No VCPR? No problem. Providing general advice on Vetster

• General advice is a distinct telehealth skill that helps pet owners understand what might be happening and what factors matter, without diagnosing or directing treatment.
• High-quality general advice translates clinical reasoning into clear, accessible guidance that supports informed decision-making.
• Focus on explaining patterns, risks, and categories of causes rather than identifying a specific diagnosis for an individual patient.
• Frame information in educational language that informs without prescribing, while validating client concerns and building trust.
• Thorough documentation remains essential, even when no VCPR is established.
• Vetster supports veterinarians with training, frameworks, and resources designed to help you deliver confident, high-value virtual care.

The umbrella term “veterinary telehealth” applies to a broad range of virtual care services, each with its own purpose and professional boundaries. At a high level, telehealth includes telemedicine, general advice, and teletriage.

For many veterinarians, general advice, which exists outside of a VCPR, is the least familiar of these. Yet it is one of the most impactful ways to help pet owners through virtual care across a wide geographic range.

Providing strong general advice is a learnable skill. When veterinarians shift their focus away from a solitary focus on diagnosing and prescribing and hone their communication skills for sharing general information, they can create high-value virtual interactions that strengthen client relationships and meaningfully support pet health, even without a VCPR.

This article focuses on how to deliver general advice that is clear, ethical, clinically grounded, and genuinely helpful to pet owners.

General advice is educational guidance tailored to a client’s questions and circumstances that explains clinical signs, risks, and considerations for next steps, without diagnosing a patient or directing specific treatment.

It sits between generic educational content and telemedicine. Unlike a blog article that a client might find online about a given disease or specific treatment, it is tailored to the client’s situation. Unlike telemedicine, it stops short of diagnosis and treatment.

In practice, general advice often resembles carefully curated information out of an academic resource, focused on answering questions such as:

• What might this mean in general terms?
• How concerned should I be?
• What details matter most?
• What are reasonable next steps?

For pet owners, this clarity is often the primary value of telehealth.

General advice is “general” because it’s necessarily directly applicable to the specific pet or situation, but it is not vague. While it often sounds like something from a veterinary school lecture, it translates clinical reasoning into accessible language while staying within appropriate boundaries.

If a client says, “My dog has been vomiting for two days,” a diagnosis might sound like:

“This sounds like pancreatitis or a foreign body obstruction.”

General advice sounds more like:

“Vomiting can have many causes, ranging from mild gastrointestinal upset to more serious conditions. Factors such as duration, appetite, energy level, abdominal discomfort, and possible toxin exposure help determine how concerning it may be.”

Similarly, treatment language differs in important ways.

A specific treatment recommendation requiring a VCPR might be:

“Start an anti-emetic and a bland diet.”

General advice might be:

“In dogs with mild gastrointestinal signs, veterinarians often consider supportive approaches when the dog remains bright and comfortable, such as withholding food for a period of time followed by small, frequent meals of a bland diet like a 50/50 mixture of boiled chicken and rice.”

The goal is not to withhold useful information, but to frame it in a way that informs without prescribing.

Strong general advice focuses on helping clients get accurate information to understand their pet’s situation so they can make good decisions about what to do next.

Explaining what the signs could mean

Rather than naming a diagnosis, effective general advice describes categories of causes.

For example, when discussing limping, the focus is not on what is affecting this specific pet, but on how veterinarians generally interpret limping and work through different diagnostic and treatment plans. Examples include:

• “Limping can arise from several broad categories of causes. Some are relatively mild and self-limiting, such as soft tissue strain. Others are chronic or progressive, such as degenerative joint disease, which is common in older, larger breeds, especially if they’re overweight.”
• “In some cases, limping can be associated with more serious conditions that require prompt evaluation, such as fractures or neurologic disorders.”
• “When a young, active, larger breed dog suddenly comes up lame on a rear leg while exercising, an ACL tear is often at the top of the list of possibilities.”

This approach helps clients understand the range and significance of possibilities without implying a definitive answer.

