Our Outside/Online Pharmacy Policy

The Doctors and Staff at County Animal Hospital understand that our clients have several online pharmacy options when it comes to purchasing medications for their pets. To help you in making the most informed decision, we want to be very clear that we recommend that you purchase medications only from a licensed veterinary pharmacy. However, you will still have the option to purchase medications from any pharmacy of your choosing.

Starting October 1, 2022, we will no longer approve prescriptions requests from outside pharmacy’s by phone, email, or fax. This DOES NOT mean that you cannot get your pets medication from an outside pharmacy. We will issue you a hand written prescription, that can be picked up at County Animal Hospital and can be taken or mailed to a pharmacy of your choosing.  Please make sure to check with your pharmacy in advance on their policies on how they accept written prescriptions, so there won’t be any lapse in medication if they require you to mail in the prescription. The only exception to this policy will be for prescriptions that require a compounding pharmacy for specific medication formulations for your pet.

Why are we instituting this policy?

First, we are choosing as a hospital to spend our time focusing on taking care of our patients and clients instead of answering faxes and calling pharmacies.

Second, managing outside prescriptions is costly in terms of staff time and effort and as a business we do not recoup these costs. We have decided that if clients would rather do business with an outside or online pharmacy, we can’t continue to give away our staff’s time and energy for convenience sake. It takes a significant amount of time to review medical records, ensure proper documentation of the medication request, and call/fax in the prescription. We could raise our fees across the board or charge a fee for the time it takes to manage outside prescription requests, but instead have chosen to streamline this process on our end that makes sense for our workflow and staff resources.

Third, we feel it is better medicine with written documentation of a prescription that is filled outside of our hospital. There are more concerns with the possibility of prescription errors when relaying information over the phone. Again, we would be happy to provide you with a written prescription if you wish to use an outside pharmacy or online retailer. Just let us know!

Finally, we understand that cost is a big reason that our clients purchase from outside pharmacies and online retailers.  We do our very best to make our medications and preventatives affordable and we routinely compare prices online to make sure that our prices are competitive. Most importantly, by purchasing directly from our hospital and from our online store, you are supporting our local business. Along with the many coupon codes that we have in clinic or provide via email, most manufacture rebates that are available in hospital are also available through our online pharmacy. 

We would like to encourage our clients to order medications and preventatives directly from us through direct purchase at our hospital or from our own online store through Vetsource. Because our online store is part of our clinic infrastructure you will not need a written prescription if you order this way. Our hospital and online store’s supply chain is 100% secure. From the time the medication you order is manufactured, all the way to when you are going to give it to your pet, it has been handled, stored and packaged in compliance with manufacturer guidelines. The product you receive is guaranteed to be the name-brand medication in the proper dosage and packaging. Medications purchased directly from us and our online store are guaranteed by the product’s manufacturer and most importantly by us, your pet’s veterinarian.

If you have and further questions about our policy, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Thank you for trusting us with your pet’s medical care!

The Doctors and Staff of County Animal Hospital