CMA Compliance for Veterinary Practices: Turning Regulatory Change Into an Exemplary Client Experience Opportunity

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) reforms are bringing significant changes to the way veterinary businesses communicate information about their services, prices, ownership, treatment options and complaints processes.

For many veterinary practices, the scale of the changes can feel daunting. There are new requirements to understand, systems to review, information to publish and processes to put in place.

But CMA compliance doesn't have to be a defensive exercise in box-ticking.

Done properly, it can become an opportunity to improve the way your practice communicates with clients, strengthen trust, make information easier to access and ultimately create an exemplary client experience.

The key is to stop thinking about compliance as a single website update or a collection of new posters.

Think of it instead as an information-flow project.

Understanding the CMA veterinary compliance timeline

The CMA published its final report into the UK veterinary services market in March 2026. The next stage is the implementation of legally binding remedies through a substantive Order.

The statutory deadline for the CMA to make that Order is 23 September 2026. Once the Order is in place, different remedies will have different implementation periods. Most remedies will take effect within three to 12 months.

For several key information and pricing remedies, the current government guidance sets out:

• December 2026: larger veterinary businesses need to comply
• March 2027: smaller businesses need to comply, with some additional requirements for groups
• September 2027: businesses need to provide specified information to the RCVS

The exact deadline therefore depends on the remedy and the type and size of your veterinary business.

That means practices shouldn't wait for a single CMA deadline before taking action.

The sensible approach is to start mapping what needs to change now.

CMA compliance is an information project, not a website project

It's tempting to approach the CMA requirements as a series of things that need to be added to your website:

Add a price list ✅

Add ownership information ✅

Add your complaints procedure ✅

Update your treatment information ✅

Put up the required notices ✅

Check, check, all done, except it isn't.

The real challenge is ensuring that the information is accurate, consistent, accessible and maintained across every place a client encounters your practice.

That might include:

• Your website
• Online booking
• Price lists
• Treatment estimates
• Client communications
• Invoices
• Practice signage
• Reception conversations
• Telephone and on-hold messaging
• Social media
• Health and wellness plan information
• Third-party listings
• RCVS data submissions

The CMA remedies include requirements around ownership information, basic service information, standard price lists, parasiticide pricing, pet care plan information and practice comparison data. Practices will also need to provide information to the RCVS to support its enhanced Find a Vet service.

The question therefore isn't simply whether the information has been put online.

It is whether a client can find the right information, understand it and receive the same message wherever they interact with the practice.

That is a much more useful way of thinking about compliance.

Don't treat transparency as something to apologise for

One of the biggest opportunities presented by the CMA changes is the ability to turn transparency into part of your practice story.

Pricing transparency doesn't have to be positioned as something practices are reluctantly being forced to do. It can instead become an opportunity to demonstrate that the practice wants clients to understand their options and feel confident about the care they choose.

Dr. Becki Maher of Inside Minds recommends that practices proactively communicate the high standards and good practices they already have in place, rather than presenting changes as simply a response to regulatory pressure.

This distinction matters.

Blaming the regulator for changes may explain why something is happening, but it doesn't necessarily help build client confidence. Framing the changes around what they mean for clients — greater clarity, transparency and reassurance — creates a much more positive narrative.

Practices should therefore consider how they can proactively communicate the good things they already do.

If your practice has always been transparent about pricing, say so.

If your team already discusses treatment options carefully with clients, explain that.

If you have invested in clear estimates, accessible information or flexible payment and health plan options, make those benefits visible.

Don't make the CMA the hero of your communication. Make your practice the hero.

Pricing transparency: information is only half the job

Publishing prices is important, but transparent pricing on a website doesn't automatically create confident financial conversations in practice.

Teams also need to feel comfortable discussing money.

That means giving receptionists, nurses and veterinary professionals practical frameworks for conversations about:

• Treatment costs
• Estimates
• Changes to expected costs
• Different treatment options
• Health plans
• Payment options
• Unexpected clinical developments

Use conversation structures rather than rigid scripts when training teams for difficult financial conversations. Structures can provide consistency while allowing staff to retain their own personality and respond naturally to individual client circumstances.

This becomes particularly important when a clinical situation changes and the expected cost increases.

A written update alone may not be enough. Make sure to also have a direct verbal conversation with the client when clinical changes result in increased costs, explaining what has changed, why it has changed and what options are available. - The objective isn't simply to communicate a number. It is to help the client understand what has changed, why it has changed and what happens next. - That is good client communication, not simply compliance.

Fixed pricing can reduce uncertainty - but only when it is realistic

Standardised pricing for common procedures can make it much easier for clients to understand the likely cost of care.

However, veterinary medicine doesn't always fit neatly into fixed-price packages.

The solution isn't to pretend that every clinical scenario has a single predictable price.

Instead, practices need to communicate the boundaries of pricing clearly.

Dr. Becki Maher recommends considering "up to" pricing rather than broad price ranges where appropriate, helping practices communicate a clearer maximum expected cost while potentially reducing some of the psychological discomfort associated with seeing a large range.

Whatever terminology is used, however, it must accurately represent the service being offered and comply with the applicable CMA requirements.

