TO ALL OF OUR CLIENTS:
Animal Wellness Center provides a compassionate and empathetic healthcare environment that utilizes the best of traditional veterinary medicine and surgery, as well as integrative veterinary services for canine, feline, avian, and exotic pets. In this, our goal is to offer an uncompromising level of medical care to meet the needs of our patients. We feel it is best to alert our clients to current hospital policies, as well as new ones.
Below you will find our established policy on prescriptions, as well as some new information about appointment times.
Medications and Refills
Part of our services is offering our in-house pharmacy as a resource for patients or providing a written prescription if an outside pharmacy is desired. To ensure that we can provide the best patient care while also dispensing medications, we ask that all patients comply with the following:
It is the owner’s responsibility to notify the office when refills are necessary. Approval of refills may take up to two business days and we ask that all refill requests be submitted 48 hours before the end of the prescription. If the refill request needs to be submitted to a mail order pharmacy (for compounding, special needs, etc.), please contact us 14 days before your pet’s medication is due to run out. This both allows us to ensure the medication is in stock for your pet and that we can have it filled when promised.
*Please notify on the next business day if your pet is out of medication after hours. We are not able to fill prescriptions on Sundays or Holidays.
Refills can only be authorized on medication prescribed by providers from our office. We will not refill medications prescribed by other providers. If a prescription has been called to an outside pharmacy, please check with them for updates. In general, if a patient is already being treated for pain management, all medications will need to be managed by the patient’s existing doctor.
It is important to keep your scheduled appointment to ensure that you receive timely refills. Repeated no shows or cancellations will result in a denial of refills. All prescriptions require a follow up appointment every 3 to 6 months. In connection with certain medication, patients may be requested to have a blood test every three to six months to allow continued usage of some medications. If for any reason you feel your medication needs to be adjusted or changed please contact us immediately. New symptoms or events require a clinic appointment.
We are excited to be able to offer our online pharmacy for medications and preventatives shipped directly for an added convenience to our patients. It is our hospital policy that we do not work with outside retail pharmacies, and while we understand this a preference for some of our patients, we are not able to guarantee how medications are stored and transported. If it is desired to purchase medication through an outside retailer, we will provide a written prescription and ultimately leave it to the owner’s discretion where to use it.
Appointment Times
Our doctors, medical assistants and staff aim to make your visit as seamless as possible. In our efforts to make your visit more comfortable and to minimize your wait time, our office has implemented a late arrival policy:
If a patient is more than 15 minutes late for an appointment, the appointment may need to be rescheduled. This is to ensure that the patients who arrive on time do not wait longer than necessary to see the provider. You may be given the option to wait for another appointment time on the same day if one is available. We will try to accommodate late-comers as best as possible, but cannot compromise on the quality and timely care provided to our other patients.
If an appointment needs to be cancelled, it is our expectation that the owner will call to cancel as soon as they know they will be unable to keep the appointment.
New patients are encouraged to print off new patient paperwork from the website and fill it out prior to coming in. Otherwise, we ask that new patients arrive at the office 15 minutes prior to the scheduled appointment to complete the paperwork. The doctors and staff at Animal Wellness Center truly appreciate your compliance and understanding with this policy so that we can continue to provide excellent medical care as well as excellent customer service.