Fetch Pet Insurance bundles four annual telehealth visits into every policy at no added premiumPregabalin before spay raised sedation scores 2.46 points in 54 catsParasight System wins preferred-provider deal with 850-hospital independent practice networkVeterinary economist Matt Salois says practices cannot rely on pricing growth into 2027WSAVA publishes updated dental guidelines with trauma and radiographic sectionsDechra launches Laverdia, the first FDA-approved oral treatment for canine lymphomaA board-certified neurologist presented a seizure protocol built for general practiceGoodVets acquires WellHaven Pet Health, expanding from 75 to 116 hospitals across seven statesFetch Pet Insurance bundles four annual telehealth visits into every policy at no added premiumPregabalin before spay raised sedation scores 2.46 points in 54 catsParasight System wins preferred-provider deal with 850-hospital independent practice networkVeterinary economist Matt Salois says practices cannot rely on pricing growth into 2027WSAVA publishes updated dental guidelines with trauma and radiographic sectionsDechra launches Laverdia, the first FDA-approved oral treatment for canine lymphomaA board-certified neurologist presented a seizure protocol built for general practiceGoodVets acquires WellHaven Pet Health, expanding from 75 to 116 hospitals across seven states
The Exam RoomBy The VeterinaryPracticeNow Desk3 min readSeptember 30, 2026
Fetch Pet Insurance bundles four annual telehealth visits into every policy at no added premium
The service gives members four video appointments per year with Vetster veterinarians and unlimited chats with veterinary professionals, at no additional cost.
Fetch Pet Insurance launched Fetch Online Vet, a telehealth service available to all members at no additional cost, the company announced. Powered by pet health platform Vetster, the service gives members four video appointments per year with Vetster veterinarians and unlimited chats with veterinary professionals, accessible through the Fetch app.
Practicing DVMs are asking whether insurer-bundled telehealth is a competitor that siphons low-acuity appointments or a filter that keeps minor concerns out of the schedule. It's both, and the outcome depends on how a practice positions itself relative to the platform.
What the service covers and what it costs the member
According to the company, members can use the platform for issues suited to virtual visits, such as "minor health concerns, teletriage, prescription refills, and nutrition or behavior questions." The company said "no upfront cost is required for visits, and members don't have to file a claim afterward," and that "Fetch Pet and Vetster track the member's visits against their annual allotment and the $1,000 annual limit for televet service."
"Veterinary support is there as soon as a member notices something, whether they need reassurance, treatment where appropriate, or guidance on when it's time to head to a clinic," Vetster's chief growth officer Kristen Johnson said.
The revenue question for the brick-and-mortar practice
A client with four bundled video visits has less financial friction to consult a screen before calling the practice. That shifts some triage and refill appointments, historically low-complexity but revenue-generating, away from the clinic. For a practice running at capacity, that's helpful. The telehealth platform handles the "is this an emergency" calls and the "can you refill this without an exam" requests, freeing appointment slots for cases that require hands-on work. For a practice with open slots and thin margins, it's a direct revenue loss on visits that would have booked.
The model works as a filter only if the practice treats it that way. A DVM who views the telehealth vet as a colleague doing triage can position the service to clients as a first step, with the understanding that the virtual visit will route cases to the clinic when indicated. A practice that ignores the platform or frames it as substandard care cedes the relationship to the screen, and the client learns to solve problems there first.
Clients will increasingly arrive having already consulted a Vetster veterinarian. That changes case presentation. The client may have a working diagnosis, a treatment plan they're comparing to yours, or an expectation set by the virtual visit that doesn't match what you're seeing in the exam room. The associate's job becomes managing that gap without dismissing the telehealth vet or undermining the client's confidence in either opinion.
It also creates a hiring market outside the clinic. Vetster and platforms like it hire DVMs for virtual shifts, and those shifts offer an alternative to in-clinic work without the commute or the physical demand of back-to-back appointments. For an associate carrying student debt and working full weeks, a few telehealth shifts a month can be the margin that makes the debt work.
Our read on where this goes
Fetch bundled telehealth into base coverage, and the model is replicable. Members perceive the benefit as premium service. If Trupanion, Nationwide, or Lemonade follow, telehealth becomes a planning assumption for practice revenue models, not a fringe case.
The practices that will handle this best are the ones that decide now whether they're positioning telehealth as a competitor or as infrastructure. The ones that will struggle are the ones that pretend it isn't happening until the appointment book shows it.
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