We are—for now—continuing the policies we implemented last June 1 when we welcomed clients back into our exam rooms. Here’s a reminder of the basic protocol:
Call the front desk at (317) 852-3323 when you arrive in our parking lot for your appointment.*
If you want to come inside with your pet, a team member will come out and escort you into the building, straight to an exam room.
Please plan on having no more than two people come in with your pet.**
We will be wearing masks and maintaining a safe distance from you throughout your visit.
Regardless of your vaccine status, we expect you to wear a mask covering your nose and mouth all the time you’re in our building.
Once you’re in the exam room, we ask you to remain seated.
Check-out will happen in the exam room.
*Forgot your cell phone? Please come knock on the front door when you arrive.
**Euthanasia appointments can be an exception to the two-person-inside rule, should more than two members of your family wish to be present. Just tell us how many will be coming inside when you call to let us know you’ve arrived.
Curbside service is still an option for those of you who prefer to wait in your cars while we take your pet inside for examination, diagnosis and treatment.
Curbside service is the only option for clients who are unwilling to wear a mask while inside our building.
We are also relying exclusively on curbside service for technician appointments and food and prescription pick-ups.
On Tuesday, June 1, we will reopen our exam rooms to clients who want to come inside for their pets’ appointments.
That’s right! The eye-to-eye interactions we’ve all missed so much during the many months of curbside-only service are once again an option so long as the infection rates in our area stay reasonably low and our clients are willing to follow a few simple precautions.
Curbside service will still be available to clients who prefer to stay in their cars. If you’d rather stay outside and communicate with us by phone, we’ll be happy to take care of getting your pet inside for the appointment and returned to your car when we’re done.
Curbside-only service will continue for technician appointments and food and prescription pick-ups.
Starting Tuesday, June 1—
Call the front desk at (317) 852-3323 when you arrive in our parking lot for your appointment.
If you want to come inside with your pet, a team member will come out and escort you into the building, straight into an exam room.
Please plan on having no more than two people come in with your pet.
We will be wearing masks and maintaining a safe distance from you throughout your visit.
Regardless of your vaccine status, we expect you to wear a mask covering your nose and mouth all the time you’re in the building.
Once you’re in the exam room, we ask you to remain seated.
Check-out will happen in the exam room.
If you are unwilling or unable to take these precautions once you’re inside our building, we will ask you to return to your car for the rest of the appointment.
Why the Masks?
We expect everyone to wear masks because it’s a simple, easy, effective way to continue to minimize risks for everyone—especially for those who are not vaccinated and those who are at high risk of complications from COVID. Masks still are the best precaution we can all take to keep everyone safe and make sure we can continue to care for our patients without interruption.
We will continue to monitor area infection rates as well as clients’ compliance with our guidelines and will revert to curbside-only service if necessary.
Our lobby remains closed until further notice.
Thank you for your continuing patience and understanding. We truly look forward to seeing you again!
Sincerely,
Timea H. Brady, DVM Owner, Brownsburg Animal Clinic
Despite the decline of COVID-19 new case and death rates from winter highs to levels close to those experienced last summer, Brownsburg Animal Clinic will continue curbside service exclusively until further notice.
We will also continue following guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control regarding wearing masks and keeping physical distance from colleagues and clients.
Like most of our clients, we strongly prefer the more efficient and satisfying face-to-face interactions of indoor appointments. Several of our team members and their pets have recently visited specialty clinics where curbside service was the only option. In sharing their experiences of curbside as clients, they’ve helped all of us understand better than ever our own clients’ frustrations with curbside service.
Other team members have shared recent experiences with providers of human healthcare and dentistry, citing continuing restrictions on family members allowed into exam and hospital rooms.
Within the veterinary industry, we are seeing many clinics and veterinary teaching hospitals continuing to offer curbside only, until further notice—as we have elected to do. Others have reopened their facilities to the public while still making curbside service available to clients who prefer it,. We tried that from last July 6 until November 10, when we reverted to curbside-only as infection and death rates soared.
