EMERGENCY PATIENTS

Emergency cases are received 24 hours-a-day, 7 days-a-week and on holidays, on a walk-in basis or with a phone call just prior to your arrival. Upon arrival, our team will make an initial assessment of your patient to determine the basic next steps.

  • Please note: Cases are treated based on severity. This means that from time to time a patient that arrived after you may be treated first due to the serious nature of that patient's illness.
  • Also note: Depending on the total number of patients in the hospital, we occasionally may ask clients to seek care at alternate veterinary facilities because we are beyond our limit of cases that we can safely treat. We try very hard to avoid this, but we must ensure the safe and appropriate care of the patients that we have admitted. Even (especially) problems that seem quick and easy cannot be admitted as they pull our skilled staff away from other patients that are more critical.
  1. WAIT TIME and TRIAGE: When you first arrive, someone on our team will attempt to make a rapid assessment of your patient (triage). This is typically one of our veterinary assistants working alongside a veterinarian. Often a patient is taken into the treatment area where a veterinarian can quickly assess the urgency of the patient's issue. This is NOT a full exam, it is a triage to determine if your patient needs instantaneous emergency care (requiring them to stop all other work to focus exclusively on your patient) or if your patient is stable enough to wait. We are constantly prioritizing and reprioritizing patients based on what is coming through the door and what is happening with patients already in the hospital. Often it can appear quiet in the lobby while we are tremendously busy behind the scene.
    • CPR-ECA: If your patient requires immediate care, you will be asked to sign a CPR and Emergency Care Authorization form. This makes it clear to us if you want to proceed with CPR care and explains to you the potential costs. We require this form when we are asked to perform immediate life-saving procedures but do not have the ability to speak in detail with owners. This is typical of very severe trauma, like vehicle impacts, loss of consciousness, and cardiac or pulmonary arrest.
    • If your patient does not require immediate life-saving care, your pet may be returned to you so you can wait together in our lobby. Sometimes our medical team would prefer to have your patient in the treatment area so they can keep a closer eye on them in case things change.
    • Wait times vary. We maintain a status level (green, yellow, orange, red, black) to help families understand the potential wait times. Wait times are meant as an approximation and reflect how long we think it will be before you can meet directly with the DVM to discuss treatment.
  2. EXAM: Once the veterinarian has had a chance to examine your patient, the doctor will meet with you to discuss a treatment plan. Together you will decide on an initial course of action.
  3. TREATMENT PLAN: After you and the doctor have determined a plan, one of our patient coordinators will present you with a written plan that outlines all the cost estimations, which you will be asked to review and sign. This authorizes us to proceed with care. We cannot proceed with care until you give us explicit written consent.
  4. DEPOSIT: At this point, the reception team will collect the deposit and the treatment team will begin care. You will be required to pay the deposit before treatment begins. Due to the nature of emergency medicine, we do not offer payment plans and we do require payment upfront. If you anticipate difficulty paying the deposit, please ask our team for help and they can connect you to our payment support service called CareCredit.
  5. HOSPITALIZATION: Depending on the nature of the care plan for your patient, you may be able to wait or we may ask that you head home while treatments are performed. Most patients require initial diagnostics, such as xrays and blood work and many patients require multi-day hospitalization.
  6. COMMUNICATION: Depending on how long your patient is admitted with us, you may be talking to our team members multiple times a day. The veterinarian managing your case will call at least once a shift (times will vary) to provide medical updates and review the plan with you. Following those discussions, our financial coordinators will call to make sure you are up to date with the charges. Emergency veterinary care is costly and medical conditions change rapidly. We take your finances seriously and will require you to approve major changes and possibly update deposits. All of this is done to avoid surprises. At the conclusion of the visit, our medical staff will send a copy of the medical record to your primary veterinary hospital. We are allowed 72 hours in Oregon to complete those records, but we strive to have them sent as soon as possible, especially when we anticipate additional care to continue immediately following a visit to our facility.

SPECIALTY PATIENTS

If your primary care veterinarian (the person/team that you normally see for general veterinary care) has recommended you make an appointment with one of our specialists, here is what will happen:

  1. INITIAL CALL TO SOVSC: Typically you (the owner) will call our hospital to let us know your veterinarian has made this recommendation. At this point, we will collect your information and send a request to your primary veterinarian requesting they send us the related medical records (and any bloodwork or xrays). Once we have that information our specialty coordinators will call you back to set up an appointment day and time. You will be asked to make payment for the initial exam at that time. This amount is refundable only if you cancel with 48 hours or more notice.
  2. APPOINTMENT DAY: Upon arrival, please check in at the front desk. The specialty team you are meeting with will take care of you from that point. Depending on why we are seeing you, several different steps may follow and they will advise you specifically. After you meet with the veterinarian and determine a medical care plan, you will be presented with a written treatment plan that outlines all potential cost estimations. Depending on the care you are having done your pat may be admitted that day or you may be scheduling a procedure for the future.

