To not pay the whole vet's bill

I love my vets. I have been with them for over 35 years and they have been amazing, unfailingly kind, thorough and even the prices are quite reasonable. You can bet I tell them so frequently. Has it all been rainbows and unicorn farts? No of course not, there have been small rows and disagreements but first, last and always I trust them and they trust me.

I don't have any pets at the moment as I couldn't afford sudden vets bills and I know insurance doesn't cover everything. I don't think it's a good idea to have pets if you aren't happy to pay the costs involved.

Vets are private healthcare for animals so every action needs to be charged out. Even a trip to an NHS dentist which involves X-rays is a lot more than just a check up free and you are not told the costs upfront so OP should have guessed there would be more than just the consultation fee.

Oh shut up you idiot. The vet should have told her how much the tests would be. And your analogies are bloody stupid too. Plumbers, taxis etc do provide estimates and sometimes (plumbers) some things are included and others isnt. Vets bills are hugely expensive and they should tell people how much procedures are going to be before carrying them out.

You must be (and ARE) a complete idiot for assuming diagnostic testing such as blood tests would be included in your consultation fee. A consultation fee is for checks notes a consultation, meaning the vet will have a look at your pet and maybe check heart & lungs with a stethoscope. Any invasive tests OBVIOUSLY cost extra and unless you are unable to speak or write, you should be perfectly capable of asking if any of the diagnostic procedures will cost extra and if so, how much. OBVIOUSLY medication is extra too. How can you possibly have a pet and not know this?

Would you get a taxi somewhere and after being asked for £10, you refuse to pay more than £4 as you believe that's what the fuel would have cost?

If your boiler needed servicing and the plumber invoiced you for £95, would you just offer them a tenner because that's what you believe the spare part they used might have cost you at B&Q?

You are delusional if you think this is in any way acceptable. I'm all for making sure as consumers we're not getting conned or ripped off but these are qualified professionals with huge overheads and if you think you can do a better job yourself or less money without paying a professional, feel free. Maybe not with plumbing though, I don't advise that!

Not a 'rip off'. That's the cost or running a veterinary practice. Do you think the receptionist and nurses are volunteers? That the fixtures, fittings and equipment is from Freecycle? That the electricity and gas is delivered free? That they receive insurance and the rent or buildings free of charge? Or may that the x Ray machine and ultrasound scanner costing thousands just magically appear?

The naiievey is astounding.

There are strict rules around the dispensing of Prescription Only Medicines, which is what your wormers/flea treatments were. Every vet practice in the land has to abide by these. Seeing an animal every 6 mths for meds is usual. A year would be the absolute max. Vets have not had losses during covid. Mostly the opposite with the dramatic surge in lockdown puppies. You have a disgusting attitude.

Interesting posts PowerShower and ExPat.
I've just left the profession myself after 15 years.
I agree with everything you've said. It's almost unrecognizable now. Not all the changes have been positive.

Sadly, the attitudes of some of the posts on this thread have been enduring throughout my whole career though! Some things never change.

@powershowerforanhour interesting post, thank you!

I qualified in 2011 and some of the best vets I've worked with are the old school ones who are sensible, use their common sense and keep up to date with new scientific developments.

Gold standard vs affordable care, ensuring patient quality of life and keeping client expectations in mind... it can be such a balancing act.

What else? The Irish government had paid for my degree course (thanks). The poor old UK university students had had to pay the shocking new tuition fees of £1000/yr (my big sister was one of the last to get a maintence grant as standard). I had racked up £7k of a student loan debt though, it was expensive to rent a room in a student flat in Dublin. Well back then we thought it was expensive.

Annual CPD wasn't mandatory. You could just walk out of vet college and that was it. A CPD budget was considered rather flashy. GDPR didn't exist so I didn't have to sit through the mandatory annual corporate training video about that, and the pet insurance legalities FCA rule one and all the health and safety ones. Easier for a practice to be independent, as they all were then, when they didn't have to pay for or learn to do all the stuff that a big corporate such as the one I now work for can do en masse. The boss's wife did the accounts and I got my pay cheque in a little brown envelope.

Vet bills have gone up a lot in recent years and there are various reasons for this. I qualified 19 years ago. My first job was a mixed practice on the edge of a pretty village in a scenic part of the country; the building was large and old with a slightly tumbledown shed and a nice little garden. It would have been cheap to buy or rent back when my boss took over the practice several decades previously. It would probably sell for at least half a million now.

