Dr. Juliette Van Galder owns Peach Vet Pet Wellness in Roswell. The boutique clinic opened at 601 Houze Way in March 2022 and offers primary care plans to help pet owners avoid large bills through preventative care.
By Shelby Israel
ROSWELL, Ga. — As more people look for cost-effective alternatives to traditional veterinary visits, Peach Vet Pet Wellness and PetCentric Health aim to make care accessible to Metro Atlanta pet owners.
Dr. Juliette Van Galder opened Peach Vet Pet Wellness, a boutique clinic in Suite 900 at 601 Houze Way in Roswell, in March 2022.
Peach Vet offers the standard array of veterinary care, including microchipping; spaying and neutering; wellness exams; surgeries; and diagnostics, as well as dental care.
But, Van Galder said the clinic is dedicated to making visits as fearless as possible for patients.
After opening, she said she offered her own primary care plans to help customers until partnering with PetCentric in June.
“I saw the value in what they could offer as a support system,” she said. “I feel like since we’re a small team, I just didn’t want to have too many caveats with managing the ‘what ifs’ with the care plan.”
Peach Vet’s partnership with PetCentric enables owners to come in sooner, so needed visits are not postponed because of cost barriers. The primary care plans allow owners to budget and save up to 45 percent on annual wellness exams, preventative tests and vaccines.
“That’s always important to me to give someone an option, if they don’t have the budget to pay,” Van Galder said.
Peach Vet is the first Georgia and flagship Atlanta partner of PetCentric Health, a primary care and digital database manager for pet owners and veterinary clinics.
CEO Heather Moore founded PetCentric in mid-2022 to provide pet owners with plans that offer financial predictability, ensuring they can follow their vet’s recommendations without the concern of cost.
“PetCentric Health was founded to be an innovative solution as to traditional wellness,” Moore said. “So, we consider ourselves a subscription-based primary care company. So, we work with clinics to custom design an in-house health plan, primary health plan, for their patients that they can offer through a subscription-based method.”
Typically, owners visit the vet when their pet is sick, and vets charge owners on a traditional fee-based model. If owners cannot afford treatment their vet recommends, it is often deferred, which can escalate into more expensive and life-threatening conditions.
“That model no longer meets pet parents or vets where they need to be,” Moore said. “Anything around health, human through pet, you see that the movement of our society, you know, we’re not a strong cash-based society. We’re a subscription-based society.”
Owners can pay monthly or annually for primary care plans, which are geared toward preventative care to stop costs from becoming overwhelming if illnesses progress.
At Peach Vet, customers can choose between puppy, adult and senior dog plans based on their pet’s age and needs. The clinic also offers one feline primary care plan.
PetCentric’s plans differ from pet insurance, which often covers large, unexpected bills or compensates clients retroactively through reimbursement.
Although primary care plans do not cover emergency visits like insurance, PetCentric’s plans provide a pet flexible spend allowance that reserves money to be used on exams and expenses outside of routine wellness.
“It’s kind of a catch-all for minor issues for which pet insurance is still not really appropriate,” Moore said. “In fact, it might be below their deductible, or they don’t really need pet insurance, but it’s kind of that bucket that pet parents can use for whatever the individual needs are for their pet.”
Van Galder said she still recommends enrolling in pet insurance as early as possible. As primary care plans focus on preventative and routine check-ups, insurance can help owners navigate large emergency bills.
“I’ve had some situations where even young dogs are diagnosed with this rare disease, and they’re already on insurance, and it has covered and helped them get the treatment they need,” she said.
The primary care plans offered by PetCentric help owners afford the services their pets need, while helping local vets retain their customers and remain competitive against big industry players like Chewy, which can undercut local operations with lower costs.
As primary care alternatives bring customers back to their local clinics, Moore said pets win by receiving important care, and veterinarians win by seeing the support of their local community.
Peach Vet Pet Wellness offers primary care plans for Metro Atlanta pets in Suite 900 at 601 Houze Way in Roswell. The clinic partnered with PetCentric Health in June to make preventative care more accessible to the community.
PetCentric also offers local vet clinics digital services that would otherwise be managed in-house and place a heavy burden on clinic staff.
“We manage the pet parent subscriptions,” Moore said. “We manage all of the administrative items for the vet, and then we also create the digital experience for the pet parent.”
The digital experience is like the patient portal or virtual chart that a human would have. Owners can track their pet’s last vaccination dates, view real-time health data and see what is included in their health plan.
Van Galder said her main drive for offering the plans is to enable her customers to not wait until their pets are sick.
Above all, PetCentric’s plans ensure owners can get their pets the care they need.
“Health care for our pets is moving much more, more and more [to the] human health care arena,” Moore said. “We need to have better solutions for how people pay for their care than what’s out there or what has traditionally been available.”