INDIANAPOLIS – Farmers and others who own animals in Indiana have a new resource designed to help them more easily find veterinary care.

The Indiana Center for Animal Policy (IN-CAP) is offering Find-A-Vet, an ad-free online portal allowing the public to search for veterinary services by species, location, specialty, and how services are delivered – in-clinic, on-site or haul-in facility, according to a release from the center.

IN-CAP is the umbrella agency for the state’s two animal health-focused boards – the Indiana State Board of Animal Health (BOAH) and the Indiana Board of Veterinary Medicine (VetBoard), the release said.

“(BOAH and the VetBoard) often receive inquiries from animal owners about finding veterinary services,” Denise Derrer Spears, communication director for the three agencies, told Farm World. “The Find-A-Vet search tool is an online, ad-free, no-cost place where we can refer Hoosiers. The portal lets Hoosiers search for services on their own terms.”

The site currently has 213 veterinary practices enrolled in the portal, she said. That figure reflects practices, not individual veterinarians, as many practices have multiple people on staff, Spears noted. The portal will be updated quarterly, and more than 40 practices will be added during the next update, she said.

“Our goal is to offer this as a public service to all Hoosiers,” Spears explained. “Ultimately, we hope the portal will include full coverage of the state.

“All Indiana-licensed veterinarians have been offered the opportunity to be listed in the Find-A-Vet portal if they are taking new clients. Participation is completely voluntary and offered at no charge. Consequently, we currently do not have veterinary practices listed in every county.”

The option to search the portal by species is especially beneficial to those with less common animals such as alpacas or honeybees, or for those who need livestock haul-in facilities, she said.

An internet search can generate a list of area clinics, but the results usually do not include enough detail to verify what species are seen or the counties in the travel radius without additional phone calls, Spears pointed out.

“Veterinarians are often very ingrained in a local community where most of their clients live and work,” she said. “Meanwhile, someone who lives in the next town or county may not know about a practice located just a few miles away in the next community. The veterinary practice finder allows users to search by county to identify nearby services or, in the case of mobile practices, local a veterinarian who provides area coverage.”

Last summer, during listening sessions for the Veterinary Workforce Initiative, Spears said something interesting came out of those discussions.

“While many Hoosiers are seeking veterinary services, veterinarians statewide are reporting that they have available capacity for new clients,” she said. “That led us to ask the question, ‘How can we match the clients with the providers?’”

The workforce initiative is designed to help officials determine the availability of veterinary care and services statewide.

Veterinary medicine is undergoing a lot of change right now from many directions, Spears said, such as a growing demand for services; corporate buyouts of independent practices and the resulting business model changes; young professionals with very high education debt; and shifts in practitioner demographics.

“Animal agriculture is thriving in Indiana, increasing demand for large-animal veterinarians,” she said. “Meanwhile, pet ownership has grown in record numbers over the past five years.

“Within those sectors, the BOAH team is hearing from owners of small livestock farms. They seem to be struggling the most with obtaining affordable and timely services. A farm-call for a single animal can occupy most of a veterinarian’s day, making the trip very expensive – or simply unaffordable – compared to larger operations that can have several animals seen during a visit.”

Indiana State Veterinarian Kyle Shipman, DVM, said officials would continue to reach out to veterinarians to encourage them to join the service.

“We know the search tool will not solve all the shortfalls we hear about,” he said in the release. “Our goal is to help where we can to match up veterinary practices with capacity for new clients with those who need their services.”

The portal is available by visiting www.in.gov/animalpolicy/ and clicking on Find-A-Vet. It also may be found at www.in.gov/vetboard/ by clicking on consumers, and www.in.gov/boah/.