Guide · Veterinary

How to get your veterinary clinic recommended by ChatGPT

Most of what a vet clinic gets asked is not an emergency. It is whether you treat this animal, what the visit will cost, and how soon someone can be seen.

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9:41

My dog just ate a chocolate bar and it's 9pm in Ann Arbor. Is there a vet open now who can see him tonight, and roughly what does an emergency visit cost?

Cedar Hollow Animal Hospital in Ann Arbor fits: ai.cedarhollowvet.com

🕘Open now: urgent care until 11pm on weeknights, with a veterinarian on site rather than on call.
💵Cost: emergency exam from $145, and a written estimate before any treatment begins.
🐕Treats: dogs, cats, and rabbits, with toxicity cases seen the same night.
💳Payment: CareCredit and Scratchpay accepted, and plans on treatment over $500.

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Supporting every major AI assistant

ChatGPT

Claude

Gemini

Perplexity

Copilot

Grok

The gap

Why AI sends the owner to a different clinic

Reviews and mentions are largely out of your hands. What an assistant can confirm about the clinic is not, and in veterinary that lands on three things: whether you treat this animal and this problem, what the visit costs, and when someone can actually be seen. An emergency makes those questions urgent rather than different.

Hours nothing can confirm

Urgent-care windows, holiday cover, and whether a veterinarian is actually on site or merely on call rarely exist anywhere a machine can read them.

Urgent-care hoursPhone recording

Holiday coverFacebook post

Vet on site after hoursNot published

What walking in costs

Exam fees, emergency surcharges, and whether you offer payment plans sit in a practice management system, not on a page. Asked the cost, AI has nothing to quote.

Exam feeCall the clinic

Emergency surchargeNot published

Payment plansAsk at reception

Sources that disagree

Your hours read one way on Google, another on a pet directory, another on a review site that still lists the practice you bought four years ago.

GoogleCloses 6pm

Pet directoryPrevious owner

YelpNo urgent care

What owners ask before they come in

Owners ask several of these at once. Answering the easy ones and leaving the rest to a phone call hands the visit to whichever clinic answered them all.

taking new patients?vet on site?emergency exam cost?do you see rabbits?wait time this week?payment plans?walk-ins?do you do dentals?+ hundreds more

How it works

How to be the clinic AI can describe

Courtyard hosts a knowledge base at a subdomain like ai.yourclinic.com, covering your hours, your fees, and what you treat, and you keep it current. No new website, and your practice management software carries on untouched.

Publish the hours that actually matter

Regular hours, when urgent care runs, what happens on a holiday, and whether a veterinarian is on site or on call. Owners are asking a yes or no question, and an assistant needs something to answer it from.

Say what a visit costs before the visit

An exam fee, an emergency surcharge, and whether you take CareCredit or offer a plan. Owners are already deciding on cost, and the ones who never ask are often the ones who skip the visit entirely.

Name what you treat and what you refer out

Species, the conditions you handle in house, and the point where you send a case to a specialty hospital. Matching the animal to the right clinic is most of what an assistant is trying to do at that hour.

34%

of pet owners say their first instinct when a pet gets sick is to search online or ask AI. The clinic it can describe is the one it can send them to.

Source: Lovet Checkup Report / Censuswide, 2026

AI Visibility Index

See what AI actually says, market by market

Every week we put 24 real customer questions to ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and Google AI Mode (288 answers per market) and publish which local businesses each assistant names, and how accurately it describes them, across 50 US and Canadian markets.

Explore the AI Visibility Index

4assistants, measured weekly

50US & Canadian markets

20,000+businesses evaluated

FAQ

Common questions

Why does ChatGPT recommend other veterinary clinics and not mine?

AI weighs your reputation, meaning reviews and mentions you don't control, alongside what you tell it about yourself, which is entirely yours. If your urgent-care hours live on a phone recording, your exam fee is unpublished, and Google still shows you closing at six, AI cannot say you are open and able to help, so it names a clinic it understands better. A clear, current source keeps you in the conversation.

Should I publish my prices for AI to read?

A starting exam fee is usually enough, and cost is the barrier that decides whether the visit happens at all. Gallup found 52% of US pet owners have skipped or declined veterinary care, 71% of them citing cost, and that 73% were never offered a lower-cost option while only 23% were ever offered a payment plan. Publishing a starting fee and your payment options lets AI answer the money question with your clinic named instead of hedging.

Do pet owners really use ChatGPT to find a vet?

They use it the moment something goes wrong. The 2026 Lovet Checkup Report, fielded by Censuswide among 2,000 US dog and cat owners, found 34% say their first instinct when a pet becomes ill is to search online or ask AI, and 80% research symptoms online before coming in. The clinic AI can describe at that moment is the one it puts forward.

Can I control what ChatGPT and Gemini say about my clinic?

You can't edit the assistants, and you don't get to pick which sources they read. What you can do is give them the facts they need, kept current. Courtyard hosts a live knowledge base of your hours, urgent-care cover, fees, species and services, and payment options that AI assistants can read and cite, so their answers reflect what you publish rather than a directory entry from a previous owner.

Do I need a new website or to change my practice management software?

No. Courtyard hosts your AI knowledge base at a subdomain like ai.yourclinic.com and leaves your site and PIMS alone. AI assistants read the knowledge base, your team books exactly as it does now.

How much does it cost?

Courtyard starts at $20 per month. You can set up your knowledge base and see how AI describes your clinic before you commit.

Keep exploring

How AI recommends businessesWhat AI weighs when it picks who to name.HealthcareHow Courtyard works for practices that see patients by appointment.Get your dental practice recommended by ChatGPTThe same problem in a practice where cost decides the visit.

Become the veterinary clinic AI understands best

Give AI a current account of your hours, your fees, and what you treat, so its answers match your clinic whether the visit is routine or urgent. No new website, no change to your PIMS. Starting at $20/month.

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