To think out of hours vets fees are outrageous?!

[sensuallettuce]

Have arrived home from lunch to find cat in pain and passing blood.

Phoned PSDA out of hours line. It's £135 for a consultation BEFORE any treatment. It's normally £30 (so more than 4 times the normal cost!!) Snooty woman on phone informed me if I am on housing or council tax benefit I would be elegible for help but as I am not on any of those I need to pay the fee or not be seen, and the well being of my cat is my responsibility which I agree is true and I can normally afford the £30.

It's the end of the month and I don't have a spare £135 + in the bank so my cat will have to wait until tomorrow.

AIBU to think this inflated "out of hours" price is outrageous?!

How does the cat seem now sensual?

As a family with a menagerie we've known a few vets in our time and had our fair share of out of hours. No vet we've ever encountered expected a cash payment in hand for an emergency, at most proof of residence so they could invoice us. No point us paying upfront if treatment may take a few days (obs and antibiotics etc.) Say yes you can pay and get the cat seen too.

FFS she doesn't have the money in the bank, she doesn't have a credit card, and the vet won't see her cat unless she can produce the money.

Come on people, without a credit card I wouldn't be able to produce £135 right now, and DH has a bloody good job.

Sorry lettuce, it's shit when your animal is in pain and you can't help. Our local Companion Care vets has a fab OOH service, is there one near you that you can ring? Maybe they won't use the Vets Now service.

She doesn't have to provide the money now. Whether they say so or not.

RCVS is very clear. Emergency treatment is the vets first priority, money should be the last thing on their minds. If not they are professionally accountable an can be struck off.

My children are in bed as they have school tomorrow I am not going to storm down to the vets which is in the middle of town and kick off and start a war with them.

They have told me over the phone they won't see my cat, I will take her 1st thing in the morning, she has had this before, she isn't going o drop dead.

I am not a cruel pet owner I am being rational in my set of circumstances.

''I am not a cruel pet owner ''
Leaving a cat in pain is cruel. Whether it has had this problem before or not doesn't make the pain any less real for the poor animal.

You clearly aren't going to go to the vets tonight so why do you feel you have to justify what you are doing?

As Avocado is saying the RCVS are very clear all vets regardless of who they work for have a legal obligation to relieve pain and distress whether the owner can pay. If this practice is clearly refusing to see your cat as you can't pay you should report them to the RCVS and they should answer to them for this. The RCVS is aware that this is a problem and does write to remind vets of this all the time, but until a refused client makes a formal complaint they can't do anything about it.
So practices are more robust at trying to get payment at the time than others so it is worth phoning round.
My average out of hours fee inclusive of consult and treatment is £120 and unfortunately buy the time I cover all my costs with my staff, building etc I make not a single penny on this and I suspect if I did the maths often a loss. Out of hours services are expensive to run hence the high fees of exclusive out of hours providers.

But are the paying customers not subsidising the non paying?

Which makes them more "irresponsible" than I a being told I am. I can pay - tomorrow, I can't pay four times the usual amount today with treatment on top.

In my case no paying are not subsidising as unpaid debts like that ultimately get written off and put against the tax bill as we are allowed to do as a business. Though most get gradually paid off in bits over time. It is expensive though to have staff on call 24 hours a day 365 days a year.
My point is that you need to remind your out of hours vet of their legal obligation to see your cat regardless of whether you can pay tonight or not.

I find it shocking that anyone who takes care of animals for a living can sleep at night knowing some poor animal is in pain/discomfort because the owner can not afford to pay such massively inflated prices because the animal had the bad luck to be taken ill at the "wrong" time. I can understand doubling it to £60 at weekends/nights but pushing the price up over 4 times the normal price is disgusting.

Vets tend to use debt collectors so most is paid eventually and the senior vet will right off most others as, at the end of the day. An animal was treated and helped and its not the animals fault owners can't afford treatment. So the senior vet will absorb the cost.

Most vets would rather treat an animal and not be paid then know a animal is suffering and not have the chance to help.

I can't remember how often I have sat treating a sick animal all night, giving everything emotionally and physically to the animal knowing full well I'll never see a penny. I would do that for any animal in a heartbeat. What pains me is knowing there is animal that I could help but the owners won't seek treatment for.

sensuallettuce is not the cruel one, the vet who supposedly likes animals enough to heal them is cruel for refusing to treat a sick animal unless they get their overinflated fee

OP doesn't have the money, many people wouldn't have £135 lying around on the off chance their pet got sick at an inconvenient time. There doesn't seem to be much she can do about that so why make her feel worse?

Pet ownership is expensive. We all know that. Before anyone decides to get any sort of pet, they must surely spend time working out how to actually pay for it for the whole of its life.

