Frequently Asked Questions for Veterinarian Professionals

In New Zealand, Professional Indemnity Insurance is not mandatory for veterinary professionals, and this is also the case for giving advice through the HELPP Vet platform. We are aware that this is not the case in other jurisdictions., eg. the United Kingdom where insurance is mandatory in both veterinary diagnosis and advice situations. However, if you provide advice through HELPP Vet, we strongly encourage you to either:

1. Hold Professional Indemnity Insurance that covers the jurisdiction/country where you are registered, or

2. Agree to obtain such insurance for that jurisdiction.

If you are registered in more than one country, HELPP Vet can only accept one country’s registration when completing your profile. Please record additional registration in the body of your HELPP Vet profile overview.

Professional Indemnity Insurance helps protect you against common claims such as negligent or misleading advice. It safeguards both your finances and reputation, giving peace of mind when advising pet owners through HELPP Vet.

If you choose to advise outside the country of your registration, you will be listed as an Animal Doctor. HELPP Vet is not aware of any global Professional Indemnity policies that cover this situation. You must carefully consider this and, if unsure, only provide advice in your registered country.

Finally, note that all pet owners using HELPP Vet agree to our Terms of Use, including Clause 9: Limitation of Liability. Please read this for your own reassurance when providing professional advice through the platform.

Currently, the HELPP Vet registration procedure is that it only accepts one country of registration. We have it in future development plans to allow the process to accept more than one country. The solution to this is if you have more than one country of registration, please choose your preferred country and then we recommend you add your details to your profile so the pet owners are aware of what you can offer. 

The HELPP Vet team will always be pleased with whatever hours you decide to contract to through this advice service for animal owners. There is absolutely no minimum and you can change your hours around whenever you see fit through your profile page so these changes are reflected in when animal owners see you as available on the website. 

When you register with the HELPP Vet platform, your professional registration is attached to your profile. The platform automatically detects the animal owner’s location and adjusts how your title is shown: ‘Veterinarian’ within your registered country or jurisdiction, or ‘Animal Doctor’ outside it. This title adjustment ensures transparency for animal owners so they know that in the case of an Animal Doctor, the guidance will be non-clinical. Providing advice outside your registration area does not equate to legal veterinary practice in that jurisdiction. The platform manages these distinctions for you. The above only applies to Veterinarians, not vet techs or nurses. 

We make payments directly to your nominated bank account via Stripe, 72 hours after your advisory consult*.

When you register with HELPP Vet we create a separate Stripe account for you behind the scenes - this is why we ask for so many details in the registration process (such as your ID, birthday and bank account details) - they are actually required by Stripe to help set up and validate your account.

The 72 hour period is used in case the animal owner you spoke to has an issue and requests a refund. They have 48 hours to ask for a refund, at which time we will contact you for feedback.

* Note, your first payment will be two weeks after your initial consult. This is a Stripe enforced rule, giving them time to confirm payments are secure and going to the correct place.

There is a refund process in place at HELPP Vet and animal owners have 24 hours after the advice session to claim this. In every instance, the HELPP Vet team will look carefully into the circumstances and ask the veterinary professional for their point of view on the advice session's procedure and outcome. Please note that a refund will not be awarded simply because the animal owner disagreed with the advice of the veterinary professional and they maybe felt the session was a waste of time. To give you peace of mind, it's also important to note that the animal owner agrees to Terms and Conditions which state these points on refunds. 

In certain instances, a veterinary professional and pet owner will quickly determine that they are not compatible, e.g. the language barrier is too great and you cannot understand each other. 

HELPP Vet has therefore implemented a policy where charges for the call are only initiated once the conversation exceeds 60 seconds. We think that this is enough time to determine if there is a 'fit' or not, but it's not long enough for a veterinary professional to provide meaningful advice. We will review this policy over time and adjust if necessary.

If you are registered for sales tax within your jurisdiction (including GST and VAT), you will have the ability to select the applicable rate within the registration process, for example 15% for New Zealand. 

We recommend that you do make notes on the HELPP Vet platform about the advice session that you conducted. You also have the ability to take screen shots of the animal and add these to your notes to try and give a complete summary of what has been discussed and advised. The animal owner has access to these notes through their login to the platform and is able to share these with their regular veterinarian to provide continuity of care. A future plan in development is to have an Ai notetaker - voice to text - in place which will record the entire conversation to cover you in the case of any questions coming back from the pet owner or refund requests.

When you register with the HELPP Vet platform, your professional registration is attached to your profile. The platform automatically detects the animal owner’s location and adjusts how your title is shown: ‘Veterinarian’ within your registered country or jurisdiction, or ‘Animal Doctor’ outside it. This title adjustment ensures transparency for animal owners so they know that in the case of an Animal Doctor, the guidance will be non-clinical. Providing advice outside your registration area does not equate to legal veterinary practice in that jurisdiction. The platform manages these distinctions for you. The above only applies to Veterinarians, not vet techs or nurses. 

Teleadvice is general health information, opinions, guidance, or recommendations about sensible next steps that are not tailored to any specific animal’s condition. It is not for diagnosing, predicting outcomes, treating, correcting, changing, relieving, or preventing an animal’s disease, illness, pain, deformity, defect, injury, or other physical, dental, or mental condition.

In a nutshell, it is a non-clinical and superficial level of guidance to help the animal owner to form a plan and be reassured about their next steps. If you think it necessary, a next step should be recommending that they take the animal to a veterinary clinic to have their health problem diagnosed. 

Examples:

• Suggesting dietary changes
• Recommending routine vaccinations or parasite prevention
• Advising on whether a condition might warrant an in-person exam
• Giving first aid tips while urging follow up with a clinic

Advice does not confirm or rule out a medical condition - it's about supporting decision making and responsible care. 