VAT - payable on all veterinary goods and services, even euthanasia- was 17.5% not 20% as it is now. The boss didn't have to pay for a computer practice management system- our clinical records were on postcard sized cards stapled together. You couldn't fit much on them, certainly not the "offered x, client declined, explained y, owner understands that z drug is not licensed for use in animals" that you have to write now to defend against potential litigation (waaay more common now).

In fact I can't even remember if the cascade system- whereby we are now legally obliged to use vet licensed drugs if one exists for the condition, instead of cheap human generics- even existed. (I was outraged when Libromide was licensed- licensing a simple salt so we couldn't use the generic KBr we had used for years! The price jumped from about 20p/tablet to £1/ tablet overnight).

We didn't have consent forms for GA and surgery. Pet insurance was practically non existent among our clients so no time needed to fill in forms. Taking bloods was a bit of an event- we had no lab machines in house so everything had to be sent out. Lots of the blood tests we have now didn't even exist then. Digital Xray systems didn't exist. We didn't even have an automatic developer for film: we had dip tanks, or rather, we fumbled in the dark with 3 cheap cat litter trays in a row with developer, water and fixer in them and a nurse leaning against the door to stop chinks of light getting in and calling the times. We didn't have drip pumps, you just counted drops and hoped the drip would keep running overnight if you'd kept anything in. Inpatients weren't routinely checked overnight; sometimes I'd pull a coat and wellies on over my pyjamas and walk up the street from my wee flat that came with the job (the other new grad was in the practice flat) to check something at about midnight. We had no way of monitoring blood glucose or (expensive) electrolytes or what have you anyway, so the likes of the ketoacidotic diabetics just had to take their chance, no pressure.

Skin cases- common then as now- were pretty straightforward: (cheap) pred or not? (Cheap) Chappie trial or not? Antibiotics or not? And that was it. (Expensive) cytopoint and apoquel didn't exist. (Expensive) hydrolysed protein diets didn't exist, or not in my world anyway. Convenia didn't exist. CLX wipes and chlorexyderm foam for feet didn't exist, you could just dispense a bit of cheap Hibiscrub in a brown bottle. (Expensive) Cortavance topical steroid spray didn't exist or hadn't filtered down to us yet. Malaseb existed, but not the plethora of other medicated shampoos. Medicated ear drops existed but were a lot cheaper than they are now. Osurnia didn't exist. Triz Nac didn't exist. Ear cleaners did but not the good range we have now, and they were cheaper. Referral for (expensive) intradermal testing and hyposensitisation vaccines did exist, but far away and nobody ever went for it.

Basically, clients didn't have to feel bad for not spending money, because the expensive options didn't even exist for the main part. Back then , you only had to discuss options C and D because A and B didn't exist. So less time spent talking, less client guilt, and therefore less guilt transferred onto us. A lot of clients considered a dog over the age of about 9 to be "old" and would be astonished to learn that it probably would survive a GA for dental extractions. We started off using thio when I worked there, but then got the new fangled propofol. Clients amazed that their dog could walk out the door after a spay instead of being carried out to the car. Like I said- less pressure in those days. Oh, and no Dr Google for the client to consult if they thought you hadn't diagnosed and treated their pet's rare condition optimally in the first consult, and no Facebook for them to complain to the world if they thought you were shite.

A trip to the vet with dd hammy cost 60ish pound. It did include medication.
poor thing still died a week later.

@tsmainsqueeze - thank you for all that you do 💐🐾

Can't believe people don't ask beforehand.

People like you, OP?

We don't really have any losses to re coup due to the endless supply of cockapoo's and frenchies that we have been seeing since lockdown.
Read up about POM products , we have no choice but to adhere to the law around these products .
Yet another vet bashing thread , thanks to all you lovely clients ,of which we see very many , who appreciate the work we do , we really do care about your beloved pet , we want to do the best for them because we know how much they are loved , we are human and we're as much of a pushover with our own pets.

True. I think because human health is predominantly pretty much conducted/diagnosed solely by blood testing (erroneously IMO that’s for another thread!) we assume they’re straightforward (& mainly on the NHS therefore) free - to us.

I use medichecks (& others) home blood testing. It’s much cheaper than going privately. You can ensure you get the full tests that are actually needed (like for Thyroid testing) rather than relying on the ones only allowed by the GP. Plus you physically get to see your results & get an explanation of what they mean.

Personally I love vets & wish human health could be as kind, compassionate & efficient as the way our animals are treated.

Google Westie Lung Disease OP, does that sound like your dog? That's what took my old Westie in the end, quite common in older Westies apparently.

Vet should have explained costs more clearly/got informed consent, but you do need to pay bill. No heartworm in UK due to rescues as it’s spread by mosquitoes not dog to dog

And on the point of “they’re trying to recoup costs after covid”, that’s just plain mean.

