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Launch the Pet Owner Portal at Your Practice

This article walks Practice Managers and Administrators through a three-week plan for rolling out the Pet Owner Portal to clients. Each week has a clear goal and a checklist of tasks to complete before moving to the next phase.

Written by Meridythe Lanoue

Week 1: Get your team ready

Goal: Every staff member has used the portal themselves and can answer basic client questions before launch.

Complete the following tasks in Instinct EMR and with your team:

  1. Go to Admin → Portal and enable the portal for your practice.

  2. Configure document visibility defaults to control which record types clients can see.

  3. Finalize your practice's portal URL.

  4. Create any physical signage for your waiting room, exam rooms, and checkout area.

  5. Send the Pet Owner Portal: Overview and Pet Owner Access article to all staff members.

  6. Set a deadline for all staff to register their own pet (or a test account) before the end of the week.

  7. Hold a 15-minute team huddle to walk through the portal together and answer questions.

Note: Staff who haven't used the portal themselves won't promote it. Every team member should be able to answer "What is the portal?" confidently before a single client hears about it.

Your Instinct Customer Success team will do a quick check-in this week to confirm the portal is enabled, your URL is set, and staff training is underway.

Week 2: Turn on passive promotion

Goal: Clients start seeing the portal everywhere—but staff isn't actively pitching it yet. This gives your team a low-pressure ramp-up.

  1. Put up signage: waiting room poster, exam room poster, and checkout tent card (see Set Up Physical Signage to Promote the Pet Owner Portal for examples).

  2. Update all staff email signatures with your portal link.

  3. Add the portal link to your practice website (on the homepage banner, in the navigation, and in the footer).

  4. Update the appointment reminder and discharge email templates to include portal snippets.

  5. Place handout cards at the front desk and checkout.

Week 3: Start active promotion

Goal: Staff begin mentioning the portal at key moments during client visits. This is where client adoption actually takes off.

  1. Set a simple team goal for the week (for example, "Let's get 20 clients registered this week").

  2. Encourage staff to mention the portal at key trigger points during visits—see the Promote the Pet Owner Portal to Clients article for suggested moments.

  3. Encourage front desk staff to walk clients through registration while they wait.

Tip: A useful framing for your team: "From this week on, the portal is part of our workflow. When you're sharing lab results, at checkout, or when someone calls for records—that's when you mention it."

Still need help?

Contact Instinct support via live chat or at [email protected].

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