Biggest Challenges in Pet Care: A Different Vantage Point (Peter Kenseth)

Combine an outside perspective, a willingness to learn, and taking action to solve the biggest challenges in pet care. 

In this episode of Vet Life Reimagined, Dr. Megan Sprinkle sits down with Peter Kenseth, Partner at Maia Strategy, host of the Petworking Podcast, and founder of the Petworking Angel Fund, to discuss one of the biggest challenges facing the veterinary profession today: access to care, financial euthanasia, and more.

Although Peter isn't a veterinarian, he has spent more than 15 years studying the animal health industry, working with Fortune 500 companies, and bringing cross-industry perspectives to some of veterinary medicine's most complex problems.

Resources

• Video episode on YouTube
• Podcast episode guide for key takeaways and application
• Learn more about Maia Strategy
• Listen to the Petworking Podcast
• Support the Petworking Angel Fund
• Connect with Peter on LinkedIn

The Animal Health, Nutrition, Technology Innovation (AHNTI) conference will be in Boston on Oct 26-28. Registration closes July 12th, so don't wait. Learn more at AHNTI-US.com and use code VETLIFE10 to save 10% on registration.

Transcript

Megan Sprinkle: [00:00:00] He's not a veterinarian. He's never worked in a clinic. But 15 years studying animal health and helping industry solve their hardest problems might be exactly why his perspective on veterinary medicine's biggest challenges is worth hearing. Peter Kenseth is a partner at Maia Strategy, a boutique consulting firm that works with Fortune 500 companies across animal health, human health, insurance, and technology.

He is also the host of Petworking, a podcast dedicated to calling attention to the most critical business challenges in the pet care and animal health space. He's not a veterinarian, and for a long time, he didn't even have a pet, despite really wanting one. But Peter has spent over 15 years studying this industry from the outside, interviewing the people who shape it, researching the challenges, and bringing the kind of cross-industry perspective that comes from working with the biggest companies in the world across multiple sectors.

And that outside lens has led him to [00:01:00] a unique and honest assessment of veterinary medicine's current access to care challenge. He is also the founder of the Petworking Angel Fund, a nonprofit initiative born from the conviction that most economic euthanasias are preventable, and that someone who isn't a veterinarian but loves this profession can still do something about it.

In this conversation, Peter and I talk about what the animal health industry looks like from his vantage point, what cross-industry thinking could offer veterinary medicine right now, the case for a new model of pet insurance, and why a black rescue dog named Peony, who held out her paw and changed his life, is at the center of everything he does.

Let's get to the conversation with Peter Kenseth.

Welcome, Peter, to Vet Life Reimagined. I'm very excited to have you on the podcast because you bring a very unique perspective that I'm excited to share with the podcast audience. So it took you a little while to find [00:02:00] animal health as a career path. So I do still like to start with like when you were young and maybe some foreshadowing that you can recall.

Did you grow up with pets at all? Did you have any interest in animals when you were a kid?

Peter Kenseth: Yeah. Yes, but no. um, I'm, I'm probably gonna be one of the first guests you've had, and thank you for having me on, by the way. This is great. I grew up loving dogs, but grew up in a household where my mother did not love dogs, and I wanted a pet of some form or fashion.

I had a stuffed Scottish terrier named Scotty that I would carry around with me everywhere. I would make my mom buy me Milk-Bone treats in the grocery store, and I would give Scotty his Milk-Bone treats. And There, was a part of me that I was like, "If I give him enough of these treats, he's gonna become a real dog."

 and I would ask for a puppy every Christmas from Santa and wind up disappointed. And, I f- [00:03:00] made a mistake when I was four. My aunt had a cat, and it had a litter of kittens, and I over Thanksgiving, I convinced my parents to let me take one of the kittens home. But I was four, and so as we were getting ready to leave, I had named the kitten Orange Black Beauty, and, I was like, "And what happens when the kitten turns into a cat?

Where do we go to trade it in so it can be a kitten again?"

Megan Sprinkle: Aw.

Peter Kenseth: My mom jumped right on that and was like, "I don't think you're ready," and I didn't get to take the kitten home. so I didn't have a pet of any form until I was 16, and once I got my driver's license, I rebelliously went out to the nearest PetSmart, which was about 40 minutes away from Montpelier up in Burlington, and I bought myself a cockatiel.

Uh, that was my first pet. I had Teddy made it about 10 years before my family let him fly away, while I was off living on my own in Boston after college. Uh, I thought about getting a dog in [00:04:00] college, but I was like, "It's not really the best environment to have a dog." And then when you're renting and living on your own, 

Not a great idea f- to improve your housing prospects, if you're going to need pet-friendly housing. So, I kinda put the dog idea on the shelf for a while and, fell into Vermont life, loved skiing. I got married. and about 10 years ago, my now ex-wife had been lobbying before we had kids to get a dog, and I was like, "But we ski every weekend.

Is that gonna be really fair to the dog?" And, it was January 2017, and I'd hurt my knee. It was a poor start to the ski season, and I frustratedly on a Thursday evening said as w- I was going to sleep, I was like, "Yeah, I guess we should just get a dog." And Saturday morning comes and, and my wife looks at me and she's like, "So do you wanna go look at dogs?"

