A new model of veterinary care is hoping to improve access in Colorado Springs.

Coined the Roaming Veterinary Team, this new mobile service helps pet owners maintain routine care for their animals.

After launching at the end of March, the need was clear: The first month, the team saw about 50 patients; this month, they expect to double that. The team, made up of four vet techs, plans to expand through the summer to meet demand.

“People are having to go to the emergency more because they can’t afford that basic care,” said co-owner Ashley Miller.

“This business focuses on our technicians really bridging the gap between that annual appointment and some of the other care that tends to go to the wayside because people either can’t afford it or access it.”

Miller, who has a provisional vet technician license, said the organization is designed to keep pets (and their owners) at ease during standard and recurrent procedures that can be performed by technicians.

These services include laser therapy for arthritis and pain management, allergy shots, blood draws, blood pressure monitoring and subcutaneous fluid injections — medical procedures that can be completed by veterinary technicians. The team also does the basics, like nail trims and expressing impacted anal glands.

Pets are referred to the service by primary care veterinarians around the Springs, with about a dozen practices in the member hospital program. Often, these services are routine and supposed to be scheduled consistently, so it helps vets with patient compliance, Miller said.

Sharing an administrative staff with White Whiskers, the Roaming Vet Team is co-owned by veterinarians Dr. Kelly and Dr. Robert Hutchison. The three owners had the idea for years, and it was exacerbated by their experience with White Whiskers, which focuses on senior pets.

“White Whiskers really solidified the need for me, because I do deal with a lot of really big patients, a lot of patients who don’t travel well, and being able to utilize my technicians to fill that gap makes a huge difference,” Kelly said.

There are benefits to completing services at home. In addition to being helpful for animals who don’t travel well and individuals with limited mobility, the services tend to be cheaper than those of going into a full medical office.

“By having our technicians do a lot of the groundwork and having a doctor doing the oversight and providing the support and the diagnoses when they are needed, we can cut that price point quite a bit,” Kelly said. “We worked really hard to price so that people can afford the visit.”

Doing these services at home can also be helpful to get a more accurate read on blood pressure, Miller said, since the patients are likely more relaxed in a familiar place, whereas blood pressure may be elevated in a clinical setting.

“They have senior pets that can’t get in and out of the car easily, people with big dogs, senior animals that are arthritic and don’t travel well. We see cats who are terrified of the carrier and that ride to the vet. And then we have senior owners too, or owners who are low-income and don’t have regular accessibility to a vehicle,” Miller said.

The new business model is just one way animal care providers are getting creative to increase access to veterinary services, Hutchison said.

“I really wanted to empower our technicians to work in a place where they felt like colleagues rather than employees because they are,” Kelly said.

“The hope is that we are not working to try to take anything away from our primary care partners. We are trying to take some things off of their plate that our technicians can absolutely do and are qualified to do.”

Correction: This article has been updated to reflect that Ashley Miller has a provisional veterinary technician license.