Prescription Medications
There are certain rules that we must follow regarding prescription medications and refills of medications. These rules are in place to ensure the health & safety of your pet among other things.
We cannot refill medications for animals who we have not been seen by one of our doctors in over 12 months. In this case, if you need a refill of a medication you will need to schedule an appointment to be seen by one of the veterinarians.
We cannot provide medications for another veterinarian or medications given by your previous veterinarian if we have not seen your animal for the condition the medication has been prescribed.
Some long-term medication refills (including but not limited to pain medications, thyroid medications, heartworm medications) require regular lab testing in order to assure the animal’s health and that the medications are being given at the appropriate dose. Please plan ahead when needing refills on these medications as there will be additional delay while awaiting lab results.
We require 2 business days notice for all prescription refills. This includes medications from the clinic and approvals of prescriptions from online pharmacies, compounding pharmacies or local pharmacies in Santa Fe. Keeping ahead of your animal’s medication refills is your responsibility. Please plan ahead.
Long Term Medication Refills
Providing your animals with prescription medications at an affordable price is becoming a challenge. Keeping all of the medications that your animal may need in stock in our clinic pharmacy leads to increasing costs for us and for you. Some examples of these types of medications are pain medications, thyroid medications, heart medications, diabetes medications and supplies, allergy medications, incontinence medications, probiotics–really any medication that your animal is on longterm for more than an acute illness or injury.
We ask that you move refills of these medications to an on-line pharmacy instead of picking them up at the clinic. Our online pharmacy (click here) will provide you with the quickest turn-around time as far as approval of the prescription goes, but you can use any online pharmacy of your choosing.
We will continue to stock those medications not readily available at the human pharmacies as well as those medications that we commonly need to begin giving without delay.
Advantages for you include a lower cost for the same medication, easy refill options including “auto-fill/auto-ship,” which will send them to you without you having to remember to call for a refill, and delivery right to your mailbox.
To order your medication(s), go to the pharmacy of your choosing, create an account, or log in to your existing account, select the medication, strength and quantity and enter Cameron Veterinary Clinic’s information as the prescriber. Our online pharmacy (Vetsource) will email an approval request to us. Most other pharmacies will fax us the request. (Note our fax number changed last spring. It is 844-828-2596.) Within two business days (usually faster for Vetsource) we will approve (or decline) the prescription and send it back to the pharmacy. They will then send medications to you as you have arranged with them.
If you wish to continue getting the medications directly from us at the clinic, please know that we may not have the necessary quantity available and there will be delays beyond the regular two business day refill time in getting them ordered and here. We will not do special orders.
Many of the medications that we use are also used for people and are available at a local pharmacy. For these medications will provide you with a written prescription that you can take to the pharmacy of your choice.
We will not call-in prescriptions to pharmacies. Our experience calling in prescriptions to pharmacies has become quite frustrating. We’ve discovered that customer service and record keeping are lacking, leading to hours spent on the phone by our staff repeating and verifying prescriptions that have been mis- recorded, mis- understood or lost by the pharmacy staff, and leading to repeated visits and long waits for you to pick up your animal’s prescription medications. For these medications will provide you with a written prescription that you can take to the pharmacy of your choice. Refill requests from these pharmacies need to be faxed or emailed to us for approval.
Some of the medications that we use are not available in doses or forms that are easy to give to your animal patients. In these cases we turn to compounding pharmacies to mix the medication in to the appropriate dose and in a form (chewable, liquid or transdermal) that is easier to give. These compounding pharmacies typically bill you directly and ship the medications to you at your home.