Animal Welfare Professionals

Hi all! My group is helping to establish a spay/neuter voucher program in one of the cities we work with. They had one a few years ago that wasn't successful so there are a lot of eyes on it this time around. If your city has a program would you mind sharing how it operates? Some areas of interest include:

• How are vets reimbursed?
• Do you have a negotiated price with vets or is it the same as what the public pays?
• How did you get vets onboard with the program?
• How do you ensure people show up to appointments/ don't cancel?
  • If an appointment is missed, is the vet still paid? 
• How long are the vouchers good for? We don't want them to be indefinite but are cognizant of surgery backlogs.
• How do you track voucher use/success?
• How do you distribute the vouchers? We are concerned with backyard breeders gaining access to them
• Anything else a new voucher program should know.
• Anything we should avoid doing!

Thanks everyone!

Great questions! I would also love information and guidance on creating a voucher program. Currently our little rescue is working on a S/N program but can really only fund 1-2 surgeries per month. We are definitely having some trouble getting it off the ground. 

Good for you! We are small also, serving three counties in North Central Arkansas. We have specific "projects" for spaying. "The Homeless Dog Project" and "Spay Your Pit Bull" are two of them.  Vouchers are given as long as they meet the project requirement, and our vouchers are for a flat fee  of $75. We have two vets who have agreed to spay and give a rabies shot for that price.  Other vets in the area will take our vouchers but then charge the owners the remaining balance.  Vouchers are good for two months, and we mail them to owners. 

If you would like more info, just message me.

Hi - we started our voucher program in 2020 during the pandemic and it's been going strong ever since.  It is for low-income or unemployed pet-owning residents of our county.

We at first tried partnering with the local shelter to hand out vouchers, but we gave them 5 to start with and they lost 4 of them so we quickly determined this was not going to work for accountability reasons.  We are sticklers for an audit trail in the work we do.

We set up a form on our website for people to request assistance.  Info is here: https://www.shelterpetsafetynet.org/spay-neuter/

The form is in both English and Spanish, and can be printed off if needed. 

After consulting with another charity that provides low-cost S/N in Austin, we decided not to demand a lot of "proof". We ask about income, number of people in household, occupation, and they can tell us more in a comments section.  It is very rare that we turn anyone down.  We know there are a few people with higher incomes taking advantage of the program, but for the most part the benefits are going to people who need them.

The process is: Applicant applies online, we tell them where they can make an appointment for the surgery.  They have to send us back the place/time for the appointment, then we approve them.  We let the service provider know we are paying for it.  There is no physical voucher; the applicant has the email from us and the service providers keep records that we are the payer for the surgery.  This avoids the issue of paper being lost/passed on to someone else.

We partner with a local charity, Save An Angel, which does low-cost spay/neuter surgeries in our county. They give us a discount and they directly bill us for the surgery cost. If the animal does not have a rabies vaccination we pay for that too, and for dogs we also cover distemper vaccinations.  They also refer people to us when they call to make appointments and say they cannot afford the cost.

In addition to Save An Angel, we work with an Austin charity (Emancipet) that does low cost  S/N, and a couple of local veterinary practices that are more reasonable than some in the area.  The local vet connection is important because the low-cost charity S/N organizations do not have a lot of capacity for larger dogs (of which there are MANY in our rural area) and they also turn away animals that have additional medical problems - heart issues and so on - as they don't have the resources to deal with that.  Other local vets will take these cases for extra cost.  Our philosophy is -- it may cost more but these animals need the help.  We don't need another large litter of Great Pyrenees or Mastiff mix puppies running around.  We have good relationships with the surgery providers and all of them will bill us directly.

Our biggest challenge is the capacity of the surgery providers.  There can be a wait of months for larger animals.

Second biggest challenge is getting people to follow through with the appointments.   Quite a few of them we never hear back from after they apply.  We don't have manpower to follow up with them quickly, though they do get at least one reminder.   Eventually we take them off our list if they haven't done anything in a year.

Hope this helps!

Jenni

Hello -

Our charity was approved in January of this year.  The way we are working is that people apply online to have their pet spay/neutered.  We set up the appointment with the local vet.  They perform the procedure and bill us.  We pay them.   QUESTION FOR THOSE DOING THIS A WHILE - Are we required to send a 1099 to the vet for the monies we pay them for this service?  One accountant said yes and another accountant said no since it would be considered a benevolent organization activity.  What are you all doing?  We are just starting out and want to make sure we do things correctly.  We've already spayed/neutered 6 pets and are so very excited.

We have been doing a spay-neuter assistance program in central AZ for more than a decade and have never sent a 1099 to a vet, nor have ever had one requested.