Payment Policy

  • Payment is due in full at the time services are rendered.
  • If your pet is being admitted to the hospital for any diagnostics or treatment, a deposit in the amount of the low-end of the estimate is required. Additional deposits may be required if medical conditions worsen and treatment plans are changed.
  • We accept Visa, MasterCard, Discover, American Express, and Cash.
  • For those looking for financial assistance we suggest: CareCredit and ScratchPay.
  • We do not accept checks, traveler's cheques, or payments via trusts.
  • We do not offer payment plans and we do not offer billing.

Emergency Visit FAQs

Can I visit my pet in the hospital?

Yes. Please let us know ahead of time when you want to visit your pet, so we can prepare an area away from the other animals, if possible, for your visit. Depending on the number of cases and various levels of severity, we may ask you to delay your visit to a time more appropriate for us. When owners come to visit (which we want to accommodate), it requires us to assign a staff member to prepare that patient for visitation, often relocating them into an exam room as we cannot typically allow the general public into our treatment area due to the number of hazardous substances and equipment that we work with. Please work with us by communicating your needs early on so we can coordinate with you.

Who are the different team members we may interact with?

You may interact with the front desk staff, veterinary assistants, certified veterinary technicians, emergency doctors, specialty doctors, and administrative staff. You can rest assured that no matter who you speak with, they can answer your question or address your issue, or they can find someone who can.

If I have an urgent question who can I ask?

The front desk staff is your best resource for answering your questions or finding someone who can. If you are here overnight, dial 180 on the lobby phone to speak with a staff member.

Why does SOVSC require payment upfront?

We request payments upfront in order to cover the operating costs of being a hospital that is open 24/7 to pets. Our costs can be higher than those found at your family veterinarian, but please keep in mind that we need to cover the operating costs of being open all day, everyday, in order to treat emergencies.

What is your fee structure?

We strive to be transparent about our fee structure and will update you on any costs that weren’t originally anticipated. No matter the situation, SOVSC provides the best possible options to ensure the best care for your pet.

Digital Engagement

Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy details certain policies implemented throughout NVA governing our collection and use of personally identifiable information about users of our site and our services.

PRIVACY POLICY UPDATES
Due to the Internet's rapidly evolving nature, NVA may need to update this Privacy Policy from time to time. If so, NVA will post its updated Privacy Policy on our Site along with a change notice on the Site. NVA may also send registered users of our services a notice that this Privacy Policy has been changed. NVA encourages you to review this Privacy Policy regularly for any changes. Your continued use of this Site and/or services and/or your continued provision of personally identifiable information to us after the posting of such notice will be subject to the terms of the then-current Privacy Policy.

INFORMATION COLLECTION
You can generally visit our Site without revealing any personally identifiable information about yourself. However, in certain sections of this Site, we may require you to submit your personally identifiable information to us and we may invite you to submit questions, comments and request information.

Due to the nature of some of our services, you may provide us with personally identifiable information such as your name, email address, username, password, address, phone number, and other contact information that you voluntarily transmit with your communication to us.

INFORMATION USE
We may use your personally identifiable information to deliver our services or information you have requested, verify your authority to enter certain password protected areas of the Site, verify that you are a customer or prospective customer, send you information that you have signed up to receive, notices about our products and/or services that you have used or that may be of interest to you and notices about events, and improve the content and general administration of the Site and our services. If you are a user of our services, we may use your personally identifiable information to provide the services to you.

CHILDREN'S PRIVACY
NVA recognizes the privacy interests of children and we encourage parents and guardians to take an active role in their children's online activities and interests. Neither our Site nor our services are intended for children under the age of 13. NVA does not target its services or this Site to children under 13. NVA does not knowingly collect personally identifiable information from children under the age of 13.

COOKIES
We use both session ID cookies and persistent cookies. A session ID cookie expires when you close your browser. A persistent cookie remains on your hard drive for an extended period of time. You can remove persistent cookies by following directions provided in your Internet browser's "help" file. On our Site, we use session cookies to make it easier for you to navigate the Site by remembering your locale preferences and to improve and track the overall Site experience. For our Site, we set a persistent cookie to authenticate your login and authorization to use the services. Persistent cookies enable us to track, store and target the interests of our users to enhance the experience on our Site. If you reject cookies, you may still use our Site, but your ability to use some areas of our Site may be limited.

