Veterinary Practices
Voice Assistant answers your clinic's number after closing with an out-of-hours message you write word for word, which can tell a worried owner how to reach emergency care tonight, then takes a message and sends you a summary by email or text. It gives no veterinary advice and does not triage, so whether an animal can wait stays with the owner and the route your message gives them.
Your clinic closes at six, and by nine its phone has rung four times. One owner's cat has not touched her food since yesterday. A man whose dog had surgery with you this afternoon says the dog is panting and will not settle. Someone wants to know whether you are taking new patients, and one caller hangs up at the beep. All of them heard the recording somebody made years ago, with the emergency hospital's number read out once near the end, after the opening hours. Tomorrow, before the eight o'clock appointment, someone will work through the voicemail, writing names on the back of the day sheet and ringing the worrying ones first, and one of those owners will have sat up half the night waiting for a call that was never coming. You do not want a machine telling people what is wrong with their animal — that would be worse than the beep. You want the right words said first, to every caller, in the same order every time, and a clear list on the desk in the morning of who rang and why.
Your out-of-hours message, word for word as you wrote it; you write the greeting and the goodbye as well. After the message comes an ordinary conversation in which the assistant takes a message: who the owner is, how to reach them and what is worrying them. Callers interrupt and talk over it the way people do on the phone, and a frightened owner will, so the order of the message matters more than its polish. Put the emergency route in the first sentence or two, then say when someone will actually hear this call. "Nobody here will listen to this until we open at eight" is kinder than leaving an owner to sit up waiting for the phone.
No. It gives no veterinary advice and it does not triage. It cannot judge whether a dog that has eaten something it shouldn't, or a cat that has gone two days without eating, needs to be seen tonight. Besides the messages you write for it to read out, it knows two things: the opening hours you give it, and one box of plain writing about the clinic. Write the limit into that box as plainly as you would tell a new receptionist on a first evening shift: nobody on this line gives advice after hours, and this is where an owner who is worried should call instead. Put the same route there as in the message, so that it is part of what the assistant knows and not only in a message an owner may have talked over.
Section 20 of Regulation 1093 under the Veterinarians Act makes a veterinarian responsible for reasonably prompt services outside regular practice hours where they are medically necessary for animals the veterinarian has recently treated or treats regularly, given personally, by an associate, or by referral to another veterinarian who has agreed to cover. The same section requires each client to be told how to get services outside regular hours, clients to be told promptly when that arrangement changes, and a record kept every time the information is given. The College's after-hours policy statement names a telephone message, signage on the door or an electronic notice as ways of telling clients about a change. So the out-of-hours message is one fair place to say it, but it is not the arrangement itself. Who sees an animal at two in the morning is yours to arrange, and no answering assistant does that part.
That depends on your province and your arrangements, not on us. In British Columbia, the College's bylaws say a facility that does not regularly, or for a time cannot, provide emergency care beyond its regular hours must clearly tell clients that it is closed and when it will reopen, and direct them to contact other facilities without naming a specific one. To name one instead, the registrant must first make sure that facility is willing and able to provide emergency services to the referring facility's patients after hours, that an after-hours agreement documents the arrangement, and that the facility's name, address, phone number and other contact details are in the information clients are given. In Ontario, the College's options include referring clients to an accredited emergency clinic, to an accredited facility open around the clock that has agreed to accept the referrals, or to an independent Ontario-accredited teletriage service. Whatever your rules allow, the message should name only what you have actually arranged and what is true tonight.
No. It does not transfer calls, so if one of your veterinarians is on call, the out-of-hours message has to give callers a number they dial themselves. Summaries go by email or text to whichever addresses and numbers you list, and that list can include the on-call mobile. But a summary arrives after each call has ended, and one arrives for every call — the owner asking about nail trims as well as the frightened one — because the assistant does not decide which calls are urgent. Work out whether that helps whoever is on call or only wakes them.
A summary of what each caller wanted, in the inboxes and on the phones you listed, and the same summary on that caller's record in your client list, which is one list for callers, visitors and people who sent a form. Whoever opens up rings back from that record and books any recheck themselves. The assistant does not book, move or cancel appointments, does not open the schedule and does not offer times, so nobody arrives to find a midnight booking that the day's surgery list cannot hold.
