With urgent care centers springing up across the nation, we sat down with Daniel Moezzi, DVM, owner of Urgent PetCare AZ, to hear about his paperless, walk-in friendly urgent care center in Phoenix, AZ, and find out how Instinct is helping him run his practice like a high-speed, finely tuned machine.
Creating a Turbocharged Urgent Care Center 🔋
Dr. Moezzi had always wanted to own his own hospital, and as he saw increasing demand for urgent care centers around Phoenix, he decided to make his dream a reality. In 2022, after working in emergency and referral centers for five years, he broke ground on his new urgent care facility.
“From the beginning, my intention was to be completely paperless, provide digital check-in, and become excellent at offering walk-ins and timely, high-quality care for patients,” said Dr. Moezzi. “We stand out from corporate practices, and I build my practice around everything I love in emergency settings and managing critical care patients.”
“Prior to opening up, I had only used Instinct for Treatment Sheets, which stood out for its intuitive design and well-thought-out features. I heard about EMR from Yavapai Emergency Animal Hospital and other peers, but what really made me choose Instinct was the people and process. Interacting with the Instinct team showed me how you really listen to—and act as an extension of—your customers’ teams when it comes to practice set-up. It also was and remains so important for me to see Instinct keep your community up-to-date on new features, build resources on your website, blog, and customer community, and evolve over time to meet the changing needs of customers. I don’t just want to pay for a static product and that’s what it is forever. Instinct is constantly advancing and helping customers to transform in the process.”
Dr. Moezzi quickly learned that it takes a TON of information to start a new hospital: Setting prices, implementing diagnostic devices, hiring a team, determining drug storage, and more.
Before opening his doors, he took to doing practice runs in his own apartment: simulating walkthroughs, QR check-throughs, triage tagging to determine where a patient is, discharging patients, technician and CSR walkthroughs, estimating authorization forms, digitally signing forms, and setting up Microsoft surface laptops to use Instinct across the practice.
“Sometimes technology itself IS really the catalyst for supercharging a hospital,” said Dr. Moezzi. “Instinct’s set-up team moves fast and comes to the table armed with templates and process recommendations. My tip for new hospital owners is to get early relationships with other vendors before or during Instinct set-up: This way you have access to vital pricing information you’ll need to input into the EMR.”
A Day in the Life with Dr. Moezzi
At Urgent PetCare, Instinct is embedded into every part of the team’s daily operations.
“When a client walks in, a patient is immediately added to our board via Instinct’s rapid check-in, and this alerts the entire staff who can start preparing instantly. A technician triages them, and we have a stabilization form in Instinct that means if the patient is unstable, they can approve that right in the lobby, digitally.
“If not, the patient is brought back, and the technician will use a surface laptop to record vitals and look up patient history. Simultaneously, via a QR code, the client is using their phone to enter recent information and patient history.
“That form goes to our reception email, and the client’s history is pasted right into the doctor’s SOAP. So all at once, patient history is captured, the technician’s triage log is captured, and vitals are entered very quickly. This all happens within a few minutes so a doctor can come in and evaluate the pet as fast as possible.
“Doctors will generally still make estimates at our hospital, but if I ask a technician to make an estimate, they can usually do it accurately 99% of the time. Once an estimate is determined and approved, clients sign a digital form in Instinct. And then we automatically use the treatments from the invoice. Every step of the way, we’re using Instinct to power our process because in this environment every moment counts.”
On the medical side, technicians at Urgent PetCare name Instinct’s triage features and treatment sheets as the most essential features, while doctors are using medical records and estimates all day every day.
On the business side of the house, Dr. Moezzi is able to run reports to see daily operations like treatments completed over time, end-of-day stats, top referring hospitals, and controlled substance monitoring, as well as analyze the most productive areas of the practice, make pricing decisions for different charges over time, catch invoice errors, and ensure charges are complete and captured.
“If I didn’t have Instinct for my CPA, I would be a stress ball,” said Dr. Moezzi. “This is where I get my tax information and make sure we’re running smoothly from both a legal and revenue standpoint.”
A Headache-Free EMR
Before using Instinct, Dr. Moezzi had run the gamut of other industry incumbents, including Smartflow, paper treatment sheets, Avimark, DVMmax, and Cornerstone.
“Instinct stands head and shoulders above every other system I’ve used,” said Dr. Moezzi. “I’ve built everything in my hospital around Instinct’s system. It’s a big draw for our relief vets to work with us. What I tell people when talking about our hospital is there are just so many headaches to deal with as an owner, and our EMR is NOT one of them.”
With a staff of one full-time veterinarian and rotating relief doctors, they’re able to see between 20-40 cases a day, with wait times that seldom exceed 1-2 hours.
“Because of how well we maximize our use of Instinct, we’re able to move clients in and out with ease,” said Dr. Moezzi. “I’m proud to be running a highly productive and efficient urgent care team, and Instinct is a large part of our success.”
Quick-Fire Questions with DVM and Practice Owner, Daniel Moezzi
Questions have been edited for clarity and length.
Instinct: How would you describe our product to a friend or colleague?
Dr. Moezzi: I was explaining to somebody the other day—who’s in a different industry—he asked me what CRM (customer relationship management) platform we use. I’ve never used a CRM but I’m pretty sure Instinct is the medical version of it, if it means that literally everything we do happens in Instinct: from our emails, our records, our labs, our check-in process, our patient history, our client chats, our internal chats. And if it’s not in Instinct, did it happen?
Instinct: What’s been your favorite part of working with Instinct?
Dr. Moezzi: What I’ve realized as a business owner is that besides having a superior product, the most important thing is having excellent customer support—Instinct’s amazing support team saves me headaches I have with a few other systems we use. Support and training is huge and probably the most overlooked consideration when purchasing an EMR/PIMS.
Instinct: What would your practice be like without Instinct?
Dr. Moezzi: It would involve a lot more paper, and it would be a lot more challenging. We’d probably be getting bogged down switching between softwares, wasting time. Wait times would be longer, staff more frustrated, and by far less ideal customer experiences.
Instinct: What advice do you have for others considering Instinct?
Dr. Moezzi: For those who are interested in starting an urgent care or working in specialty or emergency especially, Instinct is THE premium product that pays for itself in what we gain from time savings, efficiency, and charges captured. Efficiency generates more revenue for us and keeps us on the cutting edge with technology employees love. I wasn’t interested in other EMRs/PIMS; Instinct was worth making it work. For me, Instinct is the iPhone or Gmail of veterinary EMRs, leagues above the rest.
In terms of training my staff: Instinct comes naturally to those who are comfortable with apps and modern phone software. I’ve coached others through change, and once they figure it out, they look back and say, “WOW, this is better than anything I’ve used in practice.”
If you’re curious how Instinct Treatment Plan or our complete EMR platform could support your practice, reach out and request a demo.