Flooding Impact: a Look at Hurricane Harvey and Flooding Effects on the Animal Health Industry in 2017
Introduction
Recent weather events have created historic wind and water damage in regions of the United States. One of these events, Hurricane Harvey which made landfall in Texas on August 25th, has had significant impact on the economy. This paper will look at the revenue lost from animal health practices during these events.
Veterinary professionals are part of the Retail Healthcare Industry. Retail Healthcare is a $270 billion-dollar, 2.1 million provider industry – a significant part of the healthcare market. Other practitioners include dentists, audiologists, optometrists and more. These providers often run single provider practices and employ a staff of office and healthcare professionals to serve the needs of their community. Their revenue from practicing retail healthcare positively impacts the economy of their state and creates jobs in the community.
The ramifications of these unprecedented storms will continue to evolve over time. Sikka has created a first look into this specific subset of the economy to begin to evaluate the initial financial implications of loss of revenue. What cannot be quantified at this time is the long-term consequences of unavailability of animal health services during the hurricane recovery process ahead.
Sikka’s goal is to provide unique data insights to providers and the industry through one of the most detailed and extensive data sets in retail healthcare. This is made possible by Sikka Software’s Platform Cloud, which is connected to over 25,000 practices across the nation. Data is collected in aggregate and is free of identifying information. In this paper, data will be shown for the four weeks surrounding the weather events in 2017 and the same period of time in 2016. More information can be found at www.sikkasoft.com.
Storm Impact
Animal health practices, including veterinary clinics and hospitals, were drastically affected by the event. Gross production dropped from $108,826 in 2016 to $31,459 in 2017. This was a decrease of 71%. Collections were also down 72%, echoing the drop in production. Sikka also noted that many retail healthcare practices were closed during this time period, likely a driver in this precipitous drop.
Animal health is primarily a cash-based industry with comparatively few insurance options. With a large financial strain put on residents of this community, capital may have been tight for pet owners, limiting the access to products and services beyond basic needs. Pets may not have taken priority in this disaster when residents of the state were experiencing constrained time and resources. In addition, many pets were displaced during this event and therefore are not being seen by caregivers as frequently.
What is most concerning is the long term health impact on animal wellbeing in the area. Due to flood and water danger, pets may experience long term health effects which might require treatment in the future, potentially driving a higher production in the coming weeks.
Conclusion
This paper looked at the initial effects of Hurricane Harvey. Results indicate that loss of production for veterinarians was significant. The damage done by this storm will have a lasting effect on the economy and these retail healthcare professionals. Lower production is expected in the coming weeks.
With loss of property, transportation, business and income, it is likely that residents of Texas will be less able to afford future veterinary care, especially in non-emergency situations. This will likely lead to a long term decrease of revenue in the industry and negatively affect the lives and wellbeing of animals living in this area. Over time, this situation should be monitored to fully quantify the long-term economic impact as the state rebuilds.
Sikka Software is the leading innovator in the retail healthcare industry. The Sikka Platform Cloud is HIPAA and HITECH compliant and connects to 96% of practice management systems on the retail healthcare market. Sikka and partners have built apps on the platform using Sikka’s award winning API, recognized by API World 2017 awards in the Health API category. With 44 apps using One API in the Sikka Marketplace and over 27,000 installations, Sikka is an emerging leader in this $270 billion-dollar, 2.1 million provider industry.
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