Not going to say which clinic I work at in fear of doxxing myself (since we're a pretty small clinic with few staff) but at the one I work at, if your pet has already been seen at least once within the last 6 months to a year, our Dr will go ahead and prescribe the flea medication and clients can just come in and pick up the medication without needing to have their pet physically seen. However, if we haven't seen your pet in over a year, a physical examination is required before we can release the prescription flea medication.

You can also order the prescription medication online through Chewy or 1-800-PetMed, tell them which vet your pet goes to, and then they send a prescription request approval form to your vet, either by email or fax, for them to either accept or deny. If they deny, it'll be for the reason I stated above, which is that your vet may require a physical examination of your pet if they haven't been in in over a year.