Interstate travel
An interstate health certificate at Tequesta Veterinary Clinic is now $99 plus the cost of a physical examination–we will complete the form for you. The health certificate cost pays for our staff training and staff time to complete these forms for you. You will of course also need to pay an examination fee as well because one of our accredited doctors must perform a complete physical examine your pet to fill out a health certificate.
Where do I start? We ask the pet owner check out requirements for the destination. This can be found at www.globalvetlink.com/myvetlink/
Interstate travel is a snap with GlobalVetLink.com. All the states in the USA are supported as are all the US territories.
WE NO LONGER PROVIDE INTERNATIONAL HEALTH CERTIFICATES (EXCEPT FOR THE BAHAMAS).
For our families who travel to the Bahamas and are seasoned pros, you may continue to provide the papers for us to sign as you always have. If you provide us the paperwork from the USDA (a simple form that we sign) we charge you a fee of $79 which includes the cost of the exam and signing the form.
The amount of legwork required to accurately fill out your pet’s health certificate has become, frankly, a pain in the rear. It is a gift to clients to offer health certificates. Being a nationally accredited veterinarian is voluntary and involves continuing education and testing every 3 years. Many veterinarians don’t bother with the National Veterinary Accreditation Program. Due to the time involved for international health certificates, particularly in multi-legged trips with stop-overs in different airports in different countries, we’ve chosen to no longer provide international health certificates. We are happy to help you travel with interstate travel or to the US territories, but international health certificates other than the Bahamas are no longer a service we provide. We will, however, sign a health certificate that you have accurately filled out. The fee for us to examine your pet and sign the form you provide (already filled out) is $79.
GVL suggests that veterinarians charge $300 to $700 to do international health certificates. We suspect our clients would become angry if we charged this fee despite all the effort and man hours involved. We ask you to do that work yourself with the USDA or use a different veterinarian. If you come in with all the paperwork completed and ready to roll, we can examine your pet and sign the paperwork you downloaded at the USDA website, but we no longer do the legwork. Nope. Our staff hates doing these and dreads dealing with stressed out clients who don’t want to pay the high fee.
If you bring a health certificate that is completed except for signature of an accredited vet, you pay an examination fee because one of our accredited doctors must perform a complete physical examine your pet to fill out a health certificate. We will charge you a $79 dollar “Examination / sign health certificate” fee.
Pet owners can go online to Global Vet Link to learn about requirements for individual states or countries. Not all countries are supported by GVL. GlobalVetLink currently has nearly 40 fully supported countries in their website. If the destination country is not fully supported, GVL will link the owner to the USDA website for full details of what is needed for that country. The GVL website will nonetheless give owners information for what is needed and a timeline of when items must be performed. Common timeline information includes flea and tick treatment, rabies titers or vaccination certificates, quarantine if required by the destination country, microchip requirements and so on. If the destination country is not supported by GVL it will at least give you starting point with the USDA. Remember that you will likely need to FedEx forms overnight to the USDA office or drive down to Miami if it is a last minute trip, particularly as many USDA employees are working from home during the pandemic.
Remember that there are often time-sensitive requirements that must be performed in a timeframe required by the destination country and that you will need to FedEx the form to the USDA office with an overnight return label.
You can view the webpage: GVL Pet TravelPass | GVL (globalvetlink.com) to see a map of GVL supported countries. There are nearly 40 countries fully supported by GVL Pet TravelPass, including the EU, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Chile, and Argentina. The GVL website is a great resource for what is needed for travel to that country.
