VHD- our partner pharmacy
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Thanks so much for considering our partner online pharmacy for your horse’s prescription needs! We know you have many pharmacy choices, and we want to be transparent about our recommendation. Below are our reasons, in order of importance, for recommending the Vetcove Online Pharmacy / Home Delivery option:
1. Patient Care - Our #1 reason for recommending the Vetcove platform is the medical records integration it provides, which helps us deliver better care for the horses. When we approve prescriptions for your horse via Vetcove, the medication is automatically added to his or her medical record, in the same place we look for all the other medications and prescriptions provided for your horse. This helps our doctors assess your horse’s ongoing health conditions and current medications and prevents confusion and medication errors. This also allows us to set up prompts inside the records system to discuss bloodwork for horses on long-term meds, provide dosing adjustments, and identify medication interactions. Prescriptions to other online pharmacies don’t have this integration ability, so we need to rely on owners to summarize all current/active medications for the horse prior to appointments. This can be most tricky during an emergency or unplanned visit, and these are often the most critical visits! Providing better care for your horse is always our #1 priority, and access to your horse’s full medication records is huge help in this.
2. Trust - After reviewing as much information as possible, we feel the Vetcove platform is the most trustworthy regarding medication sourcing, prescription fulfillment integrity, and avoidance of data mining. Problems we’ve identified with other online pharmacies include shipment of counterfeit medication, shipment of inappropriate medications without doctor approval, shipment of inappropriate quantities and dosages of medications, and privacy breaches. The pet pharmacy market is highly competitive, and we will remain vigilant to ensure that the Vetcove platform doesn’t begin to erode in these areas. The company is also our order/shipment logistics provider for our in-house drugs and supplies, and have proven themselves trustworthy over our many years doing business with them. We will never hesitate to change platforms if problems arise, and will notify you if there’s a change to our prescription shipment provider.
3. Convenience and Speed - The same software integration that allows prescription input into your horse’s medical record, also allows us to create and approve prescriptions online in seconds. North Carolina does not allow for emailed prescriptions, so any other online pharmacy prescriptions must be handled via phone or written prescriptions. When someone places an order via Valley Vet or other online pharmacy, call center reps call us for approval. When we receive the call, receptionists review the medical records for your horse, and add the request to the doctor’s queue of memos. Doctors review the notes when they have time, make adjustments to the prescriptions, and send the approval authorization back to the front desk team. When the online pharmacy calls again, the receptionist reviews the approvals and approves your horse’s prescription. This process can cause delays, since it depends on pharmacy calls being answered (we always prioritize calls from clients over calls from pharmacies- since we would never want to miss an emergency call or abandon a discussion about a sick patient for medication approval requests), doctors schedules, and record review processes. We can’t approve multiple requests during the same call, since the call center reps are only given individual calls to make, and since they are typically in other countries, we often end up with missed calls outside of business hours. On average, it takes 2-3 days for the entire online pharmacy approval process to be completed.
4. Customer Service - The Vetcove platform provides us information on all prescription and shipment details, so if your medication is lost, you can’t remember if/when you ordered it, or there’s a problem with the order, you can call us and we can investigate! We have had endless problems with online pharmacy call center reps telling our clients that medications were never approved (when they were), failing to call the correct practice for approval, or making shipment errors. The Vetcove platform gives us back our ability to help you and your horse, which is why we are here!
5. Economic Impact - One of our practice’s core values is ethics, and we are committed to making the best recommendations for our patients without focusing on profit. That being said, we do have to keep the lights on and pay our staff, so consideration of income and expenses are necessary to continue operating! The Vetcove platform does allow us to recoup a small amount of income from prescription medications. If “supporting local” is important to you, and you want to help keep veterinary medicine sustainable for both providers and clients, obtaining your prescription medications directly from the practice (in the clinic or from the truck) is the best way to help. We do recognize that we can’t offer reasonably comparable pricing on many medications, so the Vetcove home delivery platform is the next best option in those cases! When using a large corporation’s online pharmacy, the time involved for our vets and staff actually drains the practice’s income and uses staff time that would be better used to bring you better medicine and better customer service.
If you have any questions about the platform, trouble with ordering, or other concerns, please let us know! We’re happy to help, and always strive to improve based on feedback!