FAQ - Emergency and Critical Care

You don't have to! You will automatically be charged the appropriate level, so you do not need to decide on the first call which consultation type you need. We always publish your current consultation type and fees on the consult report. 

Absolutely! If you find that you need advice on an ongoing case, then we will simply switch to the appropriate consultation level, and you will be charged for that new level. 

Our main e-mail is NOT monitored 24/7. If you need to request a consultation, please call us to initiate the consult. If you need to send records, the on-call consultant will provide their direct email address. 

We understand that calling a specialist can be intimidating! These are some of the things we will ask during the consult. If it is a very complex case that has been in hospital for days, don’t worry! When in doubt, simply work in chronologic order of what happened with that case. We always ask a lot of questions and will often clarify information as we work through the case.

Information that we will collect on every case:

• Your last name and hospital name
• Patient name and owner’s last name
• Patient ID number
• Signalment
• Current body weight and admitting body weight if the patient has been hospitalized
• Date and approximate time the patient was presented

History:

• A brief history of the current clinical signs, including the duration of signs
• Any pertinent past medical history
• Any current medications prior to presentation
• Any pertinent RDVM diagnostics prior to presentation

Physical exam:

• Please have completed a physical exam on the patient prior to calling. If the patient is presenting with a neurologic complaint, please perform a complete neurologic exam.
• Most recent body weight and blood pressure.
• If there is a urinary catheter in place, we will ask about UOP.
• If an NG tube is in place, we will ask about gastric residuals.
• If a JP drain is in place, we will ask about the volumes recovered.

Diagnostics:

• If the patient has been hospitalized, we prefer the information to be presented in chronologic order, including bloodwork, radiographs, POCUS, etc. and when those were performed. 
• If the patient has been hospitalized for several days, knowledge of trends in bloodwork is more important than every number. For example, if the patient has been hospitalized for hypernatremia, knowing how the sodium has trended down (or up) is important, as are concurrent changes in fluids. If the patient has DKA, knowledge of trends in pH, bicarbonate and electrolytes will be important.
• When in doubt, simply work through what happened in chronologic order.

Treatments:

• Please have a list of medications the patient is currently receiving, doses and frequency.
• If medications have been discontinued, why they were discontinued.

You do NOT need a credit card number or to have an account with us to request a consultation. All consultations are billed directly to your hospital at the end of every month. A 10% service fee is added monthly to all overdue payments. NOTE: If your hospital is owned by Vetstrategy Canada, then payment must be made online using a credit card rather than through the Vetstrategy AP department.

That is up to you and your hospital policies. Some hospitals pass the consultation fee along to the client, others do not. You choose which works best for you.

At the end of the consultation, our consultant will collect the hospital's information, including the mailing address, phone number, and requesting doctor's name. We will also request the client name, pet name and patient ID number which are included on your invoice.

Simply call Critical Consults at 1-844-NEED-ECC, Ext 1. A board-certified specialist will answer the phone. It's really that easy. 

Due to caseload, we are unable to provide STAT consultations on deceased patients. However, we are happy to review those cases at a scheduled time and provide feedback. Please see our section on Hospital Rounds and Case Reviews.

If you're calling from Canada - no problem! You can use the listed toll-free number just as you would in the US. If you are calling from outside of the US and Canada, you can reach our number by calling from Microsoft Teams. We are US based and can't promise to know your local/regional diseases (looking at you Australia and your weird envenomations), but we will do our best to help.