For the safety of our clients, patients, and staff members, we require all patients entering the hospital to either be in a carrier, or restrained via leash and/or harness while in our lobby.
Payment
Payment in full is required at time of services rendered, we are unable to accept partial payments or provide payment plans.. We are happy to provide estimates prior to diagnostics and treatment. We accept cash, all major credit or debt cards, CareCredit, and Scratchpay.
Established Care:
All patients must be examined at least once annually (12 month period) to maintain a valid doctor-patient relationship. We are unable to legally provide medical recommendations, prescription, etc. for patients not examined by our doctors or that are outside the parameters of a valid doctor-patient relationship. Client accounts are considered inactive if there is a 2 year or longer gap in patient care.
New Clients/Reestablishing Clients:
We do have a one-time reservation deposit policy for new clients or for clients reestablishing care. The payment will be applied to the cost of initial appointment, covering the exam cost on the day of the appointment. Please know that if you need to reschedule or cancel that appointment, do so at least 24 hours prior to the scheduled appointment time and that fee will be reimbursed to you. However, if you cancel or reschedule that appointment in less than 24 hours of the scheduled appointment time or if you do not arrive for your scheduled appointment within 10 minutes of that scheduled time, then you forfeit this appointment reservation fee. This reservation fee is required at the time of scheduling the initial appointment. Reservation fees can be made over the phone with any major credit or debit card, care credit, or cash deposits may be made in person.
Prescription Requests and Refills In clinic or Phoned into Local/Compounding Pharmacy:
We will do our best to review, approve, and refill prescription requests in a timely-manner. We ask for a 24 hour notice for any prescription product requests including diets, preventatives, and medications to ensure we have the product on hand and able to dispense for your pet. Similarly, we ask for advance notice if written prescriptions are being requested. Please advise our staff if you need medications to be compounded or pills to be cut; please note there is an additional fee associated for these services.
Prescription Requests and Refills 3rd Party Pharmacy:
If you would like to utilize a third-party pharmacy, we can prepare a written prescription for you to submit to the pharmacy directly to complete your order. We are unable to verify where third party pharmacies are obtaining their products, we cannot be assured that they are the “same” product as if you purchased from NorthPaws or through our online pharmacy – Vet’s First Choice. We will not provide any email, fax, or phone authorizations. Unfortunately, when we did authorize by these means, there was a lot of miscommunication between the online pharmacy and clients, to remove ourselves as the “middle man” we implemented this policy. Written prescriptions can either be picked up directly at NorthPaws Animal Hospital or we can mail them to your address via the United States Postal Services. We will only mail written prescriptions directly to you. For food prescriptions, and only food prescriptions, we can email you a copy of a written prescription for you to submit to the pharmacy.
Medical Record Request:
We are happy to provide you copies of your pet’s medical records. Please allow up to 2 business days for those records to be sent to you or your insurance company. We will do our best to have completed medical records to you or their respective destination as soon as possible. Unfortunately, we can no longer guarantee same-day or next-day turn around due to rising demand. For any medical emergencies in which medical records need to be sent to another facility, please call the office. We will do our best to expedite this process.
Technician Appointments
We are only able to extend our technician appointments for established patients with a current doctor-patient-relationship (meaning a full physical exam has been performed within the past 12 calendar months). Additionally current rabies vaccinations are required for all feline, canine, and ferret patients to be scheduled as technician appointments. Rabies vaccinations administered by other facilities are acceptable with a valid Rabies Certificate – Rabies tags are not considered proof of vaccination.
NorthPaws policy for tardiness, less than 24-hour notice regarding cancellations and rescheduling, and no-call/no-show appointments:
While we understand that things do come up last minute, lateness, last-minute scheduling changes, or no-shows put unnecessary strain on our schedule. We strive to provide the best possible service to both you and your pets, which requires we stick as close to appointment times as possible.
Should there be any appointment changes regarding our staffing, we strive to give as much notice as possible to avoid inconveniences for your schedule.
Our PetDesk system is a great resource for you and we encourage you to utilize its ability to track the days and times of your scheduled appointments. To be as fair as possible to all of our patients, we are implementing the following policy regarding avoidable scheduling changes:
For chronic lateness, last-minute scheduling changes, or no-show appointments (3 or more times), a deposit of the doctor exam or technician fee will be required at the time of scheduling. Should you cancel or re-schedule with more than a 24-hour notice, the deposit is refundable. If you cancel with less than a 24-hour notice or no show, the deposit is considered non-refundable and an additional deposit is required when re-scheduling.
For scheduling surgeries, the required deposit (the low end of the estimate) will be due when scheduling rather than at surgery drop-off. If you would need to cancel or reschedule the deposit is refundable with more than a 24-hour notice. If re-scheduled with more than a 24-hour notice, the deposit would be carried over to the re-scheduled appointment. If you don't show up or cancel the same day, the deposit is forfeited and an additional deposit will be required when rescheduling.
Regarding tardiness: If you arrive up to 5 minutes late, there will be an associated late fee ($30) with the appointment. If you are more than 10 minutes late to your scheduled appointment time and the doctor is still able to fit your pet in - we will charge the late fee. If you arrive 10 or more minutes late and the doctor can't see your pet - the deposit (exam fee) is forfeited and you would need to place an additional deposit when rescheduling.
In the event you call to advise you are running late, it would be at the doctor’s discretion on how they want to proceed. For example - if the doctor is still able to accommodate seeing your pet, there would be a late fee. If they are unable to see your pet in the allocated appointment time left, the deposit would be forfeited and need to be re-paid when we re-schedule you.
Our management team will reach out to you prior to enacting the deposit portion of this policy for your account if indicated. Please let us know if you have any additional questions regarding this policy.