We have a rebate  program. SNAP (spay neuter assistance). Amount rebated is not great but it helps. Folks apply and receive a voucher. They have 90 days to use it. vet signs it at time of surgery and client returns it.they cover all vet cost up front. They are mailed a rebate. We do not require proof of low income. An animal fixed in the community, is one less animal breeding in the community.......The amount of the rebate differs per cat and dog and spay or neuter.

Hi Rachel,

We don't have a voucher program, but I'll share my thoughts on the areas where we overlap.  Kotor Kitties provides free or heavily-subsidized spay-neuter surgeries for cats in a Balkan country called Montenegro.

1. Vet reimbursement:  we try to always prepay as much as we can for 2 reasons:  1) we don't ever want to be caught short of funds/unable to pay our vets (rescues abroad are notorious for non-payment of bills)  and 2) the cost of transferring funds oversees make large payments more cost-effective.
2. Yes!  we have a negotiated price of 50% off the official price established by the Veterinary Chamber (the minimum of what the public pays) in exchange for the high volume of surgery we send our 4 partner vets.
3. To get vets involved we met with them and asked that they help solve the overpopulation problem.  The first vet knew immediately what we wanted to do.  Once we built up some volume,  he helped us recruit 2 more that he felt were honest and hard-working.  Those are not qualities that are easy to find where we work.  One other vet, not recommended, but in an area where we desperately needed a vet, did not work out.  We canceled the contract at the end of the 30 days trial, based on feedback from caretakers (clients).
4. We pay per cat, not per voucher.  There are no-shows, and our vets have learned to book slightly over their capacity to compensate for this.

As far as backyard breeders--my personal attitude is that if it spays or neuters one of their animals, it's money well spent!  We focus on the overall goal, which is reducing the overpopulation of cats in the community.  Thus we reduce as many barriers as possible. 

Rather than have people lie to us, we have no location boundaries or income limits for cats receiving eartips.  Since we raise our own funds and aren't bound by government contracts, we're free to do this.  Our vets will accept payment of our set price from people who they don't want an ear tip.  Why?  Again, our overall goal is reducing overpopulation. 

Rather than put people through the indignity of documenting their income, we simply ask everyone to donate what they can, anonymously.  If they voluntarily say that they can't afford a donation, we ask them to help catch other cats in their neighborhood, or spread the word about spay-neuter. 

Word of mouth has been powerful advertising for spay-neuter!  We put all of our funds into the surgeries, not into marketing spay-neuter.  It is a country that basically knew nothing of spay-neuter when we started, and most people were reluctant to consider it for cats they knew or fed...   Within 2 years we were spay-neutering as fast as we could fundraise!  And we've been told by vets and rescuers that more people are adopting cats now, as long as they are sterilized!

Good luck with your new program!

Hi again, Rachel--I should have started out by asking you what happened the first time so that it didn't work out?  It would be a good lesson for all of us!

I'm reading the feedback you received! This is Stray Kitty Rescue. We are located in Philadelphia PA in a low income area and now of severa large organizations that work with the city that have spay and neuter vouchers. Is there a competition that must be won to get these vouchers? In general what are the pre qualifications? Ty 

Thanks for starting this topic Rachel!

These are great responses!  we are a small rural clinic - one of our goals is to start a spay and neuter program, but we struggle with funding.  where do I look for funding sources? 

I'm so glad spay and neuter vouchers are being addressed. We're in a rural area, not everyone in the community can access to the internet so some of our processes are still via snail mail. Most have cell phones but cannot navigate online forms. To avoid no shows, we ask families to contribute towards the surgery $50 to $75 if they can. Our announcement does say families with limited income are encouraged to apply. We're a small rescue but was able to fund 73 surgeries last year. We make the appointment ourselves and do all the reminder call to the families. We partner with 2 rural vet clinics who can only handle about 6 surgeries per day.

We are a very small shelter with a spay/neuter voucher program for pets and TNR vouchers for community cats.  We are 100% donation/grant driven and, sadly, our grant money has dried up in the last 2 years so we can only hand out about 4 Pet vouchers per week (a drop in the bucket). We hand them out first thing Tuesday mornings and have a line up before we open. 

TheTNR program runs differently, so we are able to give out as many as people can trap and get to the vet. 

To answer your questions:

• How are vets reimbursed?
  • We only have one vet office in our community and they bill us directly
  • People with vouchers pay the vet between $30-$45 depending on dog or cat / spay or neuter. We cover the rest
  • Our vet requires that co-pay at the time they make appointment to try and mitigate no-shows. This has been a huge help

• Do you have a negotiated price with vets or is it the same as what the public pays?
  • They give us a discounted rate, but its not a huge discount by any means

• How did you get vets onboard with the program?
  • Can't help here since we've been working with them for years

• How do you ensure people show up to appointments/ don't cancel?
  • This one is so difficult. Payment up-front has definitely helped
  • We have to flat out ask people if they have the money for the co-pay right now and ask them to come back another time if they don't (of course, some people lie, but what can you do?)