And I was like, "Yeah. Well, I guess we could go look. Like, we're not gonna be able to get one today." [00:05:00] she's like, "Oh, no, I filled out all the adoption paperwork yesterday. We're approved." I was like, "Okay. Well, you know, we, uh ... I, I guess we can go look." And she's like, "Great. There's an adoption awareness event at PetSmart."

And so we went, and same PetSmart I bought, Teddy, my cockatiel from. I'm just realizing it's the only two p- pets other than fish that I've had in my life have both come from the same PetSmart store, and I'm telling her, I was like, "You know, we're gonna look, but I wanna get the right dog. You know, I don't wanna rush into this."

And Peony was the only dog in the store. She'd been in the shelter for three weeks. She was between two and three. S- she was a black dog, so sh- I guess she had a lot of factors working against her. Um, but she came up to me, sat down, and held her paw out, and I was like, "Oh, well, all right. I guess she's coming home with us."

And, you know, 10- it'll be 10 years in January, but almost 10 years later, she's still right by my side. She very quickly [00:06:00] became my dog. And that really crystallized everything for me in terms of... I'd done projects in, in pet care and animal health, as a consultant before. My first project was in 2009 on pet insurance, very fortuitously, I- after doing that project, I said, you know, "When and if I get a dog, I'm never getting a dog without having pet insurance."

And it's been hugely, hugely beneficial for Peony and, and, and really has, you know... Once I had her, all the other projects that I'd done made infinitely more sense because I understood what being a pet owner was. I think for a lot of people, people who haven't experienced that, they don't understand how people can love their animals so much.

And, uh, you know, that became crystallized for me, going to the vet and all the projects on diagnostics and, you know, therapeutics and, uh, you know, my first visit, my vet's like, "This is your first dog? You, you know a lot about this [00:07:00] stuff." And, it really just became my, you know... I still consult in other industries, but it's, I always say it makes it very easy to do projects in, in pet care and animal health 'cause I can look down and my why is right there.

that's, that's kind of my backstory.

Megan Sprinkle: Yeah. Well, believe it or not, I have interviewed a veterinarian who never had a pet growing up. Uh, he said maybe his path to veterinary medicine was an act of rebellion, that one day he will get a pet. I thought that was hilarious. I was like, maybe not the best reason to go into veterinary medicine, but, you know. but that... It does sound like you, you do share some traits of people that go into the field in that you might have been a little bit of an overachiever. I think you were a valedictorian of your high school class, so you were at least somewhat devoted to your academics.

Peter Kenseth: Um, I mean, I, I, I won't say I didn't work hard, but, school was also one of those things that, you know, I found I had a natural aptitude [00:08:00] for. I've got a really good memory. I, I like thinking through things. and I definitely... Anybody who knows me will tell you I don't do anything halfway.

so, yeah, I was valedictorian of my high school. I went on, to Dartmouth. I graduated with a degree in history from Dartmouth. I thought maybe I was gonna be a lawyer or a history professor. But come senior year, I wasn't 100% sure of what I was gonna do, and corporate recruiting comes through Dartmouth and, um, I got an offer to go to Google, and I got an offer to go to a boutique consulting firm in Boston.

And I made the choice to go to Boston because it was closer to family. Looking back, that's a sliding door of the 40 shares of Google stock from 2007. That would be nice to have. But, um, you know, everything happens for a reason. I got into consulting, started August 2007. we did a lot of, like, operational, uh, improvement and efficiency projects working for big pharmaceutical [00:09:00] companies like Pfizers, document process outsourcing companies like Xerox, and basically, you know, trying to improve their profitability, rationalize their advertising spend, leverage economies of scale.

 and it was interesting, but it was a little bit more operational, than I First saw when I interviewed for the job and took the job. And, the recession hit and most of us got laid off in April, 2008. So I was on the job for like nine months, and then I was laid off.

And for a valedictorian who went to Dartmouth, that was a little bit of a jarring experience, uh . And I walked home from, uh, getting laid off and I was like, "Well, I need to have a job. I still have months left on my lease." And they had not done a good job of explaining what unemployment was, because somehow the part that I could actually collect money for not working was completely glossed over.

And I was like, "Yeah, well, I'm, I'm not gonna file for unemployment anyway. That's the easy way out." but I didn't know money was attached, but I was [00:10:00] like, "Yeah, I'm not, I'm not gonna do that." So I walked home to my apartment. I had to go past a Legal Sea Foods, and I went in, I put an application in to be a server.

I worked at Legal Sea Foods for a couple months and, and in addition to pet care and, animal health, I have a lot of hobbies. Um, and one of them is wine. And I'd worked, at a wine shop in college, and I taught wine tasting classes to some of my friends in college. And, so I was pretty sure I'd, do pretty well at Legal's being able to upsell people on bottles of wine and, you know, that would be a good stopgap.

But I had no previous experience as a server, so they wouldn't put me on the floor, so I was a host. I ran into a friend, from high school who had gone to Wellesley and was living in her grandmother's mansion on Beacon Hill. And so we started doing wine tasting classes for her and her friends, in this mansion.

