MSD Animal Health (known as Merck Animal Health in the United States and Canada) has partnered with Easy Direct Debit (EDD) to provide vet practices with a new telemed platform. Practices will now be able to book consult rooms, and sign up pet owners for online appointments and allow owners to pay in advance.

Adrian Tantrum, Head of the Companion Animal Business Unit at MSD Animal Health comments: “As market leaders, with brands such as Bravecto, Nobivac and Caninsulin, we want to help practices adapt to the new normal. We have listened to feedback from practices around what they want from a telemedicine platform and worked with EDD to create a simple and easy to use service. This will allow practices to provide pet owners with the support they need, whether it be their parasiticide prescriptions or providing continuity of care for diabetic patients, and will of course bring much-needed cash flow into their practices. We’ve chosen Zoom for the video capabilies as it is one of the most popular video conference apps with millions of users worldwide, so we know it’s familiar to most pet owners.”

To use the service vet practices must register for and set up the platform via the EDD portal. The platform is customizable to the practice and they can create as many virtual consult rooms as they need. Practices can promote and provide the service to pet owners by simply sharing the link to the URL via social media, the practice website, or a mail out to pet owners. Pet owners follow a simple process of completing a form and booking a consultation slot. Following the consult, the practice can email a link to the pet owner so that they can pay for any medication which needs to be dispensed following the video consultation.

Tantrum continues: “As we all adjust to new ways of working we are putting in place a whole series of new services for practices that will help bring them closer to their clients and allow them to continue to provide pet owners with the expertise and support they need. Being able to see a vet ‘face-to-face’, if not in the flesh, will be reassuring for a lot of pet owners who will be worrying about both new and on-going conditions.”

For further information on the service please contact your MSD account manager.