To not pay the whole vet's bill

Its actually an rcvs requirement that vets can't prescribe if they haven't seen the dig within the last six months. During covid, this was modified so that phone consultation or video call could be accepted at the vets discretion.

Our vet will do a treatment plan and review costs before surgery, dental work, etc. but not for something like blood work. It's a routine investigation. The practice has to pay for the lab work, it's not free to them.

Insurance doesn’t usually cover consultations and blood tests, and often the excess is at least a couple of hundred

Mine does and the excess is £70 (PetPlan). Not the cheapest but can't fault them, paid my vet nearly 4K directly when my cat dislocated her ankle in a way that needed a plate in. Very fixable, and very expensive. She's completely fine now.

POMV drug are licensed to be dispensed for pets “under the care of a veterinary surgeon”. For flea and worming treatment this is a maximum of 12 months. Vets are bound by the conditions of the license and so a check up is required.
Your other option is to buy cheaper medications over the counter at somewhere like a pet shop but these tend to be products which have been available for a long time and so may not be as effective.
Approximate profit on a vets bill once you have taken into account staffing costs , insurances , buildings and equipment etc is around 10%.

You have obviously not been to the vets in a while!

My kitty went when she was off her food for 3-4 days last year. Spent 25 minutes in there having a blood test, and a bit of a general check over, and was injected with rehydrating fluids and a steroid. Cost £200.

Sorry @Member869894 YABU.

My dog goes once a year for his vaccinations but has never been otherwise (6 years and counting)

Of course they can, but they're still the ones providing the prescription so they need to make sure your dog is fit and healthy before prescribing..

Do you not have insurance to cover things like blood tests if necessary?

i weighed her at the vets
and they can write the prescription and charge you for it
so you can buy online medication

i hope my ddog doesnt also need blood tests as I can't afford it.

You need to pay.

Do you not have insurance? I have a 150 quid excess on mine but it's invaluable.

Out of interest, at what point would you say, newp, not paying it and your animal not getting treatement?

i think you were unreasnable to consider no getting the tests for your dog

I think Yanbu because I recently had blood tests for my cat and the first thing the vet said was 'I need to give you a quote.', but I do think you would have been unreasonable not to pay.

This is just daft
Of course YABVVVVVU

You have a 13 yr old dog that only been to the vet three times, that screams neglect as no health checks or vaccines or routine effective parasite prevention been happening .

What on earth would make you think bloods would be included in the consultation, it's like going to the dentist and they say you need a filling, would you expect that to be included in the check up price? Or taking car for an mot and it needs a new tyre. Can't think of a single situation where you would get an extra service that valuable for free.

All you had to do was ask? V simple
" how much extra will that be please "
Absolutely no reason why you couldn't do that.

Pay the bill or expect debt collectors and finding a new vet

I think in some instances, vets do indeed take liberties, take my ginger cat, 18 this year, now suffering with arthritis, so is now on a low daily dose of Metacam, even with cost of a prescription -£14.00 added in, I can get the same thing for £16.00 cheaper on line, than at the vets.
Metacam is a very common prescription medicine, they must make a bomb out of it.
That's just my vets, some vets charge up to 25. for the prescription alone.

Having said that, I do expect to pay for blood tests, although my vet has a lab on site.
If you didn't want to pay, why didn't you say you don't want them to carry the test out?

If you want to continue with them as your vet then they need to do a health check and weigh your dog before prescribing anything.

Yabu too

I always ask during consultation so that I can keep track and know what it's going to cost. They always provide it when asked.

Do dogs not have yearly check ups like cats? Mine is almost 20 and she's has yearly immunisation, weight, heart check ect. Bloods now she's an old girl and has just started a renal diet.

I understand you've not been for ages but you didn't just have a consultation, as there were tests required, so you didn't just get billed for a consultation. If medication was required you'd have been expected to pay for that too in addition to the consultation. I get the frustration, but it's a bit odd that you would expect not to pay for tests.

Definitely unreasonable. My dog lost the end of her tail. Cost me more than that for consultation antibiotics and painkillers nevermind a bloody drug test. She had several flow ups at £28 for about a 5 minute visit. My fault for lack of insurance so I sucked it up! They don't work for bloody free so pay up. I lived off beans for 2 months after paying but my dog was worth more to me.

It's bloody obvious that an additional service is going to cost more though... if you went to the hairdressers and they asked if you'd like your hair cut or blowdried after your colour, would you expect it for free if they didn't explicitly state 'but that will be an extra £20'?! The mind boggles.

Insurance generally has an excess to pay, mine is £250 for a cat with Petplan so one consultation and blood test wouldn't be covered unless it was part of ongoing treatment.

Did the vet explain exactly why the blood tests were needed? I expect at the point of payment they could have just destroyed the blood and not tested since it would normally go to a lab.

YABU, I'm sorry.

You received a service, you need to pay for said service. In future ask the cost before agreeing to tests.

I'm glad your dog is ok.

Our vets are brilliant about telling us what things costs before we start spending money (it's a chain, Vets for Pets) and I really appreciated not having a horrible surprise at the till. I would either move or ask for costs at the outset. YANBU

But it’s obvious that these costs would be extra, the vet is a medical professional, not a sales man. It’s not the vets fault you’ve been so incredibly lucky and only had to visit them 3 times in 13 years of your pets life and so haven’t worked out the system. Unbelievable that you would then begrudge paying £188, in the context of time and how much your pet must mean to you it’s not a lot is it. I hope your dog recovers quickly OP.