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Small Animal Veterinarian – Marietta, Georgia

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Prescription Fee: Why?

Posted on August 30, 2018

Prescription Fee: Why?

Wow! I read this a month later and it still sounded a little salty!    -doc

It’s pretty simple

Nutshell it? It’s a manpower and record keeping thing. It’s just a pain in the neck. Further, I’m releasing my license and DEA# to businesses that are technologically and morally ill-equipped to protect it, and $12 is half of what ANY of my own doctors charge to call/write me one. There. 

First, in order to keep a complete medical record we keep track of your shots and where you got them. I know you’ve been quizzed on that when you’ve made an appointment to get in. Rabies is required. Other times a person doesn’t even know that other shots prevent serious diarrhea and respiratory infections and appreciate being informed how to avoid that.

But also part of a “complete medical record” is keep track of what medicines your dog or cat is taking. How and why you give it. And that record keeping doesn’t just happen when we “phone one in” – the way it automatically does with the prescription label that prints when we prescribe here. 

Am I upset to “lose the revenue” from when you buy online? Am I using the prescription fee as a deterrent?

ANSWER: Not really. Frankly, and I’m being EXTREMELY candid here: I don’t care, if the client doesn’t. If they are willing to buy anything from anywhere, and anybody, despite the facts, I can’t fret about it. I have enough to worry about with ‘regular price customers’ – So I’m not trying to get in their way.  My clinic costs a lot to run and when I take a staffer ‘out of the loop’ to call or write a script and then document that and swing around later to make sure it’s legally expired the following year, you understand the prescription fee.

And again, VERY candidly, when a client is down to the point of buying third-party medicine from online pharmacies EVEN when our price with rebates and freebies from the manufacturer is the same as online PLUS the additional benefit of being guaranteed and warranted

With heartworm pills, if your pet is in the 1-2% failure rate) we’ll treat your dog for free if you’ve bought from a Vet!  No such warranty exists on third party medicines online.

And when a client is unaware of this, (doesn’t even try to be), and is “just interested in a savings without even checking” – that is not the client I should be spending time on. Nor should I be putting my license, and expertise “out there” just to save someone $12*.

I am a one man clinic and I have plenty to do for ‘regular price customers’ while the hardcore bargain seekers always have ideas on how to commoditize their care, and other places to use. It’s really just a failure to understand why we resist online prescribing. To ASSUME I’m trying to corral your business. 

Read this, seriously

*Are there exceptions?

Yes, my fixed-income long time clients, some of my other longtime clients who never seem to catch a break, clients who really are down on their luck or were downsized, ran into their own medical bills, or some other issue, or otherwise have their pets in the office regularly, I might waive the prescription fee and put the manpower into the process ‘on the house’ because they’re genuinely concerned with their pet’s welfare and not just scoring a good price. (I *still* will NOT prescribe to online pharmacies – not even for my own family) but for those, sometimes, not only might I waive the prescription fee, I MIGHT even discount the medicine or product they need.

And not because some “once-every-five-year-fair-weather-customer” is being an abusive fist-pounder at the front counter or on the phone, snapping at my staff.

Sorry I’m being salty but I just had to cope with a “once-every-five-year-fair-weather-customer” being an abusive fist-pounder on the phone, snapping at my staff.

 

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