Educate, dont irritate, pet owners

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Manager-palooza!

Rebecca Kuester is one of 10 finalists for 2019 dvm360/VHMA Practice Manager of the Year. Learn more about the contest and read more stories from other entrants, finalists and winners here. 

In the past few years, our veterinary hospital has really taken on the changes and challenges related to online pharmacies.

We are not penalizing clients

It starts with clients. We do not feel we should make things harder on our clients because of the changes. That means we are not going to make our clients come in for a written prescription or charge them for one to mail to the online pharmacy of their choice.

We are educating clients

We explain to clients in the hospital about some of the counterfeit drugs and products that have been found online and how products purchased from us are guaranteed. For requests outside our four walls, we place a phone call to clients letting them know how much the product costs in our hospital and explain the risks of using outside pharmacies.

To emphasize our focus on protecting our clients' pets, we put a special stamp on all of our prescriptions heading out to other pharmacies that states that the product must be made in the U.S., have an expiration past our set date, be in its original packaging and not be any substitute product.

Clients ultimately make the decision that's best for them.

We are giving clients an online option

We offer an online pharmacy through Vetsource for clients if that's more convenient than picking up in the clinic, and we let clients know the product is the same as what they'd get from us-so it's guaranteed.

We're not relying just on pharmaceuticals, prescriptions and other products for our business. For our future, we encourage our team to focus on our services, sharing with clients the importance of why they come to see us yearly.

Rebecca Kuester, LVT, is practice manager at Creekside Animal Hospital in Macomb, Michigan, and a finalist for 2019 dvm360/VHMA Practice Manager of the Year.