AI call answering for veterinary practices.

Triage emergency calls at 2am. Book routine appointments. Handle prescription refills, vaccination reminders, and the difficult end-of-life conversations, with a calm, sympathetic AI that never gets compassion fatigue.

Why veterinary practices in particular

The phone keeps ringing while you do the job.

Emergency calls at 2am are nobody’s ideal

A distressed owner ringing about a hit-by-car cat needs immediate triage. Voicemail is unacceptable. Paying an out-of-hours human service costs a fortune.

Routine calls drown out genuine emergencies

Your front desk gets buried in vaccination reminders and prescription refills, and a real emergency caller waits on hold. AI answers the routine ones instantly.

Owners ringing during your one-hour lunch

Practice closed for lunch, owner ringing about a poorly pet. The AI captures the urgency and routes to the lead vet’s mobile if it’s genuine.

End-of-life calls are emotionally heavy

Sympathy calls from grieving owners drain your team. The AI handles initial routine queries with warmth, freeing your nurses for the conversations that need humans.

How it works

Live in three steps.

01

Forward your number

A simple divert from your existing landline or mobile to HiyaCalls. Works with any UK telecoms provider.

02

Script for veterinary practices

We build a custom call flow around your practice: services, opening hours, urgency rules, named staff, escalation routes.

03

Get the summary, take the call

Every call answered, every detail captured, every summary in your inbox in seconds.

What it handles

Every call your office gets.

The AI is trained on the real conversations veterinary practices have every day.

Emergency triage

Identifies the pet’s symptoms, owner’s concern level, time since onset, and species-specific red flags, routes urgents to your duty vet in minutes.

Appointment booking

Books consultations, vaccinations, dental checks and follow-ups directly into your practice diary, respecting clinician availability.

Prescription refills

Verifies pet and owner details, captures the prescription request, and routes it to the duty vet for sign-off without tying up the front desk.

Vaccination reminders

When clients ring to book overdue vaccinations or boosters, the AI handles the routine booking and flags the lapsed-vaccine status for your records.

End-of-life & sympathy calls

For owners ringing about a deeply ill pet or to discuss euthanasia, the AI uses a deliberately slower, more sympathetic flow and pages your senior vet immediately.

New client & pet registration

Captures full owner and pet details, microchip number, vaccination history, and any flagged behaviour issues ready for your nurse to confirm.

A real example

What lands in your inbox after a typical call.

  • Owner identity and pet record reference
  • Pet’s symptoms in clinical language, plus pain/distress indicator
  • Time since onset and any red-flag signs
  • Distance to nearest out-of-hours partner
  • Recommended escalation route, emergency, urgent, routine
  • Full audio & transcript for your duty vet to review en route
HiyaCalls <summary@hiyacalls.com>
Call summary, Helen Carmichael · 01:43
High
Caller
Helen Carmichael · 07*** ******
Pet
Bella, 4yr Labrador, registered patient
Reason for call
Suspected gastric torsion (bloat), distended abdomen, unproductive retching for 30 minutes. Owner panicking.
Owner location
Caller lives ~12 miles from your out-of-hours partner. Address confirmed.
Recommended next step
Page on-call vet immediately. Direct caller to emergency partner. Bring history with them.

Veterinary Practices FAQ

The questions every practice asks.

How does the AI triage a genuine veterinary emergency?
Per your principal vet&rsquo;s sign-off: species-specific red flags, time since onset, observable signs (bloat, breathing distress, bleeding, seizure, suspected poisoning). Anything matching your emergency criteria pages your duty vet within seconds and provides the owner with your out-of-hours partner&rsquo;s address.
Will it handle owners who are panicking or in tears?
Yes. The AI uses a deliberately slow, reassuring voice for distressed calls. It doesn&rsquo;t rush questions, doesn&rsquo;t push for paperwork. For severe distress (crying, unable to answer), it skips routine questions and pages your duty vet to call back personally within minutes.
How do summaries reach the duty vet or nurse?
By email to whichever inboxes you nominate, your duty vet&rsquo;s direct line, the practice manager, the head nurse, or a shared reception inbox. For urgent calls we can also trigger an SMS or push notification to your on-call mobile so the vet knows before they read the summary.
How does it handle end-of-life and euthanasia calls?
With explicit sensitivity. For these calls the AI uses a different flow: no booking pressure, slower pace, sympathetic acknowledgement, and an immediate routing flag to your senior vet to call back personally. The owner never feels processed.
What about RCVS guidance on telephone advice?
The AI never gives clinical advice or diagnoses. It captures symptoms, triages urgency per your sign-off criteria, and routes to a registered vet. We&rsquo;ve briefed our scripting specifically against the RCVS Code of Professional Conduct around triage and telephone consultation boundaries.
Can it verify pet ownership before sharing record details?
Yes. The AI verifies caller identity against the owner record on file before sharing anything pet-specific, same data-protection rules a human nurse would follow. If verification fails, the AI politely asks for a callback to the registered number.
How does it handle out-of-hours when the practice is closed?
Per your protocol: routine calls (vaccination, prescription, booking) get captured and routed for next-morning callback; emergencies get triaged immediately to your duty vet or out-of-hours partner&rsquo;s direct line. The flow is whatever your practice agrees with us at setup.
Is it worth it for a single-vet rural practice?
Often very much yes, especially out of hours. A single-vet practice can&rsquo;t answer the phone at 2am personally. The AI gives you 24/7 triage at a fraction of human out-of-hours service cost.

Stop losing calls while you do your job.

Book a 15-minute demo. We’ll show you a live AI handling a sample call for your business, with a summary in your inbox before we hang up.