New Prescription Policy: Effective August 15, 2025

Third-party Prescription Policy- Effective August 15, 2025

At Lincoln Square Veterinary Hospital, our goal is to provide excellent, focused care for your animal companions. Our veterinarians and support staff value their relationship with you and aim to provide comprehensive and personalized care. That is why we are updating our prescription policy to be more in line with these priorities and better serve you and your family.

We will no longer be communicating directly with third-party pet med pharmacies such as PetMeds, Amazon and Chewy, but instead will provide written prescriptions if you choose. This is due to several concerns.

• Manufacturer’s product guarantees are voided when the product is purchased through certain channels. Big box pharmacies may/can obtain medications through third-party companies (gray-market brokers) that divert these veterinary products around the intended chain of custody set aside by the manufacturers. This action then nullifies the warranties on these products.
• There is increasing concern about the legitimacy and storage of medications sold online. By communicating directly with the pharmacy, we feel it misleads our clients into feeling that we approve of the safety and efficacy of what they are purchasing, when we cannot vouch for the safe storage and legitimacy of medications not sold through manufacturer-authorized veterinary channels.

• We have found numerous issues with medications filled by third party pharmacies. There have been times where they fill the incorrect dosage or the incorrect drug. We have also found third party pharmacies filling drugs that were not approved by a veterinarian.

• Dosing Safety. We cannot track refills well which leads to patient safety concerns.

• Massive time-loss involved in third-party prescription approvals. When we receive a prescription request from a third-party pharmacy, it begins an unnecessarily lengthy and redundant process that takes time away from your pets and ties up our phone lines and email inbox. In addition, we are also experiencing an exponential increase in volume of these online prescriptions; the online pharmacies are sending an excessive number of requests for each prescription that we must address, even despite the prescription having already been returned to them. Because we must address every individual request that has been made, our staff is duplicating their work two, three or four times for the same prescription and it is resulting in a very lengthy approval process to ensure prescriptions are correct, documented and not duplicated which can cause additional delay of you receiving your requested medications. We are choosing as a hospital, to spend our time focusing on taking care of our patients and clients instead of answering duplicate faxes and calling pharmacies.

We understand that cost is the main reason that our clients purchase from outside pharmacies and online retailers. We do our very best to make our medications and preventatives affordable and provide rebates to make sure that our prices are competitive. In addition, our online store competes directly with Chewy and PetMeds and provides nearly identical services. Our online store is directly linked with our medical software- which makes the approval process more streamlined, as the owner and pet information are already linked.

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 Vetcove Pharmacy. Because our online store is part of our hospital 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 manufacturer and most importantly by us, your pet’s veterinarian.

Browse our online pharmacy anytime by clicking here!

We absolutely support our client’s choice to choose where they obtain their pet’s medications and are happy to accommodate a request to do so. Clients who opt to obtain their pet’s medication through big box stores will simply need to pick up a written prescription at our hospital. Note that we cannot email or mail written prescriptions. You may alternatively and at an additional cost, elect to have a messenger service pick up the written prescription.

If you have any further questions about our policy, please do not hesitate to contact us. We thank you for your support!