My vets did EVERYTHING possible to ensure that animals were seen and owners were reassured during the pandemic. They worked tirelessly to try to make sure that animals got the treatment they needed. Am fairly sure a few of the nurses were feeling pretty broken when some pets had to be PTS and owners couldn’t be with them.

My vets are thrilled that owners and pets are now seen together for consultations - and I will always be grateful for all they did to keep things running smoothly during the pandemic.

How the hell did you think they were going to dx anything without doing more than look at your dog?

Surely the point to ask 'and how much will that be' would have been when they said 'we'll need to do some blood tests'...

There will have been a gap between the comment and the bloods being drawn as no vet on the planet can draw blood in a nano second.

This is PRIVATE health care people - if you want it at your local veterinary surgery, with a vet who remembers your pet and treats them from the day you get them to the day they die, you pay.

If you want to drive all the vets to big chain brands where you will still pay, but it will be before the vet claps eyes on your animal and twice the price - do carry on bitching and moaning about the price of veterinary care.

There are a number of comments on here that have annoyed me, but am picking this one!

As others have said, there are detain medications that cannot be prescribed if your pet hadn’t been seen/examined by a vet for a certain amount of time.

And the various references to being money-grabbing etc really get my goat. Vets train longer than bloody doctors, they are there to help our beloved pets who can’t speak to say what’s wrong with them.

If you get a pet, get bloody insurance. It’s the most responsible thing you can do. Can’t believe the OP said if they’d known the cost then they wouldn’t have gone ahead with tests.

And, sorry, but how the fuck do you only take a dog to the vet 3 times in 13 years? What about worming/flea treatment, annual check-ups and immunisations?

This will probably get lost in a sea of comments, but for those with pets/considering pets - check with your vets if they offer a health plan (this is separate to insuring your pet with an insurance company).

My vets offer a plan at a monthly cost - this covers flea/worming/bi-annual checks and vaccines. It works out cheaper than paying for each treatment separately. It’s a win-win for both. The vets get a regular payment, the owner gets a discount and, most importantly, it usually ensures that the pet will receive continued good care - rather than feckless owners who quibble about cost rather than doing right by their pet.

Pisses me off some of the attitudes displayed. As an owner, you are responsible for the health and well-being of a sentient creature that can’t advocate nor seek treatment for itself. If you can’t/won’t step up to that responsibility then shame on (general) you.

The bloodwork pre castration is to check that they are fit enough to undergo anaesthesia without dying on the table due to an unknown illness or underlying condition.
This is gold standard care.
The operation can be done without but is riskier as they don't know about potential problems in advance.

*this is my basic understanding of the purpose as a non medically trained person.

I've just had a similar thing but on a smaller scale. Dogs went for their six month check up and I'm not allowed in because I don't wear a face muzzle.

I mentioned that one had slightly gunky eyes in the morning. I wasn't too worried as his eyes weren't sore and dog was unaware but I thought it was worth mentioning.

She came out with the last dog and promptly handed me a tube of eyedrops which already had the printed sticker on with mine and dogs name etc.

That will be £18.00 please she said. She handed me dog and cream and got the payment machine in a matter of seconds.

I paid it because my three dogs were restless and not used to being outside a busy parade of shops where the vet is situated.

Upon getting home eye drops were in a teeny tiny tube and only a weeks worth.

I googled it and the average price was around £8.

What a rip off to be charged £18!

I complained and they apologised and have now agreed to never dispense any medication without asking me if I want it or not.

Your vet should have told you the cost beforehand.

Castration is still done under full GA.
It's a five minute procedure, all being well, but full GA nevertheless, with all the risks of a full GA.

I asked the price of the castration and they told me. No mention of bloods. It will be interesting next week if they do offer and indeed, mention the cost.

I’m not a vet, but why would castration involve bloodwork? I can’t imagine ………. In any op things could go wrong and necessitate further intervention but castration, I imagine that risk would be exceedingly rare and any immediate supportive measures should Fido have some hypersensitivity reaction to anaesthetic for example would not involve bloodwork???

Goodness.
I would imagine OP meant the dog had only been with illness 3 times, not 3 times in its lifetime.

As for insurance. Once my westie hit 8 that rose to over £60 a month with a high excess and critically, condition limits of about £2k, despite him never seeing a vet for illness either (outside his yearly visits). We decided to put that money to one side rather than insurance and if we did need more we’d pay from savings. It was a gamble that more than paid off given he died at 14 when his heart gave out.

you can be a responsible pet owner and not have insurance. For an older animal some people just take different approaches.