Clients asking for medication recommendations

Occasionally, clients will ask for advice regarding giving medication to their pet.  There are very strict regulations regarding this and it is very important that you know exactly what to tell them.

You, as a non-veterinarian, are not allowed to give any directions regarding giving medications to pets.  Our doctors are only allowed to give directions or advice IF they have seen the  pet within the last year.  If we have never seen the pet, neither you nor our doctors are allowed to give advice on medication.  

If it is a current hospice case (seen within the last year) that one of our doctors has seen, you need follow our hospice agreement which states:  

Your pet’s hospice care is a matter we take to heart.  We will do our very best to ensure that your pet has the most comfortable End of Life experience possible.  Caring for a terminal pet can be time consuming and requires a commitment both on your part and on our part.  Therefore communication between doctor and pet parent it is of prime importance.  For routine updates, please email the doctor.  For urgent matters, you can contact us via phone at 714-454-4080.  Do not use text messages under any circumstance.  In the case of urgent matters, it is possible that you may speak to a different doctor than the one who did the original hospice consultation, depending on who is on call at the time.  For prescription refills, please contact the doctor via email at least 3 days in advance.  For refill authorizations of prescriptions, you may be required to repeat the Quality of Life scale, the pain indicators table as well as give us an update on how your pet is doing so that we may adjust the dosage and prescriptions in your pet’s best interest.  The first consultation fee includes a one hour consultation in your home and one month of email follow-ups.  Over-the-phone follow-ups are subject to an additional fee per15 minutes.  Follow-up hospice (not euthanasia) visits within one month of the original visit are offered a discount of the full price (excluding any applicable travel and off hours fee).  An update on Quality of Life scale and pain table are required to benefit from discounted fee on monthly visits.  A fee of $100 per month will be assessed for email follow ups after the first month.  This fee will be waived if a follow-up home visit is made within one month of original visit.

* * *Please note that the fees in the paragraph above will change over time and you will have to state the correct fees per what is on the current fee schedule and the current Hospice agreement form.

For any other requests, your answer should always be that they need to either set up a hospice visit with our doctor or they need to follow directions given to them by their primary veterinarian.  

Please do not call our doctors to ask them what a client should give as it puts them in a difficult position and their answer should  be the same:  ask the client’s primary veterinarian or schedule a pre-euthanasia visit.