I have had it with this Vet (and Animal Medical Center)... Three times they have held my dogs anti-seizure medication 'hostage'... The first two times it was just plain old incompetence from the front desk staff who seem to be incapable of notifying their patients that some procedure, exam or tests will be necessary prior to refilling your pets prescription...
My dog has idiopathic epilepsy and her seizures are controlled with Phenobarbital and it seems quite a simple task to inform a patient when they refill their last months prescription that no more refills will be given until blood tests (or whatever procedure) are performed. They are not capable of this simple task... When I complained (politely) the first two times, they apologized and said that they usually put a sticker on the last refill that notifies the patient that this is the last refill before more tests are needed, but they have never managed to do that in my experience...
The last time I went through this, realizing they were not very organized, I asked ahead of time when more tests would be needed and I specifically brought my dog in early for blood tests to check her Phenobarbital level... I paid them $160 cash for the tests and a day or so later I received a personal voicemail message from Svenja Viete (my vet) telling me that my dogs blood tests looked fine and that everything was within the specified range, in fact she actually suggested I might give my dog a supplement called 'Denermarin' to help with a slightly high liver enzyme, and that I could pick that supplement up from their pharmacy when I picked up my dogs Phenobarbital prescription... Wonderful I thought, and as my dogs medication was due to run out in a few days I called a day later and left a request to refill her medication... Late that afternoon I received a call from their office saying that my dogs medication could not be refilled because she needed to have her Phenobarbital blood tests performed... I informed the lady on the desk (Robin) that I had already brought my dog in, paid for the blood tests, and that my Vet had called me with the results and approved the prescription... 'Robin' then said she would go and check (even thought they should have KNOWN that the tests were done and I put this down to sheer unorganized incompetence on their part)... Awhile later I receive another call from them telling me that yes, the tests had been done, but my Vet will now not refill the prescription because she (Svenja Viete) wants to personally examine my dog prior to approving the medication (that she had already approved in her voicemail to me)... Robin then tells me that this is "the law" which is total BS as I can read "the law" myself, and it is NOT "the law"...
At this point I lost my temper and when I angrily pointed out to 'Robin' that I was not happy that I had specifically brought my dog in early for tests to avoid this very situation, and now I was expected to take further time off work to bring in my dog AGAIN so the vet could do a physical exam (for an 'idiopathic' condition by the way) on a dog who she herself had approved fit to receive the medication only the day before!! ... I was so disgusted at their inability to keep track of basic operations that I ended up hanging up on her... I then I get a call from their office manager 'Jeri Kennedy' who tries to placate me but this is the third time they have done this now, always at my expense, and I've had it with their stupidity and have already decided I'm taking my dog to another vet... This was all done while I was in the middle of a large job that I could not break away from (which is why I took care of my dogs blood tests early) and my dog subsequently ran out of medication and had a cluster seizure four days later...
Not only do I have the original voice recording from Dr. Svenja Viete stating my dog was fit for her medication, I now have video of my dog seizing four days later (not pretty at all) and I intend to upload BOTH of those to YouTube along with the Animal Medical Centers company name and this story... Do not take your animal to this vet... While their heart may be in the right place (right next to their wallet), they are unorganized and the right hand has no idea what the left hand is doing (unless it's counting out the money you just paid them)... read more