THIRD PARTY ANALYTICS TOOLS
Beyond the personally identifiable information you voluntarily provide to us, NVA utilizes analytics tools including third party technologies, such as Google Analytics, to collect non-personally identifiable information utilizing cookies. Certain types of information, including geo-location, device type, onsite website usage and behavior, demographic data, and purchase history, is collected and aggregated across NVA Site users for our analysis and advertising efforts.

NVA uses re-marketing with Google Analytics and Google Adwords to display relevant advertisements to users who have previously visited our Site. Referred to as re-marketing or re-targeting, NVA may utilize previous session information to serve display advertisements to you on the Site and based on such session information Google may set a cookie and serve ads to you on third party websites on the Google Display Network. Third party vendors such as Google may display NVA ads on websites across the Internet. Aggregated user data may be utilized to create re-marketing/re-targeting “lists,” or groups of users with similar onsite behaviors or demographics.

NVA also uses Google Display Network Impression Reporting and Google Analytics Demographics and Interest Reporting and Interest-Based Advertising to display advertisements to users based on their inferred interests and demographics. NVA does not run interest-based advertising campaigns that collect personally identifiable information.

Users may learn more about Google Analytics use of cookies by visiting the Google Privacy and Terms page at http://www.google.com/policies/. You may opt out of being tracked by Google Analytics by i) Turning off cookies in the preferences settings in your browser ii) Downloading the Google Analytics opt-out browser add on available at: https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout/ iii) Opting out of user interest and demographic categories in the Settings for Google Ads feature to manage or opt out of Google interest based ads at: or iv) Managing cookies used for online advertising across multiple companies at the US-based Network Advertising Initiative at http://www.networkadvertising.org/choices/.

AGGREGATE INFORMATION
The Site may track the total number of visitors to our Site, the number of visitors to each page of our Site, browser type, IP addresses, External Web Sites (defined below) linked to and other aggregated data collected through our services and we may analyze this data for trends and statistics in the aggregate, but such information will be maintained, used and disclosed in aggregate form only and it will not contain personally identifiable information. We may use such aggregate information to analyze trends, administer the Site, track users' movement, and gather broad demographic information for aggregate use.

DISCLOSURE OF PERSONALLY IDENTIFIABLE INFORMATION
We may provide your personally identifiable information and the data generated by cookies and third-party analytics tools and the aggregate information to the vendors and service agencies that we may engage to assist us in providing our services to you. We will disclose your personally identifiable information if we reasonably believe we are required to do so by law, regulation or other government authority or to assist in any investigation, to protect our or our users' rights or to enforce our terms of use. We will not sell your personally identifiable information to any company or organization except we may transfer your personally identifiable information to a successor entity upon a merger, consolidation or other corporate reorganization in which NVA participates or to a purchaser of all or substantially all of NVA's assets to which this Site relates.

LINKS TO THIRD PARTY SITES
The Site may provide links to other Web sites or resources over which NVA does not have control ("External Web Sites"). Such links do not constitute an endorsement by NVA of those External Web Sites. You acknowledge that NVA is providing these links to you only as a convenience, and further agree that NVA is not responsible for the content of such External Web Sites. Your use of External Web Sites is subject to the terms of use and privacy policies located on the linked to External Web Sites.

SECURITY
We may employ industry standard procedural and technological measures that are reasonably designed to help protect your personally identifiable information from loss, unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration or destruction. NVA may use, without limitation, firewalls, password protection, secure socket layer, and other security measures to help prevent unauthorized access to your personally identifiable information.

NOTICE TO EUROPEAN USERS
This Site and the services on this Site are targeted for users in the United States of America. Any information you enter on this Site may be transferred outside of the European Union to the United States of America which does not offer an equivalent level of protection to that required in the European Union. In particular, you are advised that the United States of America uses a sectoral model of privacy protection that relies on a mix of legislation, governmental regulation, and self-regulation. Article 26 of the European Union’s Data Protection Directive (Directive 95/46/EC, 1995 O.J. (L 281) 31) allows for transfer of personal data from the European Union to a third country if the individual has unambiguously given his consent to the transfer of personal information, regardless of the third country's level of protection. By using this Site or the services, you consent to the transfer of all such information to the United States of America which may not offer an equivalent level of protection to that required in the European Union and to the processing of that information by NVA on its servers located in the United States of America as described in this Privacy Policy.

QUESTIONS
If you have any questions regarding this Privacy Policy, please contact us.