As a healthcare professional and clinic owner, I am solely responsible for setting policies for our clinic. I consider the current risks of infection too great to reopen our building to the public right now and for the foreseeable future. That’s why curbside-only service will continue at Brownsburg Animal Clinic.
All year long, my first priority has been and remains the health and safety of our staff, our families and our clients. Infections within the clinic could not only make any number of us sick and jeopardize our own and our families’ health, but also shut us down for weeks. I want to keep that risk as low as possible so we can continue to be here for our clients and patients without interruption. I also want to minimize confusion about what our clients can expect when they come for an appointment by continuing the policy we’ve had in place for the past four months until infection and death rates stabilize at lower levels.
As COVID-19 vaccines become more widely available, I am encouraging all on our team who wish to be vaccinated to schedule their appointments promptly. We will track the dates their shots are administered and wait for full efficacy for all vaccinated staff members before we consider reopening the building. We will also continue to monitor the infection and death rates as well as vaccination rates for Hendricks and surrounding counties as we look to restore full access to our building as soon as we feel it’s reasonably safe to do so.
Meanwhile, we are allowing clients into the building for euthanasias. If you observe clients entering the building, we ask that you understand this is the most likely reason for their visit and offer them the same respect and compassion you would appreciate if you were saying goodbye to your pet for the last time.
We will notify our clients by email, website post and Facebook post when we feel it is safe to reopen our building to clients. We apologize for any inconvenience and frustration our continuing curbside-only policy may cause you as a client.
Curbside Protocols
As a reminder, here’s how curbside works:
Call in advance to make an appointment for your pet’s visit.
When you arrive for the appointment, call the front desk at(317) 852-3323 to let us know you’re in our parking lot.
A technician will call you to discuss your pet’s history and the reason for the appointment.
A technician will then come to your car and bring your pet into the clinic for examination and treatment.
Cats must be in a secure carrier—not loose in your vehicle. We provide secure leads for dogs.
Our staff will not reach into your vehicle for your pet. We’re asking you to place cat carriers on the ground by your vehicle for the staff member to pick up or stand by your vehicle with your dog on a leash until the staff member secures the slip lead and you can safely hand the dog off.
Unless it’s a drop-off appointment or special arrangements have been made in advance and approved by the veterinarian, we expect clients to remain in their vehicles in our parking lot throughout the appointment.
All communication concerning diagnosis, treatment options and check-out will take place on the phone. Because of the increased call volume, you may experience delays in having your call answered and long hold times. Please know we are doing our best to manage phone calls as quickly and efficiently as we can.
At the conclusion of the appointment, after you’ve paid your bill, a staff member will return your pet, along with any prescribed medicines or foods, to your car.
We ask that you maintain a distance of at least six feet from anyone you encounter during your visit to our clinic.
We expect you to wear a snug-fitting mask covering your nose and mouth while interacting with our staff members and other clients who may be waiting in the parking lot.
Food Orders and Prescription Refills
If you need to visit the clinic to pick up food or medicine, we ask for more than the usual 24-hours’ advance notice. Call well ahead of time, charge the merchandise to your credit or debit card, and we will let you know when your order will be ready. Call the front desk when you arrive for pickup and we will bring it out to you.
We all join you in looking forward to the time when we can safely reopen the building to our clients—and we most certainly will—just as soon as we feel it is prudent to do so again.
Thank you for your continuing patience, cooperation and understanding.
Sincerely,
Timea H. Brady, DVM Owner, Brownsburg Animal Clinic
P.S. My team and I understand waiting can be frustrating! I assure you, we are doing our very best to respond promptly to every call we receive, in order of urgency, and to operate as efficiently as we possibly can. Regardless of your wait time, we expect you to be civil to our team members, once they are able to help you.
As Hendricks County’s rate of new COVID-19 cases continues to climb to the highest levels yet, my team has expressed growing concerns for their own and our clients’ safety.
I’m concerned, too, and have made the difficult decision to take a step back and revert to curbside service only, effective immediately.
