What records should I bring when switching to a new vet?

Bring your pet's vaccination history with dates, a list of current medications with their directions, recent laboratory work with the reference intervals the laboratory printed, and the visit history from your old clinic. Add imaging files if any exist, plus your insurer's name and policy number if your dog or cat is insured. Ask the old clinic for the complete record as files, well before the first appointment, and check it before you hand it over.

What does a new vet need on the first visit?

Every practice has its own intake form, but the same things come up whether you are bringing in a dog or a cat. Here is the checklist, in the order it tends to matter.

• Vaccinations, with dates. Not "she is up to date". The product name and the date it was given, because the next due date is calculated from them. Keep the certificate to hand as well, since a kennel, cattery or groomer will ask for it separately.
• Current medications, with directions. The drug, the strength, the direction as written, and whether it is still being given. A dose you stopped two months ago matters as much as the one you are still giving.
• Recent laboratory work, with its reference intervals. A value without the interval printed beside it is half a result. The interval belongs to the laboratory that ran the sample, so it has to travel with the number.
• The visit history. What happened, when, and what the veterinarian wrote at the time. An assessment written by the person who examined the animal is worth more than any summary of it.
• Imaging, if there is any. Radiographs, ultrasound reports and similar studies. These are large files and every practice sends them differently, so expect them to be the slowest part.
• Insurance details. The insurer's name and your policy number, if you have a policy, so claim forms can be completed at the new clinic.

If your cat has only been to a clinic a few times, the record may be short. Bring it anyway. Dates on paper beat a story from memory.

How do I get my pet's records from my old vet?

Ask for the complete record, not a summary. A summary is somebody else's judgement about what mattered, and the new veterinarian would rather make that call.

• Ask for files, not a printout. A PDF generated by the practice system carries a real text layer, so the characters in it are the actual characters. A photograph of the same page is an image of characters, and reading it is guesswork with good handwriting.
• Ask how imaging will be sent. It rarely travels with the rest, and it may come on a disc, a download link, or not at all until you chase it.
• Ask early. Practices are busy and the request usually lands on one person's desk. Give it more time than seems reasonable. The first appointment at the new clinic is a bad moment to discover that nothing arrived.
• Consider letting the new clinic request it. Many practices will ask the old clinic directly if you sign a release. Keep your own copy either way.

What should I check when the records arrive?

A record that arrives is not the same as a record that is usable. Before you file it or forward it, look for four things.

• Dates on everything. A value with no date cannot be placed on a timeline. If a page does not say what day it is from, find out now, while the old clinic can still answer.
• Units. Different laboratories print the same analyte in different units. The unit is part of the value.
• Reference intervals next to laboratory results. If they were stripped out of a summary, ask for the original report.
• Whether medications are current. Old records are full of prescriptions that ended. A list that does not distinguish is a list that will be misread.

One more check if you have more than one animal: make sure every page is about the right pet. Records for two cats from the same household can easily end up mixed together.

How do I send pet records to a new vet?

Ask the new clinic what they want. Some want a file they can attach to their own system. Some are happy with a link they can open on the day. Some still want paper. Match the format to the request, and bring what they asked for.

Two habits make the first appointment better, for a dog or a cat.

• Bring the medication list as it exists today, not as you remember it. If you have been recording doses, the schedule and what actually happened are both there, and "she refused it twice last week" is a more useful sentence than "she has been on it a while".
• Bring the original reports rather than your notes about them. The new veterinarian will want to see the flag the laboratory printed and the interval it printed it against.

How Talli makes the handoff easier

Talli keeps your pet's whole medical record in one place, so the next change of clinic does not start from a folder, an inbox and memory. Upload the files from the old clinic and Talli reads the text-based ones into visits, results, medications and vaccinations, each filed against the right pet and still openable at the page it came from. Pages you only have on paper can be photographed and stored with the record, with their values added by hand. Talli does not connect to a clinic's own system, so the files come from you, which also means you always hold a copy.

Once the record is in, laboratory results from the old clinic and the new one sit on the same timeline. Each analyte gets its own history across every panel on file, with the dates, units and the laboratory's own reference interval beside it. That is biomarker tracking that survives a change of clinic, and it feeds the pet health insights Talli builds only from records on file.

When it is time to hand the record over, you have two routes.

A share link shows only what you chose, expires on the date you set, and can be revoked at any time. Five scopes are available:

• the vaccination record, which is what a kennel, cattery or groomer asks for
• the full record, which is what a new clinic wants
• current medications, for a sitter or a boarding kennel
• chosen laboratory panels, for a specialist or a second opinion
• chosen documents

A link lasts 1, 7, 30 or 90 days, and you can add a password and a view limit. Every attempt to open it is recorded, including the attempts that fail. Anything outside the scope you chose reads as "not shared", so a kennel holding a vaccination link cannot widen it into the whole record.

An exported file suits a practice that wants a document rather than a link. There are four: a vaccination record and a full record as PDFs, laboratory results as a CSV with their units, and the stored imaging as a ZIP with a manifest of what each file is. Imaging is stored as it was sent, and a share link cannot display it, so the ZIP is the way to pass imaging on.

The clinical decisions stay with your new veterinarian. Talli makes sure they start with the whole story, and that you keep it.