Coming up on modern veterinary practice. Sometimes the insurer has seen the big, big black wolf, and I think that's unfair as well. So with modern technology now, there is no reason why I'm using text, WhatsApp and every other media that is available. Done well, done properly. I think it was Isaac Asmanoff said that IT works beautifully. I think when it's simple, it looks like magic. Well, that's what we need to do. It's have some magic involved. Welcome to the modern veterinary practice podcast. I'm your host and veterinary IT expert, Jack Peplow. In this episode, I'll be welcoming Gary Nelson, managing director of VizanticPets UK to the podcast. We'll be talking about how insurance automation and AI can radically simplify life inside veterinary practices, why claims and admin are still far more complex than they need to be, and how a smarter, more connected systems can improve experience for vets, teams and pet owners alike. The interview. Yeah, my name is Gary Nelson. I'm the managing director of VizanticPets UK. I'm a little bit about my background. I actually, originally from Liverpool, I suppose you'd call me an old rocker. I collect guitars. I used to play in a band many, many years ago. I won't tell you the name of the band because everybody would Google it. And then I'd be a little bit embarrassed. I have got eight guitars. And my wife has said that if I buy another one, then there will be a divorce on the table. I'm not too sure what's going to be the cheapest option really. But I do love guitars. I've sort of fell into the insurance business after working for my father for about seven years and worked my way up to quite some senior roles in prudential. I was a main board director. I was sales director of Booper. And then moved into my own company, which I had for about 13 years in design. And then just sort of found myself in the software business. Often look back into wonder why the hell that happened, but it did. But the software business in particular, dealing with insurance companies and they're helping them with their efficiencies on insurance claims. So a very, very much a gamekeeper turned poacher. So having a keen and a good understanding of the insurance industry and how it makes money and how it needs to be efficient, there I was on the other side of the coin, coming with solutions and ideas and software that would help that happen. And hence, I'm now in the, I suppose the pet ecosystem as they call it. So there's a brief introduction to major. No, that's fantastic. Well, Gary, it's great to have you on the one, the veterinary practice podcast. Now, I've got to say, what I find fascinating about your journey is that you're not just talking about innovation in abstract turns. You've actually lived at the intersection of tech, veterinary admin and insurance for a while now, as you say. Now, you've seen how conkey systems can really wear down a team, but you've also clearly someone who brings a very human, even joyful approach to solving these problems. So I want to get into some of these bigger ideas today, not just about insurance tech, but about how we make work feel better and where automation fits into that. So you've said your mission is to simplify the lives of veterinary professionals. When you look at the day-to-day in practice, where do you think we're over complicating things at the moment? Well, it's a great question, Jack. I think, perhaps not over complicating, but particularly the pet insurance industry and the claims process is a much more complicated one than the human claims process. Having worked for Booper, I understand that. And many years ago, and I won't say which year, but many years ago, there was something called the Big Red Book, and the Big Red Book was exactly what it suggested. It was a, like the telephone book, with very thin pieces of paper in it. And in that book was every episode that a human being could actually have presented to it, hard by pass to it, on select the menu name it. And within that book, and within that episode was a price. And there was a price for every little bit that drugs use, the bandages use, the theatre time, the anesthetic, the surgeon's prices. And in fact, I do recall when I first joined Booper, there was a row between the anesthetists and the surgeons on who should be paid more for a ton of selectomy, because the anesthetic side is more prevalent than the surgery side. Anyway, that makes life very much easier when it comes to insurance, because there's a lower limit, and there's a higher limit, and the insurer would say, well, we're not paying above that. And if you won't, above that, you, the insured pays for the excess. In the pet industry, it's