The entire staff at Herkimer Veterinary Associates is committed to helping your pet enjoy a happier and healthier life. Veterinary medications dispensed in our veterinary clinic come from a qualified team who can answer your questions and assure you that your animal companion has the proper drug, dosage and most importantly a safe product. When medications are involved, our primary goal is to ensure that you not only receive the proper medication but also any of the pertinent safety information as it pertains to your individual pet’s medical condition.
We offer a wide range of medications in our veterinary clinic. If we do not have a medication in-house, we can provide a written prescription or special order the medication. There are also several local compounding pharmacies that can provide your pet with flavored medications, special dosing sizes when necessary and even transdermal formulations. We make every effort to be sure to provide your animal companions with safe and effective pharmaceutical products.
Veterinarian-Client-Patient Relationship
If your pet needs a medication, New York State Law stipulates that there must be a valid veterinarian-patient-client relationship. This means that in order for us to be able to authorize a prescription for a condition one of our veterinarians needs to examine your animal. Some medications require follow up appointments and/or lab work to help monitor the response and risks associated with the use of the medication.
Refill Requests
Most of our prescription requests will be filled within the same day but we ask that you allow 24 hours for any prescriptions to be filled to allow our team to review the request and your pet’s medical record. Refill requests can be left on our refill line 24 hours a day, please call 315.866.9999 and press 2.
Online Pharmacy Prescriptions
Our relationship with the drug manufacturers ensures that the prescription drugs we dispense are safe and trusted. In fact, all of the major veterinary drug manufacturers maintain a strict practicing veterinary – only sales policy. These manufacturers have this policy in place because they know that veterinarians and their staff are best suited to discuss the issues relating to safety and efficacy as well as the side effects and risks that may be associated with your animal companion.
Exactly how some of the retailers and internet pharmacies acquire your pets’ drugs isn’t publicized given that they circumvent the veterinary-only sales policies of the drug makers. Many of these companies obtain their products through diversion. Diversion, for most of these cases, involves a way for these companies to obtain the drugs from an unauthorized channel. Most diverted product is purchased from the manufacturer by unscrupulous individuals who resell to an online pharmacy to make a quick profit. Although we recognize that diversion is not necessarily illegal, we do feel it is dangerous. Diversion eliminates the ability to know exactly how your pet’s medication has been stored or handled and whether it is an effective or even a safe product. Furthermore, products purchased through on-line pharmacies will null and void any manufacturer guarantees or reimbursement programs due to product failure.
Due to the ever increasing number of online pharmacies, we cannot determine if any specific pharmacy is safe, ethical and a legal provider of medications. Our best recommendation is to order from our online pharmacy at vetsfirstchoice. This can be found by going to our website at herkimevets.com and clicking on the our stores button..
We try to be competitive with our pricing; we fully realize the expense that can be involved with caring for your animal companions. Our goal again is for your pets to live happier and healthier lives and we want our clients to be informed and aware of their options. With all of this in mind, we will continue to offer written prescription; we will not respond to faxed or phone requests from an online pharmacy. Beyond that, we will respect your decision. Most importantly, we appreciate the opportunity to help you and your pets