Frequently Asked Questions
Have questions about our services, locations, fees?
While we do our best to keep same day appointments available it is not always possible. We offer appointments on a first come first serve basis and return all calls/voicemails in the order they are received. We do frequently have cancellations and we always recommend calling even if you are looking for an appointment same day. Generally we recommend giving us 2 to 3 days notice to schedule an appointment. Appointments do tend to fill up faster around weekends and holidays.
We do allow you to cancel or postpone your appointment if needed. We ask for 24 hours notice if at all possible as we frequently have families needing appointments and this allows us to make the appointment available to another family.
We work with Loving Paws Pet Loss Center, a local cremation company. While we work with them daily and are in frequent communication with them, they are a separate company. We will inform them when you schedule the appointment of the time of your appointment. Normally they will arrive at your home prior to our Doctor leaving or within 15 minutes after our Doctor leaves. Occasionally if there are multiple doctors seeing appointments at one time, if the cremation service has another pick up, or if there are excessively long drive times/traffic there may be a longer wait for pickup. If we anticipate a wait longer than 15 minutes we will let you know ahead of time. Occasionally wait times for pickup can be approximately two hours, however, this is very rare. If you have questions or concerns regarding this please let us know. We do work closely with the cremation company and do our best to make sure that things flow as smoothly as possible.
We work with Loving Paws Pet Loss Center for cremation. They will bring in a stretcher and place your pet on a stretcher. They will gently wrap your pet in a blanket. For smaller pets, they will bring in a small pet bed and a blanket. No body bags are used with our service. The cremation company is comfortably able to lift pets weighing 60 pounds and less without any assistance. If your pet weighs more than 60 pounds assistance for the cremation company will be needed. If you are comfortable, helping the cremation service with your pet please let us know. If not a second person can be arranged for help with cremation pick-up. A fee for a second person may be charged. When possible our doctors are happy to help carry your pet if needed. Sometimes due to lifting restrictions, the cremation service arriving after the doctor leaves, or other circumstances, this may not be possible.
We answer our phones and schedule appointments Monday through Friday, 8 AM to 6 PM and Saturdays from 8 am to noon. If you call us outside of those hours we will return your voicemail during our next phone hours. Our doctors will often see evening appointments or appointments outside of these hours. However, scheduling of these appointments is only possible during our phone hours. If it is outside of our phone hours and an urgent emergency, please reach out to the Pet Emergency Center at 509-326-6670.
Our phone hours are Monday through Friday 8 AM to 5:30 PM and Saturdays from 8 AM to noon. If you email us or leave us a message during this time we will do our best to get back to you immediately. In general we respond to all messages within approximately 2 hours. Because we get a lot of voicemails over the weekend and we return all calls and voicemails in the order that they are received, sometimes on Monday mornings we can take a little bit longer to return your call. Please understand we are working as quickly as possible to get back to you. If more than two hours goes by and you have not heard from anyone, please reach back out to us. Occasionally due to our high call volume we may accidentally miss a voicemail or an email. All voicemails and emails are extremely important to us. Should this happened we sincerely apologize. Please let us know you have called/emailed previously and we will get back to you just as soon as possible.
When you schedule the appointment we will give you a time frame for the appointment. These time frames are often 4 PM to 9 PM or 8 AM to noon. We will text/call you the day before your appointment to confirm a more exact time (ex. 5pm). Scheduling this way allows our Client Care Coordinators to group appointments by location. The significantly helps with drive times for both our service and the cremation service. If you need a specific time during the window given please let the Client Care Coordinators know as they are often able to accommodate this. Once you are given an official appointment time we do still ask for an approximate 15 to 30 minute window on either side of that time for doctor arrival. Due to traffic, drive times, weather, or the unpredictable nature of the appointments we ask for a little bit of flexibility in the timing of the doctors arrival.
We can take credit card, debit card, cash, check, or Care Credit. If you are paying with Care Credit the card holder does need to be present with a valid form of ID. If you are paying with cash the Doctors do not carry change and exact change is appreciated. We do take payment separately from the cremation service. They can take the same form of payments as we can as listed above. Generally we take care of payment at the beginning of the appointment. Most families do not want to think about paperwork or payment after the appointment and we find it is best to take care of everything upfront. Should you want to prepay please let us know and our client coordinators can arrange this. We do not have an in house payment plan available and payment is due at the time of service. We are happy to offer Care Credit for people wanting more flexible payment options. Please see www.carecredit.com for more information.