Highlighting factors that influence urgency

General advice should clarify which details matter most, such as duration, progression, systemic signs, and red flags. This naturally overlaps with teletriage while remaining educational rather than diagnostic. For example:

“When a cat’s urination habits change, the pattern and progression of signs help determine urgency. Occasional urination outside the box with normal urine output may be less concerning than frequent, repeated attempts to urinate with little or no urine, especially if the cat appears uncomfortable or vocalizes. Worsening symptoms, including general signs of illness like lethargy or loss of appetite, or signs of pain are important red flags. In general, difficulty producing urine, particularly in male cats, is a reason to seek emergency veterinary evaluation.”

Setting expectations about what an in-person visit might involve

Clients often benefit from an improved understanding of what an in-person visit might involve. Equally important is acknowledging and validating their concerns about seeking in-person care, whether logistical, financial, or related to their pet’s well-being. This requires active listening and clear communication so clients feel understood and confident that their situation has been accurately interpreted. For example:

“It’s understandable to want reassurance about what might be happening. Often, a physical exam and sometimes diagnostic testing are needed to determine whether signs are consistent with a minor issue or something more serious.”

Supporting decision-making without directing treatment

A defining feature of strong general advice is that it equips clients to make informed choices.

For example:

“In dogs, especially breeds like Dachshunds, sudden wobbliness or weakness in the hind legs is generally viewed by veterinarians as a potentially significant change, because it can be associated with conditions that have a better chance for a good outcome with prompt intervention. We can go into more detail on how these more common problems are diagnosed and treated, including how much that can cost and what recovery looks like if you like.”

Here, the veterinarian is not prescribing a plan, but describing how similar patterns are typically managed in clinical practice so the owner can gain an understanding of what that might mean for them.

Even when no VCPR is established, documentation remains essential. A complete record should clearly reflect the client’s concerns, the scope of the interaction, the general nature of the guidance provided, and explicit language that no diagnosis or treatment was established.

In jurisdictions that do not allow virtual establishment of a VCPR, the medical record is also the primary evidence that the interaction remained within the scope of general advice.

Most veterinarians are not formally trained to provide structured general advice. Veterinary education emphasizes diagnosis and treatment, not the communication strategies required to guide clients without diagnosing or prescribing.

Yet in telehealth, this skill is foundational.

Veterinarians who develop strong general advice skills are better equipped to communicate clinical reasoning, build trust with clients, and deliver meaningful value in virtual care. In contrast, veterinarians who have not developed this skill may feel limited to addressing only situations that clearly fall within diagnosis or treatment, whereas effective general advice allows them to support clients thoughtfully even when direct prescribing or in-person care is not appropriate.

Vetster stands apart in pet telehealth with its approach, prioritizing the education, support, and success of the veterinarians delivering care, not just focusing on what clients and customers want.

We provide ongoing training and resources designed to help veterinarians succeed in all aspects of virtual care, including:

• A dedicated Virtual Care Masterclass focused on practical telehealth skills
• Veterinarian-facing blogs and newsletters
• Client-facing blogs that highlight the value of veterinary care and expert, professional guidance
• Real-world frameworks developed from years of telehealth experience

Our goal is not simply to facilitate transactions, but to support veterinarians in building meaningful relationships with pet owners and delivering high-quality care across a wide range of concerns, whether they have a VCPR or not.

The Veterinary Virtual Care Association (VVCA) also offers valuable guidance on virtual care standards, ethical expectations, and evolving professional frameworks.

Aligning general advice practices with VVCA guidance helps ensure that telehealth remains both clinically responsible and professionally credible.

General advice is not a lesser form of care. It is a distinct clinical skill that meets a real need for pet owners. When delivered with clarity, clinical insight, and thoughtful communication, general advice provides what many clients are truly seeking: individualized, expert understanding of what might be happening and what to consider next.

On Vetster, mastering general advice is not just helpful. It is one of the most important skills in modern veterinary telehealth.