VCPR and Telemedicine Rules in New Hampshire

New Hampshire gives exactly one route, and states it in absolute terms: a VCPR shall be established only through an in-person physical examination by the licensed veterinarian or an in-person site visit by the licensed veterinarian.

There is no alternative path and no professional-judgment qualifier softening the requirement.

For a practice manager building an intake workflow, the operative fact is simple — no New Hampshire VCPR exists on a client file until a veterinarian has physically examined the animal or visited the premises where it is kept.

The rule does not carve out an electronic path at all — it simply never mentions one.

Read together with Vet 603.01(a), which requires that the practice of telemedicine be conducted within an existing VCPR, the effect is the same as an explicit bar: a veterinarian cannot use a video call, a phone consult, or any other remote method to form the relationship in the first place.

That forecloses a direct-to-consumer model in New Hampshire where a client's first contact with a veterinarian is over video.

New Hampshire does not give an established VCPR indefinite life.

A VCPR expires unless an in-person physical examination or an in-person site visit has been completed by the licensed veterinarian in the prior 365 days — so telemedicine can supplement an existing relationship between visits, but it cannot substitute for the underlying exam that keeps the clock running.

Vet 603.01(a) reinforces this by requiring that telemedicine practice occur within a VCPR, meaning a lapsed relationship also closes off telemedicine use until the in-person visit happens again.

A practice manager tracking client files needs a system that flags the 365-day mark, not just the initial exam date.

Vet 603.01(b) exempts two arrangements from 'the requirement in (a) above' — a phrase that is not limited to the VCPR sentence in (a), so the sections read do not resolve whether these carve-outs also touch the licensure bar discussed below: consulting services provided to an attending veterinarian who has already established a valid VCPR with the patient, and on-call or other coverage arrangements among veterinarians who both regularly practice at the same physical location and are within the practice of the veterinarian who initially established the VCPR, provided the covering veterinarian has current access to the patient's current and prior medical record.

Both carve-outs assume a VCPR already exists somewhere in the chain — with the treating veterinarian or the practice — rather than creating a way to serve a patient with no VCPR at all.

The second carve-out is narrow on its face: it reaches coverage among veterinarians at the same physical location and the same practice, not a relief veterinarian or a separate practice filling in without that connection.

The same paragraph that requires telemedicine be conducted within a VCPR also bars a person who is not licensed in New Hampshire as a veterinarian from providing remote veterinary telemedicine services to a client or patient in New Hampshire through telephonic, electronic, or another technological method.

That reaches an out-of-state veterinarian offering a telemedicine consult to a New Hampshire client even where that veterinarian is properly licensed elsewhere.

Vet 603.01(b) then exempts two arrangements from 'the requirement in (a) above' without specifying which of (a)'s two requirements — the VCPR requirement, the licensure bar, or both — that phrase refers to, so the sections read do not resolve whether the consulting and coverage carve-outs also reach the licensure bar.