Managing Prescriptions on Vetster (United States Veterinarians)

Should you be licensed in a virtual VCPR compliant state, there is the possibility that you may wish to prescribe for your patient following the appointment. We are just a few weeks away from streamlining this process within the platform, but until that time, we wanted to share a few tips for success in making this as smooth as possible for both you and your client. As you know, there are different ways to get a prescription filled - here is a summary of what we are finding to be the most effective routes at this time.

Human Pharmacy (including Costco & Walmart)

If your prescription can be filled through a human pharmacy, and the pet owner can be responsible for picking it up themselves, this is the ideal situation for urgent medications. Please confirm the contact information for the client’s pharmacy of choice while you are on the call with the client (consider a google search to confirm during the appointment). Following the completion of your appointment, the most efficient route is to call (or email the prescription) for the client to pick up at their convenience. Once you complete the Rx template within the platform, you will have the required owner’s contact information for the pharmacy. If you choose to email the prescription, your contact information will be visible to the pharmacist for follow up if required.

Mixlab

Mix lab is very user-friendly option for prescribing a veterinary labelled drugs (or compounded medications) from any of these states: AL, AZ, AR, CA, CO, CT, DE, DC, FL, GA, ME, MD, MI, MN, MS, NH, NE, NV, NJ, NY, ND, OH, OK, OR, PA, RI, SD, TN, VT, VA, WA, WV, WI and WY. You can either phone in (fastest) the prescription or email. Following receipt of your prescription, Mixlab will contact the pet owner directly and arrange for payment and delivery of the medication, often within 24-36 hours of the receipt of the prescription. Mixlab will arrange payment and discuss delivery timing with the client directly.

Mixlab phone number: +1 (888) 901-4480 Mixlab email: rx@mixlabrx.com

Internet Pharmacy

If you create a prescription and the owner wishes to use 1-800-Pet-Meds, or Chewy.com, please know that this is proving to be the most cumbersome option at this time. The pet owner must create their own account on those sites and place the request for the prescription that you are recommending. Once that has been placed, then you have to contact the pharmacy to confirm/verify the prescription. You can email or call in the prescription proactively, but so far that has not always been the most efficient process. This is less than ideal, particularly for urgently needed medications.

Additional Prescribing Considerations

At the completion of your Vetster appointment, if a prescription has been issued, we ask that you clearly communicate the next steps to the pet owner required by them, or yourself, to ensure fulfillment is as straightforward as we can make it at this time.

Know that you do not want to be emailing the prescription pad PDF to the client for multiple reasons; it contains your personal contact information (necessary for a pharmacy to be able to contact you for verification of the script if needed), you will be sharing your email contact with the client and importantly, a downloaded prescription cannot be filled by a pharmacist if presented by a client.