Making pet pharmacies work for you
There aren’t many [enforced] laws that apply to pet ‘pharmacies’. Knowing that, here are some ways to get whatever you want from them.
Have your vet approve a prescription for a Hills prescription diet. Wait one month. After that order has filled once, order some heartworm pills from that online pet pharmacy. They will allow the prescription for the hills prescription diet to authorize the heartworm pills. This is true for most of the things that you might order on a prescription basis for the same pet, real or imagined, from an online pet pharmacy. The veterinarians prescription becomes authoritative for your pet’s entire file, and not just the one prescription.
But not everyone has a prescription for a Hill’s prescription diet. That’s not a problem at all.
Order the products that you want and make sure to check the “auto refill“ button.
The first prescription will go to your vet who will likely decline it, it really doesn’t matter what veterinarian you have it sent to, if they’ve never even seen you before, they should decline it. But Presto! Six months later, your prescription items start rolling in on the auto refill basis, whether the initial prescription was declined or not.
But maybe you don’t want to include a Veterinarian, at all. That is also not a problem in the least.
When you order the prescription item or product, you provide a fictitious name and address for the ‘veterinarian’ that you use. Have the fax number appear on your desk in the den. Approve your own prescription. They never check.
Here’s another way to make pet pharmacies work for you. Veterinarians will often make you come into the clinic every six months (or a year) in order to refill prescriptions. This is especially true for drugs that may impact the immune, organ, or endocrine systems in a pet.Online pet pharmacies do not do that. The prescriptions are filed as “open“ and they will fill prescriptions for at *least* four years before questioning the refill authorizations. This is illegal, of course, but that is why Pet ‘pharmacies’ cannot handle human prescriptions. And the fact that they do not handle human prescriptions is why they are flying below the radar as far as the FDA.
Florida pharmacy law is a different matter altogether. Online pet pharmacies pay what (at one time) were considered to be substantial fines to the state pharmacy board. In today’s economy, and without updating the laws, a $100,000 fine to a $234M/yr business is nothing. Actually it’s .04% of their operating budget. And it’s paid annually, as the cost of doing business. And the best part is that Florida pharmacy law is hard to enforce on transactions that occur with customers outside of Florida. So there’s this kind of “venue hopping“ thing where the pitifully few prosecutors even looking at pet pharmacies, have to try and figure out what venue and jurisdiction to prosecute a Florida-based ‘pharmacy’ shipping prescriptions all over the United States.
I had an interesting experience today. I finally broke down and authorized a prescription to a pet pharmacy today. First one in 2020. The owner wanted a product that was completely safe but, notoriously ineffective, and outrageously expensive but ‘Google’ told her to order it, and 1800petmeds allowed her to. Sadly, Google’s dosing was wrong and what ‘Dr Google’ had her order was going to be only half a dose for her dog. I assumed that she and Dr Google knew something I didn’t about it; but I also knew it was safe so it was ok to let her order it under her own steam. All they needed was my authorization. I said “what harm can it do“ let it go.
On those rare occasions that I authorize a prescription to a pet ‘pharmacy’, I provide vague, smudged, or one-digit-off information because I have found my credentials (when given clearly) spammed on numerous prescriptions; whether these people are my patients or not.
How exactly does that look? You get a call from somebody who needs a refill on their heartworm prescription. You check your records and they’re not a customer of yours they’re not even in your state. You tell them you can’t help them. But they say “Why not? You’re the prescriber.“ My name and credentials are on a prescription for a guy in Minnesota. Thanks, online pet pharmacies!
“Didn’t you think it was weird that it wasn’t *your* vets name on your heartworm pills?”
“No, I thought it was the online pharmacy’s in-house or staff vet.”
“Well, I’m just a vet in Georgia and they spammed my credentials on ‘who-knows-how-many’ prescriptions like yours. Furthermore, they have your credit card information. You still trust these clowns?”
“Nah, I could just charge it back.”
Also, the open refills policy with Online Pet pharmacies is dangerous and I do not want my actual license, name or DEA on anything that relies on a pet pharmacy to protect it, as far as security. I could just see some after-schooler sweeping the warehouse and finding a cardboard box under a rickety plywood table, using my prescriber information to sponsor his education getting Tramadol for the kids on campus. Human pharmacies have to have more than a cardboard box for sensitive documents.
So I asked my office manager, “did you authorize that prescription? Did you give them as little information as possible?“
She said “What? They don’t need any of that. They filled that prescription with just a name and address. No signature, no license, no DEA.”
So, technically, I don’t really need to protect my information. Because they don’t really need it to fill these prescriptions. So, it turns out if you know your veterinarians name and address, I would say “the sky’s the limit”.
Best of all, until it becomes an enforcement priority; it is, as tacitly implied: legal.