We cannot tell you that it does, and we would rather say so here than after you have started. The Manitoba Veterinary Medical Association's practice standards by-laws require a practice to have a listed telephone number and an answering service available, and name an answering machine, a cellular phone, voice mail or a personal answering service as acceptable ones. A revised version approved on 30 January 2026, which comes into force on a date the Association's Council will set, keeps the requirement and drops the cellular phone. Both versions also require provision for 24-hour emergency service where applicable, including by referring the caller to a staff veterinarian or to another facility or service. An assistant like this one is on neither list, and we are not going to treat the word "include" as permission. If your association has a rule like this one, ask it before you rely on us. Other provinces have their own colleges, associations and wording; this page quotes only the three provinces whose rules we read.
Recording is your switch, and so is voicemail. The call itself, and the summary written from it, are processed in the United States, and our privacy page sets out where each part is stored, what is kept and for how long. Read it before you decide what your message invites owners to say, because an owner ringing about a sick animal at midnight may tell it far more than your message asked for.
An illustration with an invented clinic; no customer or real practice is described. Alder Bend Veterinary is two veterinarians and three staff in a small Ontario town, open until six on weekdays and until one on Saturdays. It does not run its own on-call: after hours, its clients are referred to an accredited emergency clinic forty minutes away that has agreed to see them. Before the line goes live, the practice manager writes the out-of-hours message and reads it aloud to the team: "You've reached Alder Bend Veterinary. We're closed, and nobody here will hear this call until we open. If you think your animal needs to be seen tonight, please don't wait for us — call the emergency clinic," followed by its name, address and number, read twice, "and if it can wait until morning, I can take a message for the team." The box of plain writing says the same in other words, adds that nobody on this line gives advice about animals, and lists the species the clinic sees. One Tuesday at twenty to ten, the owner of a dog neutered that afternoon rings. She hears the emergency number first, says she will keep an eye on him tonight, and asks for a call in the morning. The assistant takes her name, her number and what she described; it does not tell her whether that is normal, and it puts her through to nobody. Her summary is waiting in the clinic inbox and on the practice manager's phone, and on her record in the client list, where the veterinarian who did the surgery reads it at ten to eight and rings her before the first appointment. A person books the recheck. In August, when the emergency clinic cuts its overnight hours for one week, the two veterinarians arrange cover for those nights, and the practice manager rewrites the message that afternoon and keeps a dated copy of both versions as the clinic's own record of what clients were told, rather than counting on the assistant to be that record.
You write the greeting, so it is your decision, but at night we would lean towards saying so. Our view, not a measured finding, is that an owner who knows they are leaving a message with an assistant is less likely to wait for it to tell them what to do, and that is the misunderstanding most worth preventing after hours. A line such as "This is the clinic's answering assistant; I can take a message, but I can't give advice about your animal" does it in one breath.
No. It knows your hours and the box of writing, so it has nothing to tell an owner about any patient. That question is best answered before the owner leaves the building. In Ontario, section 20 requires the veterinarian treating an animal left in the facility after regular hours to tell the client what the supervision arrangements are. In British Columbia, the information a client must be given for informed consent includes the level of supervision, including supervision after hours. If owners of animals staying with you are likely to ring, the out-of-hours message can remind them of what they were told at admission.
Yes. Besides the box of writing, your opening hours are the one thing it is given, so it can tell a caller when you are next open. In British Columbia, the bylaws require clients to be given information that clearly states your regular hours and whether you provide after-hours or emergency care beyond them, however that information is conveyed. Keep the hours the assistant holds the same as the ones on your door and your website, so the three never disagree.
Then the message should change the same day, and once the line is set up you can change the wording yourself rather than waiting for us. Ontario's regulation requires clients to be told promptly when after-hours arrangements change. The College's policy expects veterinarians to try to tell clients about unforeseen circumstances, such as severe weather or illness, that affect after-hours care, and where a veterinarian cannot reasonably provide that care or timely notice, it expects a record of the reasons and of what clients were told. The assistant reads out whatever the message says, so an out-of-date message is read out just as calmly as a current one.
By default the assistant answers in the language the caller speaks, English or French, and a line can be set to always speak French. Say which you need on the setup call, where the number is set up with you and the wording is gone through together.
Setting this up is our work, not a form you fill in. We go through your wording with you, and you can change any of it afterwards.
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