 tenant and your SMS gateway; the robots run in the EU region of UiPath Automation Cloud
Why now
Chain veterinary clinics already send reminders; your silence reads as absence of care next to them.
Practice costs are rising, and prevention is the cheapest revenue to recover: the data exists, only the rhythm is missing.
Pet owners are used to reminders from the dentist and the hairdresser; they expect the same from the vet.
Relevant executive roles
Predictable prevention revenue grows, and its scale is visible in numbers for the first time
Patients return with prevention instead of neglect; the work is calmer and more medical
No more after-hours records reviews; what remains is a short list of calls that genuinely matter
Common questions and objections
If it works and sends, good: check whether it repeats, handles replies and shows anyone the effectiveness. Usually a module sends one message and stops there. The automation runs the sequence to a conclusion: repeat, slot offer, reception list, owner numbers.
That is the most important rule of the whole process and we treat it that way: the sequence starts only for patients flagged active, the first message is careful in tone, and every report of a death closes communication immediately and permanently, and lands in the records. Reception follows the same rule on the phone today; now it is written down instead of customary.
They read them; they do not always answer the first one. That is why the sequence has a repeat and an exit to a human: after two messages without a reaction the number joins reception’s short list. The model is not about one hundred percent effectiveness, but about the dozen points of difference that make the year’s result.
When this is not the right solution
- A practice with a handful of regulars the vet knows by name: a quarterly phone call suffices
- Paper records or a system without export or API: first the data in electronic form, then the automation
- Expecting marketing campaigns to a cold base: this is a reminder process for your own patients, not a mass mailing
A question for the next management meeting
How many prevention dates passed in our practice last quarter without a visit, and whose job was it to remind?
Implementation approach
Scope without ambiguity, before anything is signed.
We deliver
- Written reminder rules: procedures, lead times, repeats, tone
- Automated SMS sequences with reply handling on your gateway
- Integration with the practice system: API or a regular export
- A reception case list in Microsoft Teams and a monthly effectiveness report
- Two weeks of parallel running and care after go-live
We need from you
- Access to the practice system (API or an export of prevention dates) and the SMS gateway
- Approved message templates; we write them together in one meeting
- A decision which procedures get reminders and how far in advance
Stages
Discovery
A system report: how many dates fall due, how many return, where most is lost
Rules
Procedures, lead times, repeats, templates, the inactive-patient rule
Build
Records and SMS integration, sequences, Teams cases, the monthly report
Parallel run
Two weeks on a small patient group; tone and lead times adjusted
Go-live
The full base, with a numbers review after the first month
A quick win. Effort depends on the practice system’s interface: an API is the shortest path, a weekly export works everywhere.
The records hold several hundred overdue patients today. Each will come in eventually; the question is whether with a reminder or with a problem.
Send us a vaccination date export from the last year. We return the arithmetic: how many dates passed without a visit, what they were worth, and what share a systematic reminder sequence would have recovered.
Check how many patients are overdueThe neighbouring process usually has the same problem
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