Diversion Overview

Diversion is when we are not able to see all patients that are brought to us because we are already at full capacity with more critical patients and so we must “divert” less serious patients to other locations. When we are in diversion, we can only allow the most critical patients into our care. Our ability to admit a patient is limited by how many doctors and staff we have available. We focus on pets whose life will depend on our care over the next few hours.

It is very difficult for us to turn patients away. We want to help all of them, but from time to time, we are unable to do so. Many pet parents struggle to understand this. To them, their pet is suffering and should be helped immediately. If we have turned you away, it is because we have more patients than we can safely care for and all of those are in a more serious condition than your pet currently is.

Much of the excessive caseload we are struggling under is due to the national shortage of veterinarians (DVMs) and Certified Veterinary Technicians (CVTs).

We have been and will continue to aggressively recruit doctors, technicians, and other support staff to meet the needs of our community. We have opened an Urgent Care next door with the hopes that many of the cases we are diverting today will be able to be seen and treated there.

Green (Level 1)

  • Wait Time: 0-2 hours
  • All patients welcome

Yellow (Level 2)

  • Wait Time: 2-6 hours
  • Priority is placed on most serious patients
  • Stable patients may experience longer wait times

Orange (Level 3)

  • Wait Time: 6-12 hours
  • Patients are actively being triaged and less serious cases may be diverted to alternate locations
  • Diversion is possible

Red (Level 4)

  • Wait Time: 12+ hours
  • Only the most critical patients are admitted
  • Diversion is likely for most cases

Black (Level 5)

  • We have relocated to another facility and closed our primary building(s)
  • This would only happen when it has become unsafe to operate in our building(s)
  • Examples include: fire, flood, gas leak, public safety, etc.
  • Monitor our Facebook page for status updates and information regarding our temporary location