Yes, out of hours fees are expensive, but they're not much more expensive than the call out fee for an emergency plumber, electrician or even Dyno Rod, just to get it into proportion.

This poor cat is very lucky it is something which can be put off until tomorrow. Had it been hit by a car or become very seriously ill, then what?

Afraid I'm another one who thinks it is very irresponsible not to have some way of paying for an animal health emergency.

My most recent vets bill was well over £135 for a regular week day appointment just for drugs, blood tests and the appointment. There's no guarantee it'll be more affordable tomorrow, I'm afraid.

My cat's insurance is £7.50 a month, for up to £2000 worth of emergency treatment.

OP it does sound like you're coming up with all sorts of reasons why you won't take your cat in - there's lots of excellent advice here on your rights to treatment, and so far you've said a) they won't let you pay in installments and b) you're not going down there at this time of night anyway. Sorry - it does sound like you just don't want to have to pay the high out of hours fees, regardless of whether the vets are morally wrong to charge them or not.

I wouldn't - just couldn't - go to bed tonight and leave my pet in pain all night. In future, in fact tomorrow, get your insurance sorted, pronto. It's very cheap and might at least motivate you to help your pet earlier next time, knowing you'll get the money back.

I've not much experience with vets for dogs as i've never been responsible for my dogs vets fees (I don't own them).

My vet for my horse only charged about £40 call out though! So for a cat that seems ridiculous, especially as you'd be travelling to them.

I could have a horse gelded for £120 and thats with the vet coming from 20 miles away.

Sory, Don't know why i said dogs, i meant cats lol! (I only had cats when i was younger so parents paid vets fees)

I don't think you can insure an animal once it's past a certain age and 11 year old cat - I'd be very surprised if it could be insured.

Not sure what OP can do really. Phone vet and tell them she is on her way but can't pay until tomorrow - they've already said they won't see her. I'd be making a complaint and taking up advice of others up thread - make a complaint against the company who refused to treat the cat and left it in pain.

Bit of a shitter really, OP obviously cares for her cat so lay off trying to make her out to be something she's not.

Oh and the first time my vet came out for my horse she didn't charge me - I didn't have the money there and then. I set up a direct debit for pay day with her.

*First time insurance - don't think you can get it insured with first time insurance. Obviously if your pet is insured prior to this it will be covered. Think pet insurance is a fairly recent thing isn't it? Ie last 5 ish years it's come to be the norm?

If a vet from Vets Now is refusing you treatment based on you not being able to pay the fee tonight, I'm pretty certain that Richard Dixon, their MD would be very interested.

Vets Now are notoriously poor debt chasers and are owed tens of thousands in unpaid bills.

Mr Dixon's primary concern is, and always has been, the welfare of the animals and i am pretty certain he would not be happy with someone in his employ refusing to treat a sick animal for whatever reason.

I suggest that OP should go to the surgery now with said poorly cat and possibly a print out of this thread. OP should also advise the refusing vet/surgery that first thing tmrw she will be penning a letter to Mr Dixon at Vets Now HQ, Penguin House, Castle Riggs, Dunfermline. You could always email him directly too, [email protected]

Direct him to this thread, I'm sure he would be interested in the content.

Fucking hell it would take an RTA to make me pay £135 !! For a condition which isn't life threatening, I would wait til Monday. £135 is taking the piss and they know it ! x OP is NOT cruel, she is being reasonable, the vets are being v v unreasonable !

OP I feel very sorry for you and your cat.

There was a programme on radio 4 about the issue of out of hours vets fees a few weeks back. The representative from Vets Now said that they never turn an animal away because the owner can't pay for treatment. However, a guest from a cat rescue organisation disagreed and gave loads of examples where they had refused to treat without upfront payment. Got the impression it's a bit of a scam and that there is lots of unethical behaviour going on in the industry.

On a personal note, my uninsured lab (not deliberately left uninsured - we just hadn't made a decision about which policy to go with) got hit by a car and needed high tech cutting edge surgery. That was 4 years ago. Three weeks Ago the wound started to break down and we had to get the metal plate on her bone removed. As it relates to a previous uninsured injury we had to pay for the treatment ourselves (though she is now insured). This brings the total cost of her treatment to over ...... £7000

We are not well off. We have no savings. Well we did. They're now in the dog's leg.

Lesson: get your pet insured. Or don't have a pet!

Babylon That's really interesting, useful to remember.

I do have sympathy for the OP, we also had to use Vets Now when our last dog was taken ill suddenly one evening and the cost was terrifying. Luckily we were able to pay, but if it had been on a different day it could have been very different.

I don't believe we were bad owners who hadn't planned ahead, just in a very awkward and unexpected position (long story)

£7000 .