Vetsy’s AI phone system offers a wide range of features to improve veterinary practice efficiency. Right now, though, it’s the call recording, transcription and summary tool that is catching the attention of practices under pressure.
What makes this particular feature stand out? In short, the 2026 Competition and Markets Authority’s final report into veterinary services confirms 14 legally binding remedies for the sector. Several of them raise the standard of what’s expected of a practice when a client calls concerning a prescription fee, complaint, or question about practice ownership.
In this blog, we’ll outline the CMA remedies most relevant to phone calls, and how Vetsy can help with a simple but powerful tool.
Quick overview of Vetsy
What is Vetsy?
Introducing Vetsy: The AI Phone System for Veterinary Practices
Who is Vetsy for?
What platforms does Vetsy integrate with?
Why are accurate call records so important for veterinary practices?
Nothing has changed about the volume and variety of calls that veterinary receptionists handle as an ongoing service. They’re still listening to worried pet owners, answering their booking questions clearly, and giving them accurate information. These core skills remain.
What has changed is the standard of record-keeping expected once the call ends. The CMA’s remedies raise the bar in three areas:
- Quoting fees accurately and consistently, especially for prescriptions
- Handling and logging complaints raised over the phone
- Giving consistent, accurate answers about pricing and practice ownership
CMA vet remedies: an overview
Not all of the 14 remedies in the CMA’s final report are relevant to reception and front desk teams. But these three require a strategy and (ideally) a tool to automate the process:
Prescription fee caps. Written prescription fees are capped at £21 for the first medicine and £12.50 for each additional one*.
Transparent complaints handling. Practices must run a clear, accessible in-house complaints process, with mediation where a dispute can’t be resolved directly.
Ownership and pricing transparency. Practices must make clear whether they’re independent or part of a larger group, and must publish comprehensive price lists.
*(Exact obligations and deadlines vary by remedy and practice size. Practices should confirm their specific requirements with the RCVS or their own legal advisers.)
Why these three CMA remedies matter for today’s veterinary practice
Prescription and fee queries
Whereas receptionists might previously have quoted a fee informally over the phone, without a fee cap in mind, they must now have accurate pricing to hand to avoid the risk of providing wrong or inconsistent information.
Complaint calls
Many a complaint from a frustrated client starts with a phone call. Since it now has to feed into the accessible complaints process, it is vital that the content and sentiment are captured properly.
Ownership and pricing questions
Patients increasingly want to know who owns the practice and what treatments will cost. If two receptionists provide different answers, there’s a compliance risk for the practice to manage.
General record-keeping
With the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons (RCVS) set to publish annual complaints insights and increased scrutiny expected across the sector, practices can secure peace of mind early by accumulating accurate, timestamped records of what is actually said on each call.
How Vetsy supports accurate call handling with automatic call recording
Before exploring the features Vetsy offers to accomplish the challenge, it’s important to clarify that it is the call handler, not the compliance system. Compliance policies and guardrails are ultimately the responsibility of the PMS. The purpose of Vetsy is to bridge the gap between call and PMS efficiently.
With that boundary in mind, here’s how Vetsy helps.
Automated note posting replaces manual note-taking
Busy receptionists might be used to jotting handwritten notes on a pad at the same time as responding to questions. That can result in an incomplete or inaccurate record of a prescription fee query or pricing inquiry. By contrast, Vetsy records, transcribes and summarises every call, posting notes automatically to the PMS.
Call recording creates a verifiable source
While simultaneous notes are certainly valid, a recorded call is a far more reliable reference point. If a client queries a fee they were quoted, or the practice needs to review a complaint, the receptionist can access the actual recording in a single click.
Transcription and summary support tracking
An AI-generated transcript and summary means nobody has to scan through a full recording to find the detail that matters. If a complaint needs to be picked up by the practice’s own process, the relevant call is already captured and ready to share.
Sentiment analysis flags potential issues
Sentiment analysis shows the tone of a call for both the client and the receptionist. It’s a useful signal for spotting a complaint that wasn’t formally raised as one, or a client who left the call unhappy, so the practice can decide whether to follow up. Over time, sentiment analysis gives supervisors or administrators a wider picture of service from the patient’s perspective. With this information, they can act before complaints become bad online reviews.
Agent performance scoring identifies patterns
Consistency across the team matters more under the new remedies. Agent performance scoring helps practice managers see how confidently and accurately receptionists are answering fee, complaint, and pricing questions. Armed with this insight, managers can coach where needed to avoid one-off mistakes becoming recurring liabilities.
Why now is the right time for Vetsy
Under normal circumstances, practices would absorb the extra regulatory load over time. However, the rapidly evolving landscape practices now operate within means there’s little leeway to do so. They’re already struggling to accommodate rising client expectations, tighter margins, and a growing compliance burden. CMA remedies add one more task to the list.
Vetsy helps make sure that what happens on the phone is captured accurately and consistently, so your practice has good information to work with as these changes take effect.
Want to get ahead of the CMA’s remedies with Vetsy?