It’s become clear since we reopened the building to our clients on July 6, about three-quarters of them prefer to come inside. We prefer the more efficient and satisfying face-to-face interactions with our clients, too, although we have become increasingly anxious interacting with a growing number of clients who refuse to wear masks properly and consistently.
Meanwhile, we have been happy to continue offering curbside service to the 25-30 percent of our clients who have preferred to play it safe and not risk coming inside.
I now see returning to curbside service exclusively as the safest, most efficient way to continue to be here for you and your pet while doing our very best to keep our clients, ourselves and our families safe.
Curbside Protocols
Our curbside service protocols have continued to work well since we first implemented them last March, and we greatly appreciate your cooperation with us as we revert to allowing only staff inside the clinic for the foreseeable future.
As a reminder, here’s how curbside works:
Call in advance to make an appointment for your pet’s visit.
When you arrive for the appointment, call the front desk at(317) 852-3323 to let us know you’re in our parking lot.
A technician will call you to discuss your pet’s history and the reason for the appointment.
A technician will then come to your car and bring your pet into the clinic for examination and treatment.
Cats must be in a secure carrier—not loose in your vehicle. We provide secure leads for dogs.
Our staff will not reach into your vehicle for your pet. We’re asking you to place cat carriers on the ground by your vehicle for the staff member to pick up or stand by your vehicle with your dog on a leash until the staff member secures the slip lead and you can safely hand the dog off.
Unless it’s a drop-off appointment or special arrangements have been made in advance and approved by the veterinarian, we expect clients to remain in their vehicles in our parking lot throughout the appointment.
All communication concerning diagnosis, treatment options and check-out will take place on the phone.
At the conclusion of the appointment, after you’ve paid your bill, a staff member will return your pet, along with any prescribed medicines or foods, to your car.
We ask that you maintain a distance of at least six feet from anyone you encounter during your visit to our clinic.
We expect you to wear a snug-fitting mask covering your nose and mouth while interacting with our staff members and other clients who may be waiting in the parking lot.
Food Orders and Prescription Refills
If you need to visit the clinic to pick up food or medicine, we ask for more than the usual 24-hours’ advance notice. Call well ahead of time, charge the merchandise to your credit or debit card, and we will let you know when your order will be ready. Call the front desk when you arrive for pickup and we will bring it out to you.
We all join you in looking forward to the time when we can safely reopen the building to our clients—and we most certainly will—just as soon as we feel it is prudent to do so again.
Thank you for your continuing patience, cooperation and understanding.
Sincerely,
Timea H. Brady, DVM Owner, Brownsburg Animal Clinic
P.S. My team and I understand waiting can be frustrating! I assure you, we are doing our very best to respond promptly to every call we receive, in order of urgency, and to operate as efficiently as we possibly can. Regardless of your wait time, we expect you to be civil to our team members, once they are able to help you.
Thank you for your patience and goodwill as our “new normal” continues to evolve.
Like veterinary practices nationwide, we are busier than ever! Pet adoptions have been on the increase, and since people have been spending more time at home, they’ve been paying closer attention to their pets and noticing more potential health problems.
Demand for our services is at an all-time high, and all of us are grateful for the opportunity to keep doing the work we love, caring for our patients and clients!
Wellness Visits
Many practices—ours included—built up a backlog of deferred wellness visits during March and April, when we were able to offer only essential care.
I’m happy to report the backlog of deferred wellness visits has eased somewhat. Wellness appointments are now available within a week or two—particularly to those who call to schedule early in the week.
Getting ‘Back on Track’
The adjustments we made following the July 4 holiday are working out well as level 4.5 of the governor’s “Back on Track” plan continues.
Since we reopened our building to clients—while continuing to offer curbside service to those who prefer it—we’ve received positive feedback for both types of appointments.
Those 70-75% of clients who are choosing to come inside tell us they feel safe, and they appreciate our stepped-up precautions—continuing to wear masks and maintain physical distance and sanitizing all exam room surfaces, including doorknobs, after every visit.
We still have about 25-30% of clients choosing curbside service for scheduled appointments, and curbside service continues for food and prescription pick-ups.
Our check-in process remains the same.
