In my opinion, a pre-scheduled appointment is usually more beneficial and productive than a spontaneous one (unless it is an emergency of course). To begin with, for me as a doctor it is very important to know who I will see in the day, if it is a feline or canine patient, and to know if it's coming for vaccines, a follow-up appointment, discharge etc.
In my personal experience, although it is possible to show up at my gynecologist's office without prior notice and request to be seen, I am highly unlikely to do so, and also it's highly unlikely that I would actually be seen due to various factors. The doctor will probably tell me that he or she does not have a space available and that I must make an appointment. So, I then wonder why should veterinarians act any differently with our patients?
Having appointments and set schedule for the day allows me to create the best possible strategy for the benefit of my patients, taking into account the type of patient that comes, if it is a first time appointment, the reason for the visit since the patient may need certain tools already prepared, among other considerations. In addition, having appointments prevents patients from becoming more stressed than they already get upon arrival at the veterinarian's office. For example, I surely do not want a stressed out cat to come into contact with a lot of dogs or with other stressed out cats in the waiting area while their turn comes. With appointments I can prevent this from happening.
Imagine that your dog or cat does not feel bad, but that day they have been taken to the vet for a check-up or routine vaccinations. In the case of the cat, when arriving at the veterinarian without an appointment it is very likely that he or she is in the waiting room with a dog that is sniffing the transporter insistently, barking, and this minute by minute makes the cat more and more stressed and nervous. Now put yourself in the place of the dog who, although lives with cats, does not know this one and wants to know everything about him or her. Then, probably without doing anything wrong other than being curious, the dog will be corrected several times for his or her behavior, since the owner does not want the dog to bother the cat. This is beneficial for neither the cat or the dog before entering the office to be checked, and its likely that the whole memory of the visit becomes stressful.
Without a previously scheduled appointment, the turns are subject to the variability of who comes before, why they are there, if they were easy to handle, if they have a previous clinical record, and other endless numbers of variables that can and should be planned for to allow a better management of the clinical case and to be able to provide the best possible care to our patients and owners.
It is also beneficial to be able to plan for the tools we will need to have ready for the appointment in Pet Point. For example, we will prepare differently for a patient who needs to have a blood sample taken, than we would for a patient who needs an ophthalmology consultation, x-rays due to limping, or a simple vaccination.
At Pet point, we not only dedicate the time of the consultation to revising the patients, but we go further, discussing the clinical case with the owners and familiarizing ourselves with new and better treatments that are at our fingertips. We have also designed forms that come to your email when you schedule your appointment, through which you tell us the patient's complete medical history, or as much as you know (age, species, gender, previous conditions, places where you lived, your food, preventive medicine and reason for consultation). This way, even if the appointment is only for vaccines, we can also make recommendations to improve their quality of life on a day-to-day basis.
At Pet point, the health of our patients is the most important thing for us, and we firmly believe that by making scheduled appointments and respecting those times we can give the best possible care.