We recommend that you do make notes on the HELPP Vet platform about the advice session that has taken place. You also have the ability to take screen shots of the animal and add these to your notes to try and give a complete summary of what has been discussed and advised. The animal owner has access to these notes through their login to the platform and is able to share these with their regular veterinarian to provide continuity of care. A future plan in development is to have an Ai notetaker - voice to text - in place which will record the entire conversation to cover you in the case of any questions coming back from the pet owner or refund requests.

At HELPP Vet, we understand that as a vet professional, you will have times when the hours that you have applied to your profile as available for animal owners will not be suitable 100% of the time. You may be going on holiday, have a family emergency or just simply want to step back for a while. This is, of course, all perfectly acceptable and we won't require you to ever do hours that don't suit your lifestyle and commitments. Please feel relaxed about altering your availability according to what suits you. 

The HELPP Vet advice platform for animal owners was originally designed around the use of mobile phones. However, as development has continued, the link that is generated when the animal owner requests to connect with a vet professional is now sent to the mobile phone of the vet professional as a text message with a link included and as a link within an email. HELPP Vet should be accepted as a trusted sender so that emails don't end up in Spam. This means that the advice session can be done on a laptop as well as a mobile phone.

When registering with HELPP Vet, you'll select the countries where you're willing to provide advice. and it will appear in your profile. When pet owners from other countries scroll through the vet professionals available, if they are in a country other than where you selected, you will appear offline. If for some reason they happen to connect with you, the 60-second rule applies, allowing either party to end the session early.  

HELPP Vet offers pet owners a free follow-up call with the same vet for the same issue within 48 hours of their first consultation. As a vet, you can set and adjust your availability as needed. If a pet owner contacts you within this 48-hour window regarding a follow-up, they won’t be charged for the call.

If a pet owner mistakenly reaches out for a follow-up with a different vet professional, the HELPP Vet platform will recognise this error and apply charges so you will be paid for the call. You don’t need to take any action, but if asked, please inform the pet owner that follow-up calls are only free with their original vet.

Yes you can... in fact, we encourage it!

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Currently we have two important tools to help you promote your own services:

1. As a registered veterinary professional on the HELPP Vet platform, you get assigned a unique URL based on the username you selected. PROMOTE THIS URL FAR AND WIDE and drive as many people as possible to your page to use your services.

Vet Profile Page...

2. To help promote your page, use the unique QR code on your HELPP Vet welcome page. Scroll over it, download it and use it on your social channels, emails and websites. Print it out and use it on all your marketing collateral. This will help drive people to your page and purchase your veterinary services.

Vet Welcome page...

We will continue to generate new assets to help you promote your veterinary services and drive more business. Watch this space!

When you register as a veterinary professional on HELPP Vet, you will receive your own unique URL and QR code. These are your very own marketing tools that you can add to your social media accounts, your comms with friends, family and your community. The HELPP Vet team has also collated a series of marketing tools for you such as pre-designed Instagram and Facebook posts and email templates. These are all available for your free use and we can share the Google Drive link with you to your Gmail address or Gmail enabled address. Please be reassured that the HELPP Vet team are also advertising its advice services through numerous platforms, but your efforts at promoting your profile will only serve to enhance your earning power. Have a chat with the team if you'd like some advice on this, we're happy to help! 

When you register as a veterinary professional on HELPP Vet, you will receive your own unique URL and QR code. These are your very own marketing tools that you can add to your social media accounts, your comms with friends, family and your community. The HELPP Vet team has also collated a series of marketing tools for you such as pre-designed Instagram and Facebook posts and email templates. These are all available for your free use and we can share the Google Drive link with you to your Gmail address or Gmail enabled address. Please be reassured that the HELPP Vet team are also advertising its advice services through numerous platforms, but your efforts at promoting your profile will only serve to enhance your earning power. Have a chat with the team if you'd like some advice on this, we're happy to help! We also have marketing packages on offer which you could sign up to for a small monthly fee. These could be suitable for you if a/ you simply don't have the time to think about marketing b/ you're unsure about this whole side of the Internet and need our skilled team to step in and help. Have a chat with us about what would work best for you. 

The HELPP Vet team is investigating how the platform can benefit veterinarian clinics in the most helpful way. As an example, we have had inquiries from clinics that service a wide, geographical region with only a small number of veterinarians available. Please do get in touch with us if this sounds like your situation and we could have a solution-focused discussion. Currently we haven't trialed this but it is in our future plans moving forward. 

At this stage, HELPP Vet has set in place the advice session costs in chunks of time that all veterinary professionals on the platform will charge. One of our future-focused plans is to incorporate a booking system that you will have the choice of including against your profile on the platform for a small monthly fee. This will have the advantage of allowing you to schedule your times of work and also will allow you to choose what chunks of time and cost you allocate to each advice session.  As an example, animal owners may connect with you for advice on a dietary change or a complicated health issue. This may take longer than the current time allocations as they sit within the HELPP Vet pricing system and so a booking system will benefit both you and the animal owner. 

One of our future-focused plans is to incorporate a booking system that you will have the choice of including against your profile on the platform for a small monthly fee. This will have the advantage of allowing you to schedule your times of work and also will allow you to choose what chunks of time and cost you allocate to each advice session.  As an example, animal owners may connect with you for advice on a dietary change or a complicated health issue. This may take longer than the current time allocations as they sit within the HELPP Vet pricing system and so a booking system will benefit both you and the animal owner. Watch out for the constant changes and improvements being made to the platform that will benefit your service.