Paying less for your pet's insulin: written prescriptions and where the money goes

Quick answer

Ask your practice for a written prescription and compare it against a registered online pharmacy. In the UK a vet must provide one on request; they may charge a fee for writing it. The prescription is worth it when the saving over its validity period exceeds that fee — which depends on how long a prescription your vet is willing to write, so ask that first.

For a medicine bought every few weeks for years, the arithmetic usually favours the prescription. For a one-off, it usually does not.

Why this page does not print a price

Because any figure we published would be wrong for most readers and stale within months. Insulin costs vary by product, by pet size, by how much your pet needs, and by practice. A number that looks authoritative and does not apply to you is worse than no number.

What we can do is show you how to get your number, which takes one phone call.

Getting your actual costs in one call

Ring your practice and ask for these, in this order. Write the answers down.

1. Which insulin is my pet on, what size vial, and what does it cost here?
2. How long does a vial last at my pet's current dose? That turns a price into a monthly cost, and it is the figure that matters.
3. Do you charge for a written prescription, how much, and how long would it be valid for?
4. How often do you want my pet re-checked over the next six months, and what does each visit cost? The first few months carry more appointments than the steady state.
5. What do strips and lancets cost here, and how often do you want me testing?

Five answers give you a monthly figure and a first-six-months figure. Then run the same insulin past one or two VMD-registered online pharmacies and compare, remembering to add the prescription fee.

Our cost of care planner takes those numbers and does the arithmetic.

Where the money actually goes

Insulin is the obvious one and often not the largest. A vial lasts weeks, not days.

Test strips are the cost that surprises people, because they scale with how often you test and they expire. An owner doing a reading most days and an owner doing an occasional curve are in completely different places. Ask what testing schedule your vet actually wants — it is the single biggest lever on your consumables bill, and it is a clinical decision rather than a budgeting one.

Food matters more for cats than dogs, and a prescription diet is not always required to hit a low-carbohydrate target. Our guide to working out carbohydrate from a UK label shows how to check an ordinary supermarket tin.

Monitoring and re-checks are front-loaded. The first three months cost more than the year that follows, because that is when the dose is being established.

Syringes are cheap, and the only thing to be careful about is buying the right type — see insulin brands and syringes, because U-40 and U-100 are not interchangeable.

On insurance, plainly

Once diagnosed, diabetes is excluded from new policies as a pre-existing condition. If your pet was already insured before diagnosis, check whether your policy is lifetime cover and what the annual limit is, because diabetes is a condition you will claim on every year. If you are considering switching insurer for a better price, do not — switching restarts the pre-existing exclusion and you would lose cover for the thing you are claiming for.

If you cannot afford it

This is not a footnote and it is not a failure.

PDSA, Blue Cross and the RSPCA run subsidised or free treatment for owners on qualifying benefits, usually postcode-dependent. The Blue Cross and some breed-specific charities also run hardship funds. Our guide to help with the cost of treating a diabetic pet lists the routes and who qualifies.

And speak to your practice before you need to. Ask about payment plans, spreading costs, or whether a different insulin or testing schedule would be cheaper and clinically acceptable. Vets deal with cost worries daily and would far rather have the conversation than have a pet go untreated. There is no shame in raising it.

Sources and further reading

• RCVS Code of Professional Conduct for Veterinary Surgeons, on supplying medicines and providing written prescriptions on request.
• Veterinary Medicines Directorate guidance on buying veterinary medicines online, including how to check a retailer is registered.

General information about how UK veterinary prescribing works. It is not advice about your pet's treatment, and any change to insulin, testing frequency or diet is your vet's decision.