Referrals & Policies

Our emergency service is designed to serve as an extension of your practice, providing 24/7 emergency and critical care. Our ICU serves the entire Bay Area, providing advanced care by a specially-trained team of doctors and nurses using state-of-the-art equipment for patients with serious medical problems. Our doctors regularly attend CE, including monthly rounds and case reviews, as well as national and local conferences, directed at improving and maintaining skills specific to the emergency and critical care field.

You may elect to refer a patient to our emergency service for any of the following reasons:

• A client has an emergency with their pet outside of your regular office hours

• A patient requires an examination or surgical procedure at a time that is impractical or inconvenient for you and your staff; for instance, a client seeks immediate care, yet your schedule is already full. By referring these cases to our hospital, you can rest assured that the patient will be well cared for and that the client will remain your client for future care.

• You feel a patient requires intensive care or monitoring, including 24-hour case supervision.

• A patient requires advanced life-support equipment such as continuous oxygen administration, ventilation, or blood pressure monitoring.

• A patient requires or may require administration of blood products or constant rate infusion drug therapy.

• You would like to have an advanced diagnostic procedure such as Doppler color flow ultrasound, video endoscopy, bone marrow biopsy, etc. performed by a specialist as soon as possible.

• You would like to refer a client for evaluation or possible emergency surgery by our board-certified surgical specialist.

• A client prefers that his or her pet receive overnight post-surgical or post-anesthesia monitoring and supervision of potential or realized complications and/or pain management.

• A patient is recovering from surgery or anesthesia and you recommend overnight monitoring for patient safety.

• If a client requests immediate care at our facility during regular business hours, and identifies you as their family veterinarian, we will direct the client to contact you to determine if he or she can be seen at your practice. If the client has no family veterinarian, we may see the case but recommend that future care be performed with a family veterinarian. We then provide a referral to a family veterinarian based on the client’s location in the county.

Clients seen by our emergency service are typically advised they must pick up their pets by 8 a.m. on weekday mornings. If one of your client’s pets under our care is stable but requires continued care, the client is asked to transfer the pet to your hospital. In such cases, our emergency doctor will attempt to call you regarding the transfer. Records for all discharged patients are promptly faxed to your hospital.

If a patient is too unstable to safely transport to your practice on a weekday morning, or if a client specifically requests ongoing 24-hour care, we will continue care at our facility while promptly faxing records to you to keep you abreast of the case. If it appears that a patient may require complex surgery, endoscopy, or ultrasound, we will make every effort to contact you (typically in the early morning) to discuss the case and determine your preferences for case management. Obviously, the final decision regarding case management is made by the client.

Whenever possible, we strongly encourage clients to discuss their pet’s condition directly with you, their family veterinarian. We cannot, nor do we intend to, replace the important ongoing relationship and trust between you and your clients. We routinely advise clients seen by our emergency service to follow up with their family veterinarian during regular business hours rather than returning to our facility.

PETS has developed a reputation throughout the Bay Area for providing top-notch emergency care. We value the trust you have placed in us and will do our best to ensure that each patient receives quality, prompt, and compassionate care.