And I got... While I was shopping for one of the classes, this wine shop owner was like, "You know a lot about wine. what are you doing right now?" I was like, "I work at Legal Sea Foods." She was like, "Oh, would you like to work here?" And I was like, [00:11:00] "Do you offer health insurance?" she was like, "Yes." So I was like, "All right, great.

Sign me up." So I did that. explored the, a career in the, the wine industry for, See, that would, would've been like June '08. and so I, I tried that out for about a year. my last day was July 4th, 2009, and I moved back to Vermont. And I ha- I had a consulting job that was lined up in, in Vermont.

And what I'd really realized, you know, during my time in Boston was that I did a lot better in a more rural environment. Not to say Vermont is completely rural, but, during the winter I would, you know, I'd be driving back up every weekend to go skiing, or when I was in the wine industry, my days off were Tuesday, Wednesday, so I'd get done work at like 9:00, 10:00 Monday night, and I'd drive up to Vermont, four hours, ski Tuesday, ski Wednesday, drive back four hours Wednesday night, and it was like, if I'm spending all this time up there, I should just go back to where I grew up.

[00:12:00] Like, but I think, you know, for, for people who grow up in that sort of environment, I always thought I wanted to move to a big city. I, remember like being somewhat disappointed going to Dartmouth 'cause I was like, "I'm just gonna be in another small town." And looking back, like I wouldn't change a lot about my college experience, but I really wish I could go back with the appreciation for the outdoors and Vermont and everything it has to offer that I do now.

Because Not that I didn't do well. I did, you know, I was cum laude at Dartmouth. I made a lot of great friends. I had a lot, you know... But I I think until you have something like that taken away from you, it's, it's hard to appreciate exactly what it was. And so I guess that's my take on, you know, can you go home again?

and the answer is yes. You just need to move like 40 to 45 minutes away from your hometown. Don't c- don't, don't move back to your hometown. 

Megan Sprinkle: Yes. but be close to family 'cause, you know, y- understanding what your values are so that you can really [00:13:00] live out to, you know, your skill set and your interest is really important, so it, interesting with all of your unique and perspectives during that, you know, early adulthood, which is a really important time of our life to kind of learn more about ourselves and what our skill sets are, what are our values, all of those things. And you find your way to... Is it Maya or Mia Strategy?

Peter Kenseth: yes, I, I learned-- I'm now a partner there, but I learned about five years in that it is na- Maia was the, , Greek goddess of growth. that's where the name comes from. my now business partner, Neil Sichter, our CEO, started the firm in 2003. And when I went back to Vermont in 2009, I worked for a firm called Fletcher CSI.

 I worked there, like, three and a half, almost four years, would've been July '09 to January 2013. And, my other business partner, who had been one of my managers at [00:14:00] Fletcher, had been recruited over to Maya about six months before me, and then he recruited me over, and I have been there since January 2013.

So I have, yeah, um, I tell people that and they're like, "You've been at the same company for 13 and a half years?" I'm like, " Yeah." Clearly, you know, I'm a partner now. I think we do great work. We get to work with, you know, some of the biggest companies in the world, which is like a 15 to 20 person firm, you know, that's now headquartered in Burlington.

Most of our clients are Fortune 500 companies, I think one of the things I love most about my job is that it's like, I make great relationships with the clients that I have.

they come to trust us. They talk to me about, you know, " what are our strategic problems?" It's like, "Okay, you're, you're dealing with this." And then, you know, we, we talk through it and we understand, you know, why is this a problem for you? And where I think we flip the paradigm from most consulting firms is that we go out and we try to bring in external market perspective to help them solve those challenges.

So [00:15:00] we go out and we talk to their peers, their competitors in the field about like, "Okay, are you guys experiencing a challenge similar to this? What are you doing to solve it?" so, you know, we're not just there making it a two-sided equation, coming in with our smarts and business acumen and expertise, trying to help our clients solve - challenges.

We're coming in, bringing our expertise, but then going back out and getting more perspective, and then making the recommendation. And, and I think for a lot of firms in the market research or strategy consulting space, it's one or the other, right? It's like, we can go out and get you the information you need to help you make a better decision, but maybe we're not really gonna help you think about what to do with that.

And then I think a lot of the strategy shops go out and they come in and put on their smartest person in the room hat and talk back and forth and, you know, "Well, have you thought about it this way? Have you thought about it that way?" But it's all their own experience. And not to say there's not a lot of really smart people there, but I think what keeps me energized and invigorated is that I'm [00:16:00] not just helping my clients with their challenges, I'm learning about like what other people in the industry are doing, and then bringing that knowledge to bear to help my clients.

and you know, my two partners, Chris and Neil, they focus mostly in the, the healthcare space. Everything from diagnostics to medical device to distribution, health insurance. they cover that end of the spectrum, . And then I do pet care and animal health as well as, insurance, so P&C, and that dovetails a little bit with pet care and, pet insurance, which is a big passion of mine.

And then, um, I also do our, uh, tech practice. So I work with, a lot of enterprise technology companies on their sales strategy and go-to-market strategies and things like that.

