By Zoe Forward, DVM, Dipl. ABVP (canine/feline)
What’s the truth behind buying your
pet's drugs online?
The bottom
line: We want your pet to take his prescription medication, whether that be
heartworm preventive, flea control or thyroid medication. We want it not to
break your pocketbook. And we want it to work!
We keep in
the hospital most of the popular preventive options (e.g.,
Heargard Plus, NexGard, Trifexis, Frontline Tritak. etc). And we try to maintain the
cost of the preventives to be competitive with online prices. We also have a
generous pharmacy supply of other drugs for your convenience. But if you want to order online, that's okay. We just want to understand what that means.
If you want
to order your medication online are you doing this out of convenience or price?
If this is convenience, then please shop our online store (CLICK HERE), especially for
NAME BRAND veterinary products. You will receive all the guarantees on the
product as provided by the manufacturers and any promotions that are currently offered. Sometimes when you take into account the promotions, our price (in hospital or online) is better than that of popular online pharmacies.
What about
generic drugs (antibiotics, analgesics, etc)? We can always provide a written script for these products for you to purchase at your favorite people pharmacy. Just ask.
Why should
you get your medication at the vet hospital or by using your vet’s online pharmacy? The products are
guaranteed and backed by the manufacturer. There are NO guarantees if a product is purchased
through other distributors because in many cases the company (especially for
heartworm preventive and flea products) did not sell this directly to the
online retailer. Therefore, the product has traveled through some middle-man
back channels to arrive at that online pharmacy warehouse. That means there is
no guarantee it was properly stored during the process (many drugs if they get
too hot won’t work, especially heartworm preventives). And it could be a counterfeit
drug. Yes, it happens. :(
Read the FDA’s
Buyer Beware statement: CLICK HERE TO READ
We understand some drugs are
very expensive (those of you with pets on
Atopica) and we will approve your pet’s online prescription request, so
long as we have seen your pet within a year and (s)he is up to date on
appropriate lab testing.