AVMA Provides Valuable Regarding Which States Require a veterinarian to provide their clients with a written prescription

Client request for prescriptions

Last updated May 2014

The following is a list of states that AVMA research has found with specific statutes, rules or agency policy statements addressing whether or not a veterinarian is required to provide a written prescription at the request of his or her client. Twenty-one states have adopted laws, regulations or policy statements that specifically or implicitly require veterinarians to provide their clients with a written prescription upon request in some circumstances. An additional ten states incorporate into their discipline standards for veterinarians the AVMA’s Principles of Veterinary Medical Ethics, which state that veterinarians should honor a client’s request for a prescription in lieu of dispensing. (Section III-C).  Most recently in May 2014, the Montana Board of Veterinary Medicine adopted a regulatory provision stating that if a veterinarian, based upon his or her medical opinion, is willing to dispense medication, then the veterinarian must also provide a prescription in place of said medication should the owner request a prescription.

 

Arizona requires a dispensing veterinarian to notify an animal owner that some prescription-only drugs and controlled substances may be available at a pharmacy. The dispensing veterinarian may provide a written prescription to the animal owner if so requested.

California law requires a prescribing veterinarian to offer to give a written prescription to a client that the client may elect to have filled by the prescriber or by a pharmacy.

It’s important to note that even in states not listed below, state boards of veterinary medicine could find in acting on a complaint that failure to honor a client’s request for a prescription constitutes unprofessional conduct, leading to discipline against a veterinarian. Unprofessional conduct generally refers to a departure from or failure to conform to the standards of acceptable and prevailing practice of a veterinary medicine.

 

 more information and a state chart available here