Megan Sprinkle: Interesting. So I love the perspective of, we can actually step back, look at across industries to see if someone has already kind of, had a similar issue and what have they learned from it, and apply that together in a [00:17:00] new industry. Are there principles that you have learned over the years to start understanding the problem and then looking for possible solutions?

Peter Kenseth: first and foremost, it's, you need to be a good listener and an active learner, right? don't pretend to know what you don't know. and be very open to be able to ask questions. And, you know, that doesn't necessarily mean, that you don't have a perspective or that, that you're not bringing value to, that could potentially solve those problems.

But I mean, first and foremost, I, I wanna make sure I clearly understand what challenges my clients are coming to me with. You know, why does this matter for you? what have you tried already? why is this a pressing issue for you now? How long has it been a pressing issue for you? Are you seeing, you know, other peers or competitors in the space that are having success doing this?

Do you have any hypotheses around what they're doing that you're not, that you wanna [00:18:00] test? And so we have those conversations and, and then we, we try to figure out like, okay, well, what would it be helpful for you to know, that would help you make a better decision and kind of course correct here?

What, what can we go out and study for you? we can offer, again, you know, perspective based on the internal data all day long. You know, okay, tell us what you're doing, you know? but I really find it, you know, where our clients see value is when we go out and we talk to other people in the marketplace, and we come back and, and we have these verbatim insights and we've analyzed it across a number of different companies and we're able to say like, "Well look, these four companies are doing it this way," or "Most people in the space are doing it this way, but there's this one outlier here and it seems like they might have really cracked into something."

And, and you know, and we have, you know, not only our own analysis but the ver- verbatim market research to kind of prove like, hey, we talked to this person at this company and they're doing this on a very similar problem to what you're having or the exact same problem to what you're having [00:19:00] and why don't you adopt this approach, what would be the downsides here? And then we can talk through it with them about like, okay, benchmarking this against your organization, why couldn't you take this approach? Or what do you see as the potential drawbacks of this approach? and so it, it kind of gives like a, a little bit of pressure testing in that you're not just ideating in a vacuum.

other principles, you know, we, we always make sure that we do our research, you know, completely legally and ethically. you know, we don't misrepresent ourselves obviously, you know. I tell people when I'm hiring them, I'm like, "Look, there's a big part of this that, that is a sales job.

You know, you're gonna be calling up people, asking to talk to them, and, you know, in a lot of cases you're not gonna be able to compensate them for their time because, you know, you don't wanna put them in a situation where they're, they feel like they have to tell you something they shouldn't because you've, given them an incentive to do so," it needs to be kind of a free-spirited flow of an exchange of information. Now, if we're doing, like, customer research, we can certainly compensate those people. But if we're talking to people about, you know, how they're approaching a challenge and, you know, [00:20:00] we don't wanna put them in a position where they're disclosing anything that might be, you know, under NDA or subject to a confidentiality agreement.

And as soon as you, with defensive trade secrets, as soon as you introduce an incentive, You can be considered in violation of defensive trade secrets for providing that inducement. So, you know, we have our, our analysts out there. I still work on the analyst side from time to time for, you know, while I'm also doing sales and things like that because I wanna stay grounded in the projects.

But, I always say, you know, You never run out of things to talk about at a cocktail party, uh, if you're in, in my line of work. cause you get, get exposed to so many different industries and business problems and, you know, and then you get into the marketing strategy, and so you're digging way down into culture and ways of life.

not where I thought I would be when I was five years old, 10 years old, 20 years old, but, I've really come to believe it's kind of the place I'm meant to be because it uses so many of the skills that I have in terms of critical thinking, analysis, pattern recognition, memory, [00:21:00] I, I thrive when I'm presenting and, I went through a whole career coaching exercise, back in, in 2023 when the question of partnership was on the table at Maya.

And I, you know, I said to myself, I was like, "That's a big commitment, and that's probably, you know, if you commit to being a partner there, that's probably, you know, the next at least 10 years of your career, if not longer. Like, let's make sure this is where you wanna be." And, going through that, working with executive coaches and, and career coaches, and doing strengths assessment tests and things like that, I was like, "Yeah, I f- I feel like this is, this is where I..."

And that, that also was about the time I started Petworking, the podcast. And, uh, that, that to me was like the one thing that was really missing, is that I, I wanted some chance to kind of shape my own brand and have my own creative, you know... Not that, you know, I don't have autonomy within my own practices, but, I knew I loved [00:22:00] pet care and animal health.

I wanted a chance to talk about it more, and I wanted to be able to talk to people who weren't my clients about it. I wanted to be able to talk to people who are doing new and interesting things, who are, you know, starting up new businesses that maybe can't afford, to hire consultants. But I, you know, I wanted to be able to give them exposure and learn about what they're doing and, I also can think back to when I was four years old, I-- More than anything else at four, I wanted to be a professional baseball player. And, uh, that went right up until I blew out my elbow in college. But, I remember saying to my dad when I was four, I was like, "So if I don't make the major leagues, how do I become an announcer?"

