Business Terms & Conditions

Ridge Referrals Ltd is a small animal orthopaedic referral practice, we only accept cases referred from a primary care vets (GP vet) suffering with orthopaedic problems including trauma (fractures), joint disease and other causes of medical orthopaedics.

Ridge Referrals is committed to providing a referral service in orthopaedics for small animals to the highest level. Further details of qualification can be found on our website www.ridgereferrals.co.uk. If you have to be referred from your GP to another hospital for treatment you expect to see someone who is suitably qualified for the condition you are being referred for, this is exactly the same for our pets. Patrick has a significant wealth of experience in Small Animal Surgery and Radiology from thirty years as a practicing vet and demonstrated by his two certificate exams and recognition by the RCVS as an Advanced Practitioner in Small Animal Surgery, in addition to this he has a huge amount of experience in small animal arthroscopy performing thousands of arthroscopic procedures. Patrick has spent time abroad working with some of the world’s most eminent arthroscopists, has published papers on small animal arthroscopy in peer reviewed journals and presents at veterinary conferences internationally on the subject of arthroscopy, so although Patrick is not an RCVS “Recognised Specialist in Orthopaedics” we hope that this level of experience reassures you that your pet is in good hands. 

Our terms of business are that all treatments are paid for at the time of discharge, unless previous arrangements have been made for a direct insurance claim.  Detailed estimates of expected costs are provided for all work. We are happy to submit claims for pet health insurance and we do not charge for doing so however we make no guarantee that treatment costs will be covered by your pet insurance policy and we accept no responsibility for claims made.

Most insurance companies will provide a pre-authorisation process and we suggest that if you want a guarantee of cover that you ask your insurance provider to assess the claim by pre-authorisation in advance of treatment, in this case we ask that we arrange a consultation prior to arranging the pre-authorisation (the cost of which you are committing yourself to) so that we may accurately generate an estimate for treatment costs. We do not charge for processing pre-authorisations.

You are responsible for settling any outstanding debt (including after partial payment by an insurance company), if this debt is not settled we have the right to provide your details to an external debt collection agency and this may then incur extra costs which you will be liable for.

On occasions drugs may be used which have not been “approved” officially for use in a certain species for a certain condition.  In this instance their use is termed “off licence”. We use on occasions antibiotics (“Augmentin” and “Zinacef”), antacids (“Zantac”) and pain killers (morphine) only licensed for humans because we consider that the use of these drugs is more appropriate than similar animal licensed drugs. Because these drugs have not been licensed for use in animals there is a theoretical risk that they could cause unforeseen harm but in every case we weigh up the risks against the benefits and we consider the benefits to outweigh the risk. If you would like to discuss this more please speak to Patrick Ridge.

Prescriptions are available from Ridge Referrals, the cost is £20.  You may obtain prescription-only medicines that have been prescribed for your pet directly from Ridge Referrals OR ask for a prescription and obtain these medicines from another veterinary surgery or pharmacy.  As we are a referral practice we only provide enough medication to your pet for the immediate post-operative period, all other longer-term medications are provided by your first opinion veterinary practice.  You will be informed on request of the price of any mediations that may be prescribed for your animal.  

The General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) came into force in the UK on 25th May 2018 and replaces the Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA). The GDPR are important because it increases the regulatory burdens and obligations of organisations like ourselves to protect your personal data and strengthens the rights of individuals (like you the client).  Our privacy policy demonstrates our commitment to and compliance with these regulations in respect of protecting your personal data.  To view our privacy policy – visit our website www.ridgereferrals.co.uk

-Should we need to send any samples from your pet to an external laboratory for analysis, we will need to identify the sample with your pets name, your surname and your pets’ general information eg. Breed, sex & age.

-In order to submit a claim to your insurance company we will need to provide your personal information eg. Name, address, telephone number, email address and your pets’ general information to the insurance company for them to be able to process any claims.