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Appointment Policies

In an effort to continue our standard of care for your canine and feline family members, and to accommodate the scheduling needs of their human during this time of increased demand for appointments, we would like to review our appointment policies. We ask that you arrive 10 minutes before your scheduled appointment time. If you arrive late to your appointment, your appointment may be converted to curbside in order to maintain our appointment flow.

Doctor Appointments:

All doctor appointments scheduled in advance are offered as in-person. Any appointments scheduled same day or scheduled as a fit in are curbside. We ask that you give us at least 24 hours notice when cancelling or rescheduling an existing doctor appointment. If you cancel or reschedule a doctor appointment past the 24 hour mark, you will pre-pay for future doctor appointments moving forward to secure your doctor appointment spot. Any existing deposit or exam pre-payment on your account will be retained in the event of a late cancellation or reschedule past the 24 hour mark.

Curbside Appointments:

Why do we continue to offer curbside appointments and what is the benefit? Curbside appointments allow our doctors to see additional patients on top of our regularly scheduled in person appointments. All patient services are completed in our treatment room, and all communications from the doctor and staff to clients is over the phone. Due to the efficient nature of a curbside appointment, we are able to fit in many same day, urgent patient appointments, that would otherwise need to be refereed to an urgent care or ER facility.

Nurse Recheck Exams:

All pet owners are welcome to be present with their pets for nurse recheck exams. Nurse recheck exams are scheduled for services such as recheck ears, recheck eyes, recheck skin, etc. If you cancel or reschedule a nurse recheck exam past the 24 hour mark, you will be charged a missed appointment fee.

Technician Appointments:

All pet owners are welcome to be present with their pets for technician appointments. A missed appointment fee will be applied to your account in the event of a late cancellation or reschedule past the 24 hour mark.

Behavioral Premedication Protocol:

As a Low Stress Handling certified hospital, it is our obligation and passion to prioritize behavioral wellness in the same way we do physical wellness. Behavioral premedications allow our doctors and staff to provide care to our patients in the most minimally stressful and safest manner possible. Our doctors here at PHAH prescribe a patient behavioral premedications when the patient’s fear and stress observed in the hospital do not safely or humanely allow us to proceed with handling and services. Our doctors and staff refer to the Fear Assessment Scale (FAS) to evaluate all patients during their visits, and doctors prescribe medications accordingly and as needed for each individual.

Behavioral premedications that have been prescribed for your pet are required to be given for every visit. It is important to follow the specific and correct dosage and frequency instructions for these medications (for example, some medication must be given the night before as well as 2 hours prior to an appointment, and some pets are prescribed multiple medications to be given together). Starting 2/1/23, if a pet arrives for a preventative wellness visit (wellness exams, vaccines, heartworm/tick screens, screening bloodwork, nail trims, anal glands, ear cleaning, etc.), and has not been given their prescribed behavioral premedications as instructed, we will not be proceeding with the appointment and a missed appointment fee will be incurred.