Megan Sprinkle: You sound like you were a very, fun child 

Peter Kenseth: I like to think so. I, I had a very, very magical childhood. Um, it was, it was cool. I definitely have to thank my parents for that

Megan Sprinkle: I love that. Well, yes, the variety that you're able to experience with multiple clients across even within animal health, right? There's so many different [00:23:00] avenues of that. Insurance, consumables as in like food and treats and supplements and all those kind of things, to even veterinary work.

I, I looked back in your podcast episodes too, and you've talked to all sorts of people, everything from more of the pet industry side, but also the vet industry. You had an interview with like Roo and all sorts of things. So, know, on that note of variety in your experience, if you were to look at animal health across the board today based off of your experience, what do you think are some of the more interesting challenges that are out there that the animal health industry needs to really be talking more about and focusing in on that could have larger impact?

Peter Kenseth: Yeah. I, I mean, the one that comes to mind right away is access to care. that's been a huge focus for me recently, you know, on Petworking. We started the Petworking [00:24:00] Angel Fund last year to try to prevent economic euthanasia and, really, you know, it, just grabbed me. like you said, you know, we, uh, Petworking, we've-- I called it a podcast on pet care and animal health, and I, I kept it as, you know, as simple as that.

But, I really When I launched it, I wanted to focus on calling attention to critical business issues in the pet care and animal health space. and whether that be from how best to market your treats and supplements to, looking at, different care models in the vet space. Um, I, I wanted us to be able to touch on all of it.

And as I had more and more conversations with veterinarians, and, and it's interesting you mentioned the Roo episode. Jeffrey Bishop Hill, I met him at... He's their, of Marketplace and, and just a fantastic guy. I met him at WVC back in, in 2023, right before I, I think it was at that conference I made the decision that I, I started to noodle on the idea of, of the podcast.

But, when we were talking, he m- he mentioned to [00:25:00] me, he was like, "You know, when I'm interviewing people for Roo, part of the interview process is I make them watch Dr. Melanie Boden's TED Talk." And he's like, "I would, I would recommend that you, you watch that." so I did. And, and I think I was loosely aware of all of the challenges that face the vet industry.

but the w- way she described it, and I, I would echo again for anybody listening to this and, if you haven't seen that TED Talk, it is for me, must-view, material for anybody working in the pet care and animal health space, because so many people just aren't aware of all... I, I mean, I'm sure you are because you're, you're focusing on, you know, reimagining, the vet experience and that it doesn't have to be confined to the clinic, and that it doesn't, you know, necessarily need to involve, having to manage your own practice, deal with the finances o-of your practice, hire for your own practice, talk to clients and have patient, you know, discussions and be able to put estimates out in front of people and deal with people who, [00:26:00] you know, you're telling that you have to euthanize their pet or deal with, you know, being told that these people can't pursue care because they, they don't have the money for it.

 we ask so much of vets in traditional clinical practice. And, and really what I, I came to realize through all these conversations, I was like, you know, the, the thing that better embodies it and, and is the nexus point of all these issues is economic euthanasia. I mean, that, tears down pet owners, pet parents.

That tears down veterinarians. it's a big contributor to compassion fatigue and moral distress and veterinary burnout. And the thing to me is, is it's entirely preventable if we think about reimagining the care model, if we think about pushing greater adoption of pet insurance, if we think about, you know, giving vets more license and freedom to, have, compassionate cases that, you know, where they don't need to be worried about getting fired for donating their time or, donating services [00:27:00] to save an animal in need.

And I think, you know, it, comes right down to the, the way we're set up right now. It's a cost avoidance model. We have 4% of pet owners in this country that have pet insurance, and for the other 96%, every time you need to take your pet to the vet, you're worried about what that final bill is gonna be.

You know it's probably $100 to walk through the door, then add on whatever else you need. And so I think for a l- a lot of reasons, people don't seek care. It's like, okay, I don't know that I'm gonna find a solution. I don't know, but we've, we've created this situation where the accepted mantra now is pets are family, but we aren't giving people this ability to care for their pets medically like they are family because vast majority of people in this country have financial constraints.

And I just don't, I don't think it's, it's sustainable to keep going this way.

Megan Sprinkle: This is [00:28:00] another great example of where there's probably not one sol- there, I, there's not probably to it. There is not one one solution that is going to be able to completely solve all of the challenges that create this situation. So there's that opportunity. There's looking into insurance, there's looking into angel funds, there's looking into, policy and advocacy.

I, I work with HABRI organization, and so there's a lot of opportunities for people to look at this challenge from multiple angles and work on it from different points to best support overall. I am curious, and I know that some people don't love to bring up human health because human health has their own challenges.

Totally aware of that. But because you do have a background with technology and your colleagues do human health as [00:29:00] well, is 

there 

anything that we can learn or that you've researched that could potentially be interesting from an- other industries that are maybe tackling similar challenges or even if it's a slightly different challenge, you've seen somebody use some type of model or process that could be interesting for the veterinary community to kind of think about?