really complicated, much more because you've got all different animals, all different breeds, and different methodologies. And there's no standardisation in the UK. It's a little bit like the Wild West, to be honest with you. And that makes the whole landscape really, really complicated. And where I believe the company that I work with and my reason to be is to try and standardise the way of working, standardise the information, makes sense of that information using AI, and all of the other tools that we can bring to that, to make life simpler, and to make sure that an episode of a particular pet in Truiro, as opposed to Penrith, if the same episode or the same treatment has been made, and really it should be the same sort of pricing. Does that sort of make sense, Jack? No, 100% 100%. And I mean, the insurance is often seen as this necessary evil in practice life. Do you think that perception can ever shift and should it? Well, I think, you know, I think most people think, you know, insurance is a bit dry, you know, as a subject. But trust me, it's going through some really big changes at the moment. One of the changes I've seen this year is there is a price wall going on. You know, there's a race to the bottom. And I think that is what from a consumer point of view, you might think that that's a good thing. But quite frankly, I'm not quite sure because when profits are being squeezed, it puts transformation a little bit on hold. And we don't really want to see that transformation or the IT transformation being delayed. I guess making insurance claims smoother and more friendly to the consumer is really important. I don't know about you, Jack, but when I have to phone any large institution for any reason at all, whether it be my gas provider, my electric provider, my car insurer, or my pet insurer, my heart sinks because, you know, that is 45 minutes waiting for the music to stop and us being told wrong, old, and your call is valuable to us. Well, it's bloody well, isn't it? If you're having to sit there for 45 minutes. So again, another thing that I truly believe is how do we bring technology into that equation to make the pet parents life easier? And the insurer, their lives easier, and also to make sure that the insurer is seen as providing a really great service to the policy holder, because sometimes the insurer is seen as the big black wolf, and I think that's unfair as well. So with modern technology now, there is no reason why I use text, WhatsApp, and every other media that is available, done well, done properly. I think as Isaac Asmanoff said that IT works beautifully, I think when it's simple, it looks like magic. No, absolutely. And kind of on that, because it was the work on E claims for years, why do you think paper still dominates so many clinics? Is it a healthier, a better or a tech barrier or something else? Well, I think sometimes people don't like change, even though it's painful.
But there's a number of wonderful PMSs around at the moment. I won't mention any brands because I don't want to be two partners on. But there's a number of PMSs that are using AI to even turn voice into text. It's been around for many years. I've come to allow you to work for you to speak to speech analytics to identify next best actions actually in real time when a customer was talking on the phone. This has been around for quite some time. But in terms of the vet actually doing some treatment and talking about that treatment, if you ask a vet what takes most of their lives up, they'll say, "Is doing the bloody notes at the end of some treatment, having to upload all of that and type them into the PMS?" If that could be done automatically using speech analytics that actually uses AI to significantly upgrade the intel that's going into that PMS and then automatically make a claim on behalf of the customer, "Wow, again, it's that magic again, it's that technical magic that helps." I think I'm going to get into real trouble on my next comment now. I think it could be an age thing as well, a demographic age thing. I'm of an age where my kids think I'm a little bit decrepid and typical middle-aged, angry old man type thing. I like to think that when it comes to technology, I'm still wide-eyed and bushy-tailed and in awe of what technology can do. I do think that seems to be in some areas the province of younger people and I think that's wrong. I think everybody should embrace the technology. There's oldies out there that think that it's all new fangled and it's not worthy. Take that hat off. Give it a go, give it a world, play around with it and embrace the magic of what particularly AI and inventory practice can