Over the last 10 years, the cost of veterinary care for pets increased by 60 percent. Even as overall inflation came under control, the cost of veterinary care did not. It is currently increasing at a rate that’s more than double the overall Consumer Price Index. This price surge is causing American pet owners enormous financial and emotional pain.

A majority of American households own a pet. Even as most people say they consider pets family members, actual vet visits are down, as are sales of heartworm medication. Shelter intakes are up and are, in many municipalities, at crisis levels, a number attributed, in part, to the increasing cost of animal medical care.

The cause for the continuing surge in prices: corporate consolidation and roll-ups. Veterinarian practices were traditionally independently owned. A decade ago, less than 10 percent were corporate-owned.

That number has now been turned on its head. Estimates vary, but those who study the issue say anywhere between 25 percent and almost 50 percent of all veterinary practices are now under corporate management. 75 percent of specialty practices such as cardiology, oncology and emergency services are under large corporate and private equity umbrellas. (Many corporate and private equity-owned practices, aware pet owners prefer independently owned veterinary practices, do not brand their acquisitions.)

This ongoing consolidation has been accompanied by an increase in prices and customer complaints of declines in the quality of care. Veterinarians report pressure to upsell pet owners on unnecessary services and tests. Prices for all services often increase rapidly and regularly.

States have long been concerned about non-medical professional ownership of medical practices, a concern that carries over to the veterinary field. Eighteen states ban non-veterinarians from owning a veterinary practice. These laws are designed to ensure medical decisions are made independently by medical professionals, and not corporate managers.

However, legal workarounds that originated in the human healthcare space are also used by the veterinary consolidators, helping them evade the spirit of these restrictions. A veterinarian can technically own the practice, but lease all or sell all its non-medical assets to what is called a management services organization owned by the consolidator. While both revenue and expenses go through the corporation owned by the veterinarian, it pays a management fee to the larger consolidator, and thus passes all profits back to it. These legal workarounds render state law all but meaningless.

This model legislation addresses that issue. It will ban not just non-veterinarians from owning veterinarian practices, but addresses the work-arounds, rendering management services organizational structures also illegal.