Peter Kenseth: Yeah. I mean, I'll be the first to say human healthcare has its o- yes, it absolutely has its own challenges. and it's a, one of the best courses I took in college was the history of the m- the American medical system, and it, it is amazing how many times, we have tried to revamp to move to a universal healthcare model, and it doesn't work because you have too many financial interests who have built their financial livelihood on the sustainment and perpetuation of this model. and to me, the [00:30:00] big difference is that, you know, in human healthcare, hospitals there is the Hippocratic Oath. If they're gonna provide services for patients that can afford to pay for them, they also need to provide them for people who can't afford to pay, and you're never gonna turn somebody away for a life-saving procedure.

Um, and I think any, uh, getting back to what I said at, at the start, like, you know, anybody who is a pet owner knows how much you love your pet, and that they are family, and that, you're gonna do anything you can within, the boundaries of your wallet, and sometimes beyond the boundaries of your wallet to help them.

you know, if I look at, at things that we can do to, help and maybe rethink the model, I think, President Biden's deci- decision to remove, medical debt from credit reports, I think that's, maybe a positive first step. I know when I go to University of Vermont Medical Center and, you know, I had an [00:31:00] MRI a couple years ago and it was a few thousand dollars, they are more than willing to let me split that out, you know, into 24 payments.

I don't have to apply for any credit. I just go on the hospital's website and I do that. Um, I understand vets need to get paid, and I understand, you know, payment is due when services are rendered, but I think we're really pigeonholing ourselves from a, compassionate and quality of care standard when you're putting a $5,000 estimate in front of somebody and telling them while their pet is struggling, "This is what we need to do to move forward.

Do you wanna do it? And, you know, if, if not, compassionate euthanasia is the best course of treatment." I, I just don't think making people make those decisions on the spot is in their best interest. I don't think it's in the pet's best interest. I don't think it's in the vet's best interest. And so I think at, at the very least, you know, health insurance is the default expectation for the majority of people that are gonna go through the American medical system.

[00:32:00] Not everybody has it, I mean, and there are cost pressures and, and I know a lot of people will take issue with like, "We can't treat cats and dogs like they're humans." And, and no, they're, they're not humans.

But I do think we can do better for them because they do so much for us. I keep coming back to the fact that like from an insurance perspective, like we're talking P&C insurance and, and you know, to me, the biggest thing we could do is increase the levels of adoption of pet insurance, because if you have a bigger risk pool, pet insurance will be cheaper for everyone.

If you have more people with pet insurance, you're gonna have more people that are going to the vet, and you're not gonna have this current state situation where you have vet clinic revenues up but visits down. They're making more money by charging fewer people more money. it's not sustainable.

At, at some point it's gonna break. But I think there's a pretty obvious solution out there because if you think about [00:33:00] it, like virtually everyone is required to have car insurance. If you have a mortgage, you're required to have homeowners insurance.

Because you're required to have those types of insurance, the risk pool is big enough that insurers can charge reasonable rates. And again, there's outside factors that get, you know, in the way of that. We're seeing that with the catastrophic weather events, with, more flooding, hurricanes, wildfires with climate change and, and some insurers are pulling out of certain markets.

But, they know and understand the risks, right? And, they can price it accordingly and people are required to have it. I'd be really interested to see if there, you know, if some city, state, you know, some sort of municipality would be willing to take a gamble on saying, "Okay, everybody has to have pet insurance," and they're gonna fund it, you know, through the muni- municipality for a period of years and just see how that affects the quality of care and, and people's experience with vet care for a, a bit of time.

I think what the statistic is [00:34:00] 52% of pets don't even see a vet, annually. if we're talking, you know, over half the pet population isn't going into the vet, what are we doing? you're gonna be missing, potentially heartworm.

You're gonna be missing tick-borne illnesses. If they're not going to the vet, are they actually getting preventatives? Are they getting, you know, flea, tick, heartworm? Are they getting their vaccines? and you let those, you know, dental problems, dental issues, masses on their skin, things that would get caught We all go to the doctor and have our, or we all should go to the doctor annually and have our annual physical. 52% of pets aren't getting that. And I think if you get more people going into the vets, you're gonna have better pet health for the long term. You're gonna have more p- you're gonna have more money coming into the vet clinics because of more visits, which allows you to drive the cost of the visit down.

And then on the flip side with, with insurance, if all those visits are covered by insurance, more people are gonna be coming in in general. we're in, in the early stages of the [00:35:00] game, I think. But I think the need-- there needs to be some sort of regulation to kind of cap runaway cost escalation, because right now it's the Wild West, and that makes it impossible for insurers to price accurately, right?

If a diagnostic is marked up 3X at one clinic and 6X at another clinic, that doesn't work. those would be the lessons I would apply. And then I think, you know, it gets into like creative underwriting from the pet insurance side. And, and we s- I see this on the insurance side with my clients all the time.

It's like they have, product development and product strategy teams that sit and ideate about like, "Oh, what are some novel risk factors that we could identify and prove out that would show that this is a better risk? And then we can attract that, that risk pool, and we can offer them better rates and get them in."

And, , it's easy enough to do on the, on the pet side, I think. The data is there. I mean, we have, you know, studies that show by breed, that show by diet type, that show by frequency of vet visits. right now, most pet insurance [00:36:00] plans don't actually cover preventative visits because it's P&C insurance.