do. Absolutely. Now, obviously, Vicentech is Swedish. In Sweden, the pet insurance model is way more embedded. What could the UK learn or maybe even indeed unlearn from that? So, Vicentech is a fabulous company, actually. I feel very privileged and honored to be heading up the UK side. It's a dream come true for me. In Sweden, you're absolutely right. The adoption of insurance is over 90%. It's grown up through a period of trust between the insurer, the parent and the claims processing side. It doesn't seem to be the abrasive issues between insurer and claimant and vet group in Sweden, as there is in the UK. In Sweden, connections in terms of, what should we say, communications is smooth and it's in real time. Data flows around and around and it's shared. That makes queries about a claim much quicker. I remember being hauled on a call by an organisation that should remain nameless, but it was a large vet group who wanted to show me what good look like. It was in a previous company. Those who want to look on my LinkedIn would know exactly who that is, have a look. But my previous company, so I was basically asked to come along and see what they believe was what good looked like. It was a Swedish model and it was a pet being brought into a vet group, into a vet being worked upon and the claim being made in real time. The claim was paid before the pet left the practice. That's awesome. That is awesome. I must admit, I sat there in awe and thought, wow, that is light years away from where we are in the UK. The company that was involved in that was Vicentec. That's why I'm so excited to, I think we've got a long way to go because it's not just us bringing that technology to the UK and saying, no, we go, use it. There's an element of connecting all the pieces together, PMS, Macaroops, insurers. That technology exists. It's available now. Using AI, it can support extremely swift analysis of claims and identify even elements of fraudulent activity, but more so, just make it smoother for everybody. Make sure the vets get paid quicker, the pet parents are looked after. I think I'm going into a slight rant now, Jack, but one of the things that I think is really important is that at the point of care or just before the point of care, the vet and the pet parent are cognitive of the policy that is held by the pet parents' details. From the vets point of view, will they get paid? Is the policy live, has the direct debit stopped? Is there an excess? If there's an excess, who's going to pay it? How's it going to be paid? All of these things, if that information is available, will stop a lot of the issues that I'm sure have ended up on the CMA's investigation panel of complaints that have come in with pet parents saying, I didn't know. Nobody told me I was, they did this work, it was £3000, I didn't know that I had, etc. So I think, again, using technology to communicate seamlessly and smoothly and in a friendly way is absolutely paramount. No, absolutely. Now you mentioned some really interesting ideas there, especially this concept around the practice getting paid before the client even leaves the building, which is very exciting. That's the hearing now, to a point, not necessarily in the UK, but it is the technologies there. Now, if we were to zoom out, what does the Vapney Clinic of 2030 look like when it comes to insurance workflows? What do you hope it feels like to work there? What a great question. That is Jack. I love that question. Going back to that IT and solutions being like magic, I think it's about a connected ecosystem, a connected world where if you move house, I'm in the process of moving house, we're hopefully going to exchange today, but God, he normally knows, but moving house. So you move out the area and you take your pets with you. It is hit and miss today whether that history would actually, or of your pets would actually be moved to your new vet. It's not a guarantee. Same with your own doctor actually, sometimes that doesn't happen. But wouldn't it be nice to know that if you moved from London now to the West country and you went to a new vet, that you could with a pet passport on your mobile picture of your pets, the bling history barcode or what have you, you go into your pet, into your vet, sorry, they take a scan and immediately all of the pets history with everything that's involved in that is immediately moved to that new vet. Why should that not be the case? That technology exists today. So there's one thing, the ability to make an appointment by just using Siri or Alexa, with a diagnostic bot that actually will give the vet a little bit of forward information about what's going on with fluffy the dog or what have you.
