To be shocked at how high vet bills are

[Cherrybloss22]

So obviously I’m paying them as id do anything for my cat.... but approx £1000 for 2 days treatment for pancreatitis She had to stay in overnight and have Sedation for blood tests etc
Didn’t get her insured as I thought that insurance doesn’t always pay out Anyway if it’s the cat, I’ll always find a way to manage Guess it’s a lesson to get insurance when you get a pet ....

This is why l have pet insurance (Petplan). My rabbits have been hospitalised a few times, and the bills were always between £600-£800. Thankfully my vet and insurance company are good - they let me pay the excess up front and then the insurance company reimburse the vet directly.
lt's getting more expensive as the eldest bun is now 8, so her excess has gone up, but it's still a fraction of what her being in hospital for a few days would cost.
Our vets are fantastic. 'Our' vet (who we see all the time so they get used to him for vaccinations and nail clips, etc) has saved me a fortune as our newest bunny has a respiratory problem. The first two times l rushed him to the vets, til our vet said "don't worry about it. lt's like you having a cold, you don't need to bring him in unless you're really concerned." And he was right. Every time bunny's been snuffly or sneezing since, l've just kept an eye on him and he's fine within a couple of hours.
The veterinary surgery we use has about eight branches, including a hospital. lt must cost a fortune in receptionists, nurses, vets, overheads, etc. l agree with the previous poster who said that with the NHS, we don't appreciate how much these things cost til we have to pay it in vet bills.

I'm in another country (Western Europe) and I've recently had to pay out for quite a bit of vet treatment. I'm shocked at how much people have been billed in the UK.
I paid €30 (so about 26GBP) for X-ray. Ultra-sound cost €100.
Dental operation - under anaesthetic plus removal of two teeth and full scale and polish - €150.
Spaying €100
Emergency call out to vet at 1 am, plus cat overnight in practice including infusions, x-ray and antibiotics - €170.

There have been various other costs along the way - but nothing too extortionate.
Treatment for eye infection (including examination) €36
Antibiotics €10 a shot.

But I am in a country where pet insurance hasn't got a hold. People would never dream of taking out pet insurance here - in fact I can't think of an insurance company that offers it. must google.

Our numpty cat got a blade of grass stuck up his nose
Had to be operated on to get it out. If we hadn't had insurance it would have cost us £1600. As we did, it was only a £60 excess.

LOTS of professionals spend years training and have to be clever. I think the costs are extortionate in many practices.

We have PetPlan covered for life. Our old cat had hyperthyroidism, renal failure, hypertension and cancer in the end. PetPlan paid out every time, without fail, without delay.

If you go private for an Xray it's £60 for a human. You're in and out.

For my dog it was £290. That included sedation, airway management and maintaining homeostasis of a high risk dog, then 5 hours of monitoring post x-ray.

I don't think that's unreasonable at all.

Insurance is a gamble. I've had 3 cats and a dog in the past 18 years and not insured them. So far had an unfortunate incident with one cat that was over £1k in vet bills but just routine stuff for others. Is have paid out far more than that in premiums. I prefer to risk it and like you I'd take a loan out if I ever needed to. Would rather pay that back than potentially pay out for nothing.

I did have a bit of a shock when I