Whether you plan to come inside or wait in your car, call the front desk at (317) 852-3323 when you arrive in our parking lot for your appointment.
If you want to come inside with your pet, wait for a team member to escort you into the building, straight into an available exam room.
Please plan on having no more than two people come inside with your pet. (Additional family members may be present for a euthanasia.)
We will be wearing masks and doing our best to maintain at least 6 feet of distance from you throughout your visit, but keeping our distance may be a challenge during the exam. That’s why we expect you to bring and wear your own mask and stay as far away as possible from our team members to protect all of us!
Expect Delays
Call volume remains extraordinarily high.
When you call the clinic, if you are not calling about a medical emergency, you may be placed on hold—even if you’re calling simply to let us know you’ve arrived in our parking lot for your appointment.
Please be patient as we handle our calls as efficiently as we can. One of our team members will reconnect with you as soon as possible.
There may also be delays in our technician’s arrival at your car to bring you and/or your pet into the building. With the return to inside service, additional sanitation measures have to be completed between appointments. We need extra time to keep everyone safe!
My team and I understand waiting can be frustrating!
I assure you, we are doing our very best to respond promptly to every call we receive, in order of urgency, and to operate as efficiently as we possibly can while handling a combination of curbside and in-house appointments.
Regardless of your wait time, we expect you to be civil to our team members, once they are able to help you.
Drop-Offs to Minimize Your Wait Time
In many cases, dropping off your pet and returning later that day for pick-up is a great way to minimize your wait time while getting your pet the care he or she needs in a timely way.
If your pet’s medical needs are not urgent, a drop-off can be a convenient way for you to avoid a potentially long wait on a busy day.
Dropping your pet off frees you to make better use of your own time, knowing a veterinarian will see your pet as soon as possible and you’ll be notified immediately when your pet is ready for pick-up.
Welcoming Our New Associate
To further meet the increased demand for services, I’m pleased to announce Kelli M. Barton, DVM, will be joining our team as an associate, working on Wednesdays and Thursdays, starting October 7.
Dr. Barton has been in practice since 2012, bringing a wealth of knowledge and experience to the clinic. We’ll be introducing her to you more fully in the coming weeks.
For the Good of Your Pet
Throughout the past seven months, our dedication to caring for our beloved pet-patients while keeping everyone safe has remained the first priority for our entire team.
We are all under unprecedented levels of stress and uncertainty, making it more important than ever to treat each other with kindness and consideration.
Thank you for entrusting us with your pet’s care. We look forward to continuing to serve you, and we hope you and your loved ones are staying well.
Sincerely,
Timea H. Brady, DVM Owner, Brownsburg Animal Clinic
P.S. We have been experiencing a higher-than-average number of “no-call/no-show” appointments in recent months. If you find you are unable to keep a scheduled appointment, please call or email us—ideally, at least 24 hours in advance of the appointment time—so we can offer the appointment to another client.
To you, our valued client—we hope you and your loved ones (both human and animal) are staying well as the pandemic continues to impact all our lives.
As healthcare professionals, we know the threat of infection by the coronavirus remains very real. At the same time, we feel ready to take a few cautious steps toward “the new normal.”
The following are some adjustments we’ll be making when we return after our July 4 holiday, when the clinic will be closed.
Effective Monday, July 6
Our weekday office hours will revert to 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., with the final appointment of the day at 5:00.
While the lobby remains closed, we are opening our facility back up to clients who wish to come inside with their pets, directly to exam rooms, for their appointments.
Curbside service will still be available to clients who prefer to stay in their cars.
Curbside service will continue for food and prescription pick-ups.
Here’s how our revised check-in will work:
Call the front desk at (317) 852-3323 when you arrive in our parking lot.
If you want to come inside with your pet, a team member will come out and escort you into the building, straight into an available exam room. Please plan on having no more than two people come inside with your pet.
We will be wearing masks and maintaining at least 6 feet of distance from you throughout your visit, and we ask that you wear a mask and stay 6 feet away from our team members to protect all of us!