The ability to automatically order a prescription using Alexa or Siri, rather than pay sometimes inflated prices from dispensaries and have it delivered within four hours. The moment you buy something, I'm Amazon, same day, it turns up. You buy something from Tesco and swoosh, it's 20 minutes. Why not with prescriptions? I think as well, the veterinary industry, again, going back to their age thing, has got to adopt this new way of working. I'm struggling Jack sometimes to think about what I'm going to eat at lunch time, never mind what this is, is life. Does that give a sort of a flame? I think it actually does. There's so many exciting things and I get very excited about predictive care, but that's another conversation to be had for another year. I knew this would be the case, we literally hit that 20 minute mark, which is typical. Gary, thank you so much. It is honestly so rare to find someone who couldn't talk about the insurance technology, but also the human connection and the same breath. May I add not to lose someone along the way? If people wanted to get in touch with you, how can they go about and reach out to you? Pretty simple, really. Go on to our website, which I better spell this because I was at the best UK awards lunch. I was very privileged to be able to give an award out. It was wonderful. I sat on the table with 10 people and I said, look, I'm Gary Nelson from Vizentic. Vizentic. Everybody, I said, let's have a bit of a challenge, see who can say it the right way. I have no idea how I want it. Even in Sweden, the folks in my own company say the brand in a different way as well. It's Vizent, a WISETIC, Vizentic. Go on to Vizentic and you'll find me on there, Samy. All Gary with two hours, Nelson, NELSON, NELSON, go on to LinkedIn, you'll find me on LinkedIn or
[email protected]. So, Samy and Ema, I'd love to hear from you. I'm a great believer in learning by people's comments and thoughts. When I put my posts at, I always ask for, let me know. People do. It's fascinating. So that's how people can get older me. Yeah. Cool, now it's perfect. They will all be in the show, now Gary, thank you so much. That's been so much fun. You're very welcome. Recommended resources. Every episode we ask professionals and experts to suggest a best business resource for our listeners. This speech recommendation is from Dr. Phil Richmond. The book is called The Culture Code. I read that. That book is essentially, you know, client services, psychological safety, like all that. It's just, I read the whole thing. I've read it three or four times and as a book, you know, as a leader, I think that's a, you know, I mean, there's so many great books out there. For me, that was a, that was a really great one. From a spiritual aspect, just something that was a relatively easy read. The first book that I read that wasn't directly recovery related was the four agreements. And the second and third agreement, the, you know, I'll get the, get them mixed up. But one is don't take anything personally, which is easy to say, but when you realize that it has so much more to do with the other person, you know, in the spiritual and emotional condition that other person is in, it allows me to give grace to that person. And, you know, not, not that I'm taking, you know, vitriol or, you know, aggression or anything. But if they're just upset or something like that, I can say, ah, wow, that's, that's where that person is. And then don't make assumptions. As my father used to colorfully tell me. And so I was telling you about that journey and recovery, like going through my whole life. And when I realized all of these things that I spent so much time, you know, going over in my head. And by the way, there's an 88% overlap in what we imagine to be real and what we see with our senses. So my brain can't tell the difference. If I imagine something, I'm going to have the same emotional response as if it's actually happening. So I went through all those emotions or nothing because I assumed, I assumed that, oh, they did this because of this. You know, I filled in the blanks with that. And that is those two, two principles are really, really powerful. Coming up next week, we welcome David McDonald, veterinary surgeon and UK market leader, vet source. David shares his journey from clinical practice and partnership through senior leadership roles at Linnaeus to now helping international veterinary technology scale in the UK. We explore why so many vets are struggling to enjoy the profession, the hidden inefficiencies, draining time and energy from practices and how better use of non clinical data could transform well being as well as performance. David also challenges how we think about efficiency, leadership and change management, figuring that smarter systems should exist to support people, not squeeze them. I think it's a change management, being able to manage change. It sounds really basic. That's why I'm kind of questioning myself. But I genuinely, I can think of so many examples where I didn't practice that in practice. And I see it a lot now as well that we've got great ideas. And maybe these are ideas that we as a practice owner have been sitting on for years even. And then we implement it because it's amazing. And we have this massive fallout with our team leaving in tears, whatever, you know, because they weren't understanding, they didn't understand the why, why was it going to benefit, how we're going to evaluate its success. And you know, I can think of several examples of what I've done in the past that I just hadn't managed that change. If I hadn't managed to make a better expectation, everybody had a slightly different idea of what was going to happen or what it meant for them. And actually the impact that could have happened maybe wasn't as great as it should have been. That's it for this episode. All links and recommendations we talked about are in the show notes. Don't forget to subscribe and share the podcast if you found it useful. In the meantime, thanks for listening and see you next time.
PodcastTranscript AI