Washington, D.C. — As the cost of veterinary care continues to skyrocket—up by more than 60 percent over the last decade—the American Economic Liberties Project today released new model legislation aimed at addressing key drivers of the crisis: corporate ownership and roll-up consolidation.

“Corporations and private equity firms are hiding in plain sight, quietly buying up veterinary practices across the country and inflating prices for people who want to care for their pets,” said Helaine Olen, Managing Editor at the American Economic Liberties Project. “Fast-rising veterinary care prices are the result of corporate owners consolidating previously-independent practices, leveraging their growing market power to squeeze more profits from pet owners, and introducing profits-over-pets imperatives onto veterinarians. This model bill provides a template to address the problem, empowering states to reclaim local, independent vet care and protect both pet owners and veterinary professionals from exploitative practices.”

A decade ago, less than 10 percent of veterinary practices were corporate-owned. Today, between 25 percent and 50 percent of veterinary practices, and 75 percent of specialty practices, are under corporate management. The result, as Economic Liberties Managing Editor Helaine Olen exposed in a widely-read May 2024 report for The Atlantic, is complaints of declines in quality of care, veterinarians reporting pressure to upsell pet owners on unneccessary services, and rapid price increases.

Ultimately, pet care is becoming unaffordable for working families, even as most Americans now consider their pets part of the family.  With prices increasing at more than double the rate of the Consumer Price Index,  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.

Building off existing laws that have banned corporate ownership of veterinary practices in eighteen states—an offshoot of the broader state-led movement to crack down on the “corporate practice of medicine” in human healthcare—this model legislation is designed to ensure medical decisions are made independently by medical professionals, and not corporate managers.

The model legislation contains three sections to ban non-medical ownership of veterinary practices, close potential work-arounds, and strengthen state oversight over mergers, acquisitions, and clinic closures.

• Part I: Bans non-veterinarian ownership and control of veterinary practices, specifies corporate entities that are permitted to employ veterinarians, bans straw or dual ownership or interest, bans certain advertising, and bans relinquishing control of decision-making in a manner that would adversely impact care and working conditions; restricts certain anticompetitive contracts with management services organizations; restricts non-compete, nondisclosure, and non-disparagement agreements,

• Part II: Requires transparent reporting of ownership and control of veterinary practices

• Part III: Requires agency review of certain material change transactions, and authorizes post-transaction oversight