The objective should always be the same: Reduce uncertainty without creating false certainty.

Health plans need more than a headline saving

The same principle applies to veterinary health and wellness plans.

A common approach is to lead with a headline saving.

But price isn't necessarily the strongest reason someone joins a health plan.

For many pet owners, the value is psychological as much as financial.

A health plan can provide:

• More predictable monthly costs
• Easier budgeting
• Regular preventative care
• Greater reassurance
• Convenient access to routine services
• Confidence that important preventative treatments won't be forgotten

Practices should therefore explain the full value proposition, rather than relying entirely on a headline saving.

Where a plan does claim to save money, the maths should be transparent and easy for clients to understand.

Justin Phillips of Practice Made Purrfect highlighted an experimental savings calculator on the Thrums website as an example of how practices are beginning to make the calculation behind plan savings more visible. The calculator is being adjusted to align with the forthcoming CMA requirements.

This reflects a wider movement towards transparently demonstrating savings calculations — something consumers are already familiar with from industries such as insurance and financial services.

Don't underestimate the power of reassurance

There is also a psychological dimension to health plan marketing that veterinary practices can make better use of.

Dr. Thom Jenkins of PetsApp argues that the value of a wellness plan isn't necessarily about how frequently a client uses a consultation benefit. Instead, much of its value comes from the psychological reassurance of knowing that access to care and preventative services is available when needed.

Clients don't necessarily calculate the precise financial return of every consultation.

For many, the value is knowing that they have a predictable way of managing routine care and that they don't need to worry about every individual cost.

Your website is your digital shop window

For most practices, the website is one of the most important places where CMA compliance will become visible.

The CMA guidance requires standard price lists to be published on a practice website where one exists, with the information accessible from the homepage within a defined navigation structure.

That makes your website more than a brochure.

Justin Phillips of Practice Made Purrfect describes the website as a veterinary practice's primary digital shop window and an important lever in helping clients make informed choices.

So practices shouldn't just ask:

Can someone find our prices?

But also:

Can someone understand our prices?

Can they understand what services we provide?

Can they understand who owns the business?

Can they understand our health plans?

Can they understand how to complain?

Can they understand their treatment options?

Can search engines and AI systems understand all of this information too?

Make your information machine-readable

As search behaviour changes, it isn't enough for information simply to exist somewhere on a webpage.

Practices should consider how their key business and pricing information is structured so that search engines and emerging AI search systems can understand it accurately.

This matters because the practice website is no longer competing only for a human visitor.

It is also becoming a source of information for the systems that increasingly mediate how consumers discover businesses.

If your information is difficult for a machine to understand, it can be difficult for a client to discover.

Make compliance part of the client journey

Another opportunity is to stop treating every compliance requirement as a separate task.

For example, if you want more clients to understand your health plans, don't make selling health plans another task for reception.

Build the information into existing client journeys.

Dr. Thom Jenkins has observed that practices tend to achieve greater wellness plan penetration when recommendations are integrated into existing booking flows rather than treated as an isolated task for the team.

That could mean:

• Presenting the health plan during online booking
• Providing relevant information when a client books a vaccination
• Surfacing pricing information when a client chooses a service
• Reinforcing key messages through automated communications

The more naturally information is incorporated into an existing journey, the less it feels like an additional sales or compliance task.

Consistency builds trust

One of the simplest things practices can do is repeat their core messages consistently.

If your website says one thing, your reception team says another and your invoice says something completely different, clients have to work harder to understand you.

Consistency creates familiarity.

That could mean reinforcing key messages across:

• Your website
• Booking journeys
• Email
• SMS
• Invoices
• Reception
• Telephone messaging
• Social media
• Printed materials

Repetition isn't necessarily boring.

Repetition is how information becomes familiar.

And familiar information is easier to trust.

Focus on what you can control

The veterinary sector is dealing with significant regulatory change.

There will inevitably be uncertainty around implementation, interpretation and the practical realities of making changes across complex businesses.

But practices can't control the regulatory environment.

They can control:

• How prepared their teams are
• How accessible their information is
• How accurate their pricing is
• How they train staff for financial conversations
• How they structure their websites
• How they manage digital access
• How they maintain their information
• How they communicate change to clients

The CMA opportunity: turn compliance into confidence

The veterinary profession doesn't need another compliance exercise that creates a mountain of paperwork and a handful of new documents nobody looks at.

It needs better information.

Better information for clients.

Better information for teams.

Better information on websites.

Better information in booking journeys.

Better information around pricing.

Better information about ownership, services and treatment choices.

And ultimately, better information creates better client conversations.

That is why the most successful practices will be the ones that stop asking what they have to do simply to comply, and start asking how they can use these changes to make it easier for their clients to understand them.

The CMA remedies may be regulatory requirements, but the outcome doesn't have to feel regulatory.

They can be an opportunity to make your practice more transparent, more accessible and easier to choose.

And that isn't something to defend against.

It's something worth getting ahead of.

What to learn more? Why not have your team watch our full 1hour CPD webinar with key veterinary marketing opinion leaders Drs Thom Jenkins and Becki Maher along side Justin Phillips.