Expect Delays
An unusually high volume of incoming telephone calls to the clinic continues to be a challenge as we communicate by phone during appointments with pet owners in our parking lot, answer more called-in health-related questions than ever before and process requests for prescription refills.
Even with two additional phone lines to help your calls get through, we are still having a hard time keeping up, and we are well aware the longer-than-usual hold times are aggravating to many of you.
Please know we are doing our very best to respond promptly to every call we receive, in order of urgency. And despite the longer hold times, we ask that you please be civil to our team members, once they are able to take your call.
We are also still working through a backlog of deferred wellness visits that built up in March and April when we were able to offer only essential care. While we set aside times in our daily schedule to take care of sick pets and administer timely puppy and kitten vaccines as needed, our next available wellness appointments are several weeks from now.
Returning to our former schedule and staying open an additional hour every weekday will help ease the situation, but it will still take time to clear the backlog to pre-pandemic levels.
Until we are able to get fully caught up, you may expect delays in scheduling a wellness appointment. We ask for your patience with our team members when you call.
Collaboration for the Good of Your Pet
Caring for our beloved pet-patients has always worked best as a collaborative effort among our clients, our veterinarians and the entire clinic team.
Ideally, our interactions take place in a cordial atmosphere of trust, respect and goodwill on all sides.
These days, when all our nerves are frayed because of the continuing threat of COVID-19 and the stress of not knowing just what the future holds, it is more important than ever to be kind and courteous to each other as we continue to get through this unprecedented time in our history together.
Thank you for entrusting us with your pet’s care. We look forward to continuing to serve you.
Sincerely,
Timea H. Brady, DVM Owner, Brownsburg Animal Clinic
As safeguards to minimize the spread of the coronavirus are being relaxed statewide, several of our clients have asked when we will reopen our lobby and exam rooms to the public.
The answer is, not yet.
When we implemented curbside service on March 20, we saw it as the safest, most efficient way to continue to be here for our clients and patients while minimizing the risk of spreading the coronavirus.
So far, the curbside strategy—combined with stepped-up sanitation protocols and social distancing—appears to be working. Our doctors and staff have stayed well during the past two months while continuing to keep our patients healthy and ourselves, our families and our clients safe.
Meanwhile, as our state moves to re-open, the infection continues to spread.
According to the Indiana COVID-19 Data Report dashboard, as of noon Monday, May 11, the Indiana State Department of Health had reported 25,127 known cases of COVID-19 and 1,444 known deaths caused by the virus in our state. Hendricks County accounts for 984 of those positive cases and 55 deaths. Next door, Marion County reports 7,632 positive cases and 429 deaths.
Of the statewide total COVID-19 cases, the State Department of Health confirmed 566 new cases between March 23 and May 11.
Those numbers remind us the risk of infection is still very real and, in my opinion as a health care provider, now is not the time to cut back unnecessarily on sensible, effective precautions aimed at keeping all of us safe. Despite some inconveniences, our curbside service is working well and we intend to keep it in place until we see a definite, persistent downward trend in new cases of COVID-19.
Meanwhile, as clinic owner, I remain committed to keeping my team and our clients safe and the clinic open for business, caring for patients. If just one of our team members contracts the virus, we’ll be forced to shut down for as long as two weeks, delaying and denying much-needed care to all our patients.
We all look forward to the time when we can safely reopen the lobby and exam rooms to our clients—and we most certainly will—just as soon as we feel it is prudent to do so.
Thank you for your continuing cooperation and understanding.
Timea H. Brady, DVM Owner, Brownsburg Animal Clinic
Rest assured, we are still open and here to care for your sick and injured pets as well as those with ongoing medical conditions.
However, we are making a few key changes to our routines to further reduce the risk of spreading the coronavirus.
Based on the latest recommendations from the American Veterinary Medical Association and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, we will shift to all curbside service, effective Friday, March 20. That means only the clinic staff will be allowed inside our building.
If you have a scheduled or drop-off appointment, call the front desk at (317) 852-3323 to let us know you’ve arrived in our parking lot. A technician will come out to your car and bring your pet into the clinic for examination and treatment.