• How long are the vouchers good for? We don't want them to be indefinite but are cognizant of surgery backlogs.
  • They have to arrange for their appointment within 2 weeks of receiving the voucher and surgery must be completed within 2 months
  • Put the expiration date right on the voucher
  • We also print our vouchers on brightly colored paper and with some of the text also in color so they are harder to duplicate
  • One voucher=one animal
    • We have a space each for male or female, dog or cat, put a 1 in that box and ZERO out all the others so they can't alter it

• How do you track voucher use/success?
  • We have a volunteer that picks up used vouchers from the vet each week, then we mark them off the log book
  • Because we give so few vouchers, we can also call vet to see who has made their appointment and when it is
  • Same volunteer calls voucher holders who haven't made their appointment yet to either push them along or tell them their voucher is now void because they didn't follow through
• How do you distribute the vouchers? We are concerned with backyard breeders gaining access to them
  • Like I said, we do all 4 first thing Tuesday when we open (we're closed on Sunday and Monday). We thought about making it a different day each week, but that caused undue confusion all around.  If someone really wants a voucher, they figure out a way to be at the shelter Tuesday AM
  • We have a form where they have to confirm low-income status (we don't ask for proof, just have them read an initial). Get their phone, address, email, etc
  • We have a lot of backyard breeders here too, but they really aren't looking for vouchers, they just dump their unwanteds. :(

• Anything else a new voucher program should know.
  • Make sure you can read what they've written on the application!!
• Anything we should avoid doing!
  • The worst thing we used to do is not have an expiration date and not following up with people who haven't made their appointments.
  • Not knowing the size of your community, you might want to just work with one or two vet offices or you might be running every-which-way to find out how much you'll be paying each month
• GOOD LUCK!

We have our own speuter clinic, so I can't speak to all of this- but just wanted to say: people seem way more inclined to show up for appointments if they have some skin in the game- so don't give the vouchers away for free except in rare circumstances. I want them to feel invested in their pet's health.

We usually give people one free pass and a warning if they have a good excuse, but after that they lose their deposit. Demand for this service is too high to waste time on people who don't want to follow through.

In setting the amount, you have to try and strike a balance between what most people can afford, and what will actually incentivize them to show up. We charge $20 for cats and $50 for dogs, the rest of the cost is subsidized by designated donations.  They have to qualify for this program with proof of receiving state benefits, or meeting income guidelines.  We have a different low-cost program for people who don't qualify for the low income one.

Good luck!

Hello,

Great initiative to start this program. My APS department started a voucher program in 2019 and serves our small community.

• I have an established relationship with a local veterinarian who is very active in helping the community. Other veterinarians in the area are mostly franchises, so limited in decision-making and establishing prices.
• The vet agreed to match our local low-cost spay/neuter clinic services and cost.
• I am in the position to transport the animals to the vet for surgery appointments. In some cases, I will meet them there, but make it clear any missed appointments will forfeit the voucher. I coordinate all surgery appointments. So far, no one has missed an appointment.
• I give vouchers out on a case-by-case basis, and they are signed by the pet owner and myself at the time of surgery. 
• This program works for my community. I would recommend you distribute vouchers on an individual basis to maintain control of them and keep track of your costs.
• I also have a Community Cat Program for TNR and control and coordinate those appointments as well. The vouchers are used mainly for spay/neuter surgeries for owned pets to keep them with their families and make sure the pets are altered and vaccinated. I also use the vouchers for vaccinations if the pet owner needs assistance with costs. 

Best of luck to you!

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Kathleen Marshall
Animal protection officer
City of Southport
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Best Friends of Pets in Oklahoma City has had a Spay Neuter Assistance Program since 2005. It has been successful, and last year we had our best year yet. Forewarning, it takes a lot of fundraising because we only ask pet parents to pay $10 for cats spays or neuters and $20 for dogs. We pay vet clinics $65 for male cats to $130 for female dogs and up to $40 for surgery complications. Information about our program and how to apply can be found at https://bestfriendsofpets.org/programs/spay-neuter/.  Approved applications expire six weeks from our approval date, and we extend on a case by case basis with a $10 extension fee for all applications sent in at the same time. We have a limit of four pets each calendar year.  Attached is our Veterinary Clinic Information, and I can provide more information we send to prospective and current participating clinics on request. I have also attached our spay neuter packet, which is available on our website. 

Attachment(s)

Spay Neuter Packet.pdf   458 KB 1 version

2-Vet clinic info 2023-03-01.pdf   173 KB 1 version