Name and Shame: Blue Rabbit Vet Pharmacy
May. 20th, 2025 01:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
arlieMy vet practice changes the mail order pharmacy it uses far too frequently. That would be a PITA even if they were all pleasant to work with. They aren't.
The latest excrescence is Blue Rabbit.
These people - or perhaps my vet - believe that prescription medicines are discretionary purchases, which one waits to buy until they are on special. And they have enough specials that I feel cheated when I pay full price, but not so many that I can reliably get the meds my dog needs, when she needs them, without paying full price - even if the med in question is a monthly pill the dog will be taking for the rest of her life. (Also, they have an autoship feature, enabled by default, which presumably guarantees missing out on all those specials.)
But that's not the worst of it.
On Saturday, I tried to reorder one of my dog's flea medications. AFAICT, they simply did not stock that medication. So today I called the practice to ask them (a) what to switch to and/or (b) to give me written prescriptions I could take to a vet pharmacy with a more complete selection. Fortunately (?) I got a ring-no-answer from the veterinarian's office, at a time that might have been a late weekday lunch hour (after 13:30). Naturally, they don't have their hours posted on their web site. So I started composing an email to the veterinarian.
Well, in the course of this I decided to check what the pharmacy actually offered. On Saturday, they had alternatives I'd never heard of - none listed with the active ingredients prominent - and where I'd clicked through I hadn't been able to find the same drug , except with additional drugs duplicating the function of one of the dog's other meds. I wanted to document this as an appendix to my email.
Well guess what? The excrescence of a pharmacy had the usual product today. I doubt they've just started carrying it. Most likely, it was out of stock, and their stupid site couldn't communicate that. Next most likely, their search-by-name and search-by-function were both broken, and have since been fixed, or at least broken in new ways.
Meanwhile, the web site promises vets that using their service will "put profits back in your pocket". So I presume they are overpriced, or sell only the more expensive products, either way with commissions to the vet.
Or maybe not, since they also claim to offer "a world-class experience for your pet owners," which they certainly do not. So maybe the supposed profits for the veterinarian are equally illusory.
Meanwhile, the system (TM) makes it really hard for me to switch to an alternative pet pharmacy. I've tried. I need to mail original paper prescriptions to the new pharmacy; meanwhile the vet office didn't believe that and gave me soft copies.
The latest excrescence is Blue Rabbit.
These people - or perhaps my vet - believe that prescription medicines are discretionary purchases, which one waits to buy until they are on special. And they have enough specials that I feel cheated when I pay full price, but not so many that I can reliably get the meds my dog needs, when she needs them, without paying full price - even if the med in question is a monthly pill the dog will be taking for the rest of her life. (Also, they have an autoship feature, enabled by default, which presumably guarantees missing out on all those specials.)
But that's not the worst of it.
On Saturday, I tried to reorder one of my dog's flea medications. AFAICT, they simply did not stock that medication. So today I called the practice to ask them (a) what to switch to and/or (b) to give me written prescriptions I could take to a vet pharmacy with a more complete selection. Fortunately (?) I got a ring-no-answer from the veterinarian's office, at a time that might have been a late weekday lunch hour (after 13:30). Naturally, they don't have their hours posted on their web site. So I started composing an email to the veterinarian.
Well, in the course of this I decided to check what the pharmacy actually offered. On Saturday, they had alternatives I'd never heard of - none listed with the active ingredients prominent - and where I'd clicked through I hadn't been able to find the same drug , except with additional drugs duplicating the function of one of the dog's other meds. I wanted to document this as an appendix to my email.
Well guess what? The excrescence of a pharmacy had the usual product today. I doubt they've just started carrying it. Most likely, it was out of stock, and their stupid site couldn't communicate that. Next most likely, their search-by-name and search-by-function were both broken, and have since been fixed, or at least broken in new ways.
Meanwhile, the web site promises vets that using their service will "put profits back in your pocket". So I presume they are overpriced, or sell only the more expensive products, either way with commissions to the vet.
Or maybe not, since they also claim to offer "a world-class experience for your pet owners," which they certainly do not. So maybe the supposed profits for the veterinarian are equally illusory.
Meanwhile, the system (TM) makes it really hard for me to switch to an alternative pet pharmacy. I've tried. I need to mail original paper prescriptions to the new pharmacy; meanwhile the vet office didn't believe that and gave me soft copies.
