Buying Medication- Online or from my Vet?

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.

 

We want your pet happy and protected. But we want you to understand where we’re coming from when we recommend BE CAREFUL ORDERING ONLINE.