All communication and check-out will take place on the phone before a staff member returns your pet, along with any prescribed medicines or foods, to your car.
While essential puppy and kitten wellness visits for vaccines will continue on schedule, we will reschedule wellness visits for adult dogs for after April 6.
If you need to visit the clinic to pick up food or medicine, we will deliver it to your car. Just call the front desk, charge the merchandise to your credit or debit card, and we will bring it out to you.
We appreciate your understanding and cooperation as together, we get through these difficult times.
Timea H. Brady, DVM Owner, Brownsburg Animal Clinic
For those of you who share our concerns about COVID-19, we want to assure you we’re taking measures at the clinic to minimize the risk of introducing or spreading the virus to team members and clients while continuing to care for our patients.
In addition to following our usual cleaning protocols, we are doing even more frequent and thorough disinfecting of surfaces everyone touches—phones, keyboards and door handles—than ever before.
We are refraining from handshakes and hugs.
We have advised our team members to stay home if they are experiencing any respiratory symptoms and to return to work only after going at least 24 hours fever-free without medication.
We are asking our clients to stay away from the clinic if they or anyone in their household have symptoms of the virus or believe they may have been exposed to it. We will be happy to reschedule the appointment.
This situation is evolving rapidly, and there is much uncertainty ahead. We are committed to doing our best to keep our team and clients healthy and will remain flexible in our response to COVID-19 in the coming days. Updates will be posted on our website and Facebook page as needed.
We appreciate your patience and understanding.
Timea H. Brady, DVM Owner, Brownsburg Animal Clinic
Please note: This information is current as of March 13, 2020. As more is learned about COVID-19, advice may change.
While the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have said there is no evidence that companion animals, including dogs and cats, spread the COVID-19 virus, the organization does suggest that people showing symptoms or in quarantine because of the virus limit their contact with pets, just as they do with people.
Specifically, that means people showing symptoms of the virus and being cared for at home should avoid direct contact with pets, including petting, snuggling, being kissed or licked, and sharing food.
“If possible, a household member should be designated to care for pets in the home,” according to the CDC website. “If the individual in home care and isolation must care for pet(s), they should ensure they wash their hands before and after caring for pets and wear a facemask while interacting with pets, until they are medically cleared to return to normal activities.”
We encourage all our clients and staff members to take every possible precaution to lower the risk of infection. But in the event an infection does occur, we recommend treating pets with the same degree of caution as you do other family members.
Are you prepared for a possible quarantine because of COVID-19?
The following is a list of items the American Veterinary Medical Association recommends keeping on hand in the event of an emergency evacuation, and we think most of the contents of the pet evacuation kit would be equally handy in the event of an at-home quarantine.
Because the incubation period for COVID-19 is thought to be 14 days, we suggest stocking up on at least a two-week supply of pet food, medicines and preventives, kitty litter if needed, and cleaning supplies for your pet.
Most likely, your pet would be remaining at home with you during a quarantine, so some items will probably not be needed. We suggest you collect them anyway to be better prepared for anything!
The AVMA’s Pet Evacuation Kit
Food and medicine
3-7 days’ worth of dry and canned (pop-top) food*
Two-week supply of medicine*
At least 7 days’ supply of water
Feeding dish and water bowl
Liquid dish soap
*These items must be rotated and replaced to ensure they don’t expire
First aid kit
Anti-diarrheal liquid or tablets
Antibiotic ointment
Bandage tape and scissors
Cotton bandage rolls
Flea and tick prevention (if needed in your area)
Isopropyl alcohol/alcohol prep pads
Latex gloves
Saline solution
Towel and washcloth
Tweezers
Sanitation
Litter, litter pan, and scoop (a shirt box with a plastic bag works well for pan)
Newspaper, paper towels, and trash bags
Household chlorine beach or disinfectant
Important documents
Identification papers including proof of ownership
Medical records and medication instructions
Emergency contact list, including veterinarian and pharmacy
Photo of your pet (preferably with you)
Travel supplies
Crate or pet carrier labeled with your contact information
