“Apoquel order placed November 30, arrived on the Dec. 12th. Needed it much sooner, was already cutting pills in half. I called Koala to check progress on the 4th since I hadn’t heard anything yet and I knew my vet had already responded on Dec. 1st, the day after I placed the order. The Koala Rep was very kind and responsive, said it was in progress so she offered to put a rush on it and it would ship 1st class so that sounded good. I did get a shipping notification the same day but then it still took 8 days to ship from Boston to NC. Ugh. Not a crisis and I think everyone did the best they could but I was a bit frustrated with a severely itchy senior dog. I could have ordered sooner but money has been a problem and then holiday shipping probably tied it up too. Overall Koala was great, I just wondered if anything could have been done to process the order faster so that’s why the four stars.”
“Order delayed because pharmacy called an outdated vet for new prescription, despite having given the new one to you. Ultimately it worked out. I appreciate that someone called us directly to alert us that the old Vet didn't respond to your request.”
“Koala is convenient and very competitively priced. My only real concern is due to how receipts are generated and how that affects insurance claims processing. The printed shipping notice has all the relevant information nicely laid out and is perfect for insurance claims, but often has a date several days after the credit card is charged. The online receipt is just a normal webpage, not a PDF or billing receipt like other vendors offer, This can lead to issues if the billing and shipment dates occur across two different policy terms.
Koala also can not accept digital or scanned prescriptions from a customer, only a vet practice, due to MA state laws. Many regular vets refuse to engage with online pharmacies as they sell medications too, although specialty vets seem to not have a problem, and will only provide digital prescriptions directly to the customer. Upon learning that Koala will not accept them, a customer will then have to fight with their vet to get a paper prescription - which must then be mailed to Koala's HQ.
If I were in Koala's management, I would move the pharmacy/shipping operations to a state with the most lax laws possible so that prescriptions can be most easily processed.”
“The customer reps were very helpful. We ran into a couple glitches though. 1. The med needed wasn't on the website so it had to be added, which took time. 2. I was quoted one price and then a couple hours later a different price, $200.00 more, showed up on my account. I called and spoke to another customer rep. who was kind enough to get it straightened out.”
“The pills I receive I only need half at a time. They don’t cut well and I lose at least a 1/3 of the supply leaving me not enough to last the whole minth”