It's like we're sitting here trying to underwrite what is fundamentally a health insurance product as P&C insurance. I know pets are property under the eyes of the law, but this is again, where I think from a regulatory perspective, we need to maybe change the game a little bit.

Maybe make, you know, pet health costs, tax deductible, give them like their own HSA account. the PAWS Act sought to do that a little while ago. But like, I don't think it's really serving anybody well right now. it works for the people who have the financial means to afford it or who have pet insurance.

I went through it with Peony last week. You know, she's having neurological issues. I'm certainly not gonna sit by and watch while she loses control of her back legs and, you know, can't get down the stairs, after everything she's given me for the last 10 years. But the, the difference for me is that I have pet insurance and that I can go in and know like, "Okay, I have a $1,000 deductible, and then 90% of everything is covered."

[00:37:00] her MRI and, uh, neurology consult at Tufts last week was $5,500. That's a significant amount of money for something I'm not expecting. I mean, even a, even the $1,000 plus the, you know, 1,500 is, is still a lot for a lot of people, but it's a, it's a lot more, palatable than 5,500.

It's $4,000 that I didn't have to pay, and she's getting a good quality of care, and we have a, potential diagnosis, and it's treatable. And I, I think on the flip side of that, where somebody, you know, who doesn't have the, the financial means, doesn't have the pet insurance, sees their dog losing control of their hind legs, doesn't know why, assumes, "Oh, well, she's almost 12.

This happens to 12-year-old dogs," and then you have to put the dog down because you're like, you know, you're sad watching them. I feel so fortunate that I got to go in and I talked to Dr. Faisler at Tufts and, I have a five-page write-up from him and the [00:38:00] neurology team, and they think she has myasthenia gravis, which is a neuro, degenerative, uh, neuromuscular condition, but it's treatable.

And if we can confirm that this is what it is and treat it, and I can give her, you know, another year or two, three years quality of life, like, I'd love to get her to 20, but like, uh, you know, how many dogs, because they can't talk and people aren't in a position to seek care, have to say goodbye to their families before they should?

I just think it's like, we can change this. There's evidence of it. There's proof of it. it's only a 4% sample, but I would love to talk to more people who have pet insurance and have actually gone down the road of like trying to figure out what, what is wrong with their dog, as opposed to, being in that position of like...

And, and no judgment. I totally understand, like $5,500 is a lot of money, and then there's the time involved in driving down, going to seek a specialist. Like, h-how many people even know that there are specialists out there that they can take their dogs to, like, you know, beyond the [00:39:00] regular vet?

you know, we have, um, people who have committed their, their lives and their careers, and, and you can see it, you know. I mean, Dr. Faisler wants me to come back to do a, an ultrasound, uh, and I'm trying to figure out when in the next few weeks I can do eight hours of driving in a day to get her down there to figure out what's going on, and if there's any tumors that might be creating the immune response.

But I'm willing to do it and the finances are largely covered by insurance. no judgment on the people that don't have that, but I imagine that's gotta be an incredibly difficult position to be in when you don't know what's wrong and all you can see is that your animal is struggling, and then you have to make the decision to say goodbye.

Megan Sprinkle: Yeah. I think you've done really well highlighting a lot of the complexities that come with this, and I do feel that insurance could be massively beneficial. So I am one of the 4% who, who got insurance as soon as I got my puppy. In fact, a week too late, she was able to squeeze in a [00:40:00] UTI right before it was officially confirmed, which was great.

Peter Kenseth: Oh

Megan Sprinkle: But,

Peter Kenseth: no. Hope- hopefully she doesn't get any more UTIs, 'cause now it's a preexisting condition.

Megan Sprinkle: Right, exactly. Yes, yes. Which she actually did get one more afterwards. But anyway, so yeah. But as you also highlighted, there's still like a potentially, and you know, each one's gonna be different, but a $1,000 deductible, and a lot of them are a, reimbursed model, so you still have to have money upfront, which still means that even people that get insurance, there's still a huge percent of the population that have pets that are not even gonna be able to do that.

Peter Kenseth: Oh, yeah

Megan Sprinkle: And so, so while it, it could be a great answer for many people, you know, I think that's why the human-animal bond really emphasizes an advocacy, but also highlighting what you had mentioned, the benefit of pet ownership to human health. And when you can position it 

on 

a human health [00:41:00] angle, there's a lot more potential leverage that you can have when it comes to policy, legal things.

So, you know, a- and some things may scare people because there, there could be a negative to, changing the legal definition of a pet or, you know, things like that, too. So again, this is why it's so good to have multiple angles and perspectives around issues because, One thing may sound really good, but if you don't have that background of, "Ah, but if this happens, then this also happens." So again, thank you for highlighting the complexities and the ability to really think around the issue and get those different perspectives. I'm so curious, you know, you- you've been talking about access to care. You started an angel fund, and you, you also commented on the TED Talk that really spoke to you about the challenges in veterinary wellbeing, but I'm curious, was there a particular [00:42:00] story or something that really helped you decide to create an angel fund?

Um, because, you know, that's not just something you do in the afternoon. I don't know, you probably could. 

squadcaster-7hdh_1_07-07-2026_110931: Yeah. I mean, I, I think it more than anything else, it, it was Dr. Bowden's TED Talk and, you know, talking to my own veterinarian and, and, you know, her mentioning that, you know, she's, she's five years out of vet school and she's already lost five classmates to suicide and, you know, just the heartbreaking reality of like people having to put down their pets because they can't afford to care for them.

it kills me. I guess it goes back more than anything else to that first project I did on pet insurance back in 2009, you know, eight years before I had Peony. And I said then, I was like, "I'm never having a dog without pet insurance," because I would be heartbroken if I had to make a financial decision to put down my dog.

I know myself personally, that would just [00:43:00] never sit with me. I know Peony won't be here forever, and I, I think you, you raised some really good points with like, you know, even with pet insurance, you know, for a lot of people, you know, do they have a, spare $5,000 in credit on their credit card that they can, you know, charge that, to?

what are the statistics are, like 70% of Americans, you know, can't afford an unexpected $400 expense or, you know, or, or would have to sell something to be able to afford it. that's real. but then you s- you see like, you know, with HABRI and the work that they're doing and all, all the s- the studies on, of the positive effects that pets have on people's, mental health and wellbeing.

I mean, I look at Peony, like she's been by me through the birth of two kids. She's been, uh, at my side through a divorce. You know, we've moved one, two, three, four times together and, you know, she's there. She just keeps showing up. And, for people who don't have pets and, and [00:44:00] don't, you know, know and see that, like, and feel what that is, it, it's unconditional love.

I mean, it, e- even, even now when she's struggling, the first thing she did this morning was came up next to the bed and gave me a kiss. And, you can't replace that. and, and I think that's what's so powerful about the human-animal bond is that like everybody has that connection, to their pet.

It's the old phrase, everybody thinks they have the best dog in the world, and everybody's right. so that to me is what really drives the Angel Fund is I don't want a vet to have to put down an animal that they, they know they could save.

I don't want a family to... I look at the way my kids are with Peony. They come home every day and, you know, "Peony, you're the best dog in the world," and they're not human, but they are family. And I, I just looked at it, I was like, you know, whatever we can do to help keep families together, like, yeah, that, that's important.

Because, I just can't imagine I'm not a [00:45:00] veterinarian, but like if I s- spent all the money that, that you all spend to go to vet school and, and had the passion for and love of and care for animals that people who get into this profession do, I imagine that's gotta be the biggest gut punch every day.

And, you know, if I can help prevent one vet from experiencing that moral distress, compassion fatigue that, you know, I can't even imagine. indescribable feeling of having to put down an animal that you know you could save if the money was there, and, you know, for a family too, like, Yeah, I, I had to do something. And so, yeah, we're, we're trying. It's small, but it's a big part of, of what I, I think we should be doing in this industry. And like you said, we're-- There's all these different policy decisions and, you know, I think you hit on a really good angle of, you know, maybe we do something around, the mental health benefits that, that pets bring, and that's a way to, to get into it.

But, you know, the [00:46:00] flip side of that is the cost of loving that much is that it, it hurts that much more when they're gone. And so if we can stop, families from unnecessarily having to say goodbye, you know, I think that further continues that, that mental health benefit and that bond.

Megan Sprinkle: Yeah. Well, thank you so much for what you're doing, and I, I wanna make sure to-- I'll put links to everything in our show notes. But one last question that I always love to end on, and that is around gratitude. So if you think about what you are most grateful for, uh, what comes to your mind?

Peter Kenseth: I'm grateful for Peony, number one, and my kids. She's my first baby, and then I have two of the best kids that anyone could possibly ask for, and, those are the lights that keep me going and, I'm grateful to live in Vermont.

I'm grateful to be able to work in an industry that I love. we live in, in challenging and, and unprecedented times, and I think it's easy for people to get lost We all have problems, we all have challenges, [00:47:00] but, I like that you end on this question because I think it is really important to be grateful for the things that we are fortunate enough to have e- every day, that keeps you going, the things that keep you grounded, the things that keep you getting up and keep, continuing to show up even when things are tough.

Megan Sprinkle: Some of the biggest challenges in veterinary medicine won't be solved by one person, one company, or one idea alone. They'll be solved when people with different experiences come together, ask better questions, and stay willing to challenge the status quo in service of pets, their families, and the professionals who care for them.

A huge thank you to Peter Kenseth for joining me and for sharing not only his perspective, but also his passion for expanding access to care, enhancing the human-animal bond, and supporting veterinary professionals. If you'd like to learn more about Peter, Maia Strategy, the Petworking Podcast, or the Petworking Angel Fund, you'll find links to all of those resources in the show notes.

If you enjoyed this [00:48:00] episode, I would be very grateful if you would subscribe, leave a rating or review, and share it with a colleague or friend who cares for the future of veterinary medicine. Those small actions help more people discover these conversations and help us continue building a community that's willing to reimagine what's possible.

Until next time, keep reimagining what's possible in veterinary life