Abby Road Prescription Policy
At Abby Road Veterinary Hospital, we take great pride in our role as your furry family member’s doctor. The primary focus of our practice is to continue to provide high-quality, professional medical, surgical, and dental care for your pets. In order to do so, we do stock numerous forms of pharmaceuticals and products to provide for your pets.
Abby Road Veterinary Hospital takes great measures to ensure the products and medications that we provide are properly handled and stored per manufacturer’s recommendation – from manufacturing to storage & transit, all the way to stocking our shelves. In order to do so, the items offered to you are obtained either directly through the manufacturer or through manufacturer-authorized distributors.
We are aware that there are numerous internet websites and catalog houses that sell pharmaceuticals directly to the pet owner. Contrary to deceptive print, television, and internet advertising that touts pet medications at “less than half the price from your veterinarian”, our pharmacy (physical and online at abbyroadvet.com), generally offers your pet’s medication for similar prices. In fact, our prices may even be lower when manufacturer rebates are considered. Whichever pharmacy you decide to have your pet’s prescriptions filled through, we want your decision to be an informed one.
Abby Road Veterinary Hospital Prescription Policy
We will provide a written prescription for your pet upon request – provided that your pet has been examined recently, all required test results are current, and that the requested medication or product is appropriate based on your pet’s weight and health. The time frame of a ‘recent exam’ and ‘current test result’ are at the doctor’s discretion, but will never exceed more than one year from the last annual exam and negative/normal test.
The written prescription will be provided directly to you. You may either pick it up in person, or request it be mailed to you (postage fee will apply). We will only provide the written prescription from our own tamper-resistant prescription pads. All written prescriptions will be charged a professional services fee to cover the costs of staff time needed for preparation.
WE DO NOT RESPOND TO FAX OR TELEPHONE REQUESTS FOR PRESCRIPTION AUTHORIZATIONS.
If you choose to order your pet’s medications through an online or catalog pharmacy, you should mail the original written prescription to the pharmacy. (Special security features of our written prescription pads prevent any attempt to fax, copy, or scan them by causing the word “VOID” to appear over the copied prescription – thus leaving the copied script invalid. We cannot stress enough to carefully select your choice of pharmacy with thorough research.
Products purchased from our pharmacy (physical and online at abbyroadvet.com) are FULLY manufacturer-warranted and guaranteed.
In addition to reimbursement for the cost of the product itself, the guarantee includes reimbursement for the treatment of heartworm disease or intestinal parasites should your pet contract heartworms or specific parasites while taking their prevention products. Online pharmacy guarantees typically cover only reimbursement for the cost of the failed product, and may not cover the costs of subsequent treatments. The treatments for failed preventatives can be very expensive, not to mention the extreme risk to your pet.
Manufacturer product guarantees are VOIDED if those products are purchased through any non-approved channel or for products sourced via gray-market brokers.
Many online or catalog pet pharmacies are NOT manufacturer-authorized channel/distributors of the most commonly purchased heartworm and flea/tick preventative products. This means that if the manufacturers do not sell directly to these companies, these pharmacies obtain these medications through third party companies (gray-market brokers) that divert these veterinary products around the intended chain of custody set aside by the manufacturers. This action then nullifies the warranties on these products. Merck, Zoetis, Merial, Elanco, Boehringer Ingelheim (manufacturers of Simparica, Dasuquin, Interceptor Plus, Rimadyl, Frontline Gold, Bravecto, Apoquel) often have strict policies that prohibit direct sales to these pharmacies, catalog companies or third party distributors.
From 1-800-PedMeds 2019 Annual Report (p. 6 of their report under “Risk Factors”) "We currently purchase a portion of our prescription and non-prescription medications from third party distributors and we are not an authorized distributor of these products." "We purchase medications from various secondary sources...we will continue to rely upon secondary sources."
http://www.1800petmeds.com/ima...
Many online pharmacies have been repeatedly reprimanded by the FDA and State Boards of Pharmacy for violating prescribing procedure. Several well known companies have been cited and fined repeatedly for the same violations in the same state!
In some instances, pharmaceuticals manufactured and labeled for use in other countries (Australia, New Zealand) have been found to be illegally diverted and sold through internet sources and catalogs in the USA. In addition, counterfeit and expired medications have also been produced, repackaged or sold to unsuspecting consumers. https://www.fda.gov/inspection...
Other Related Links: https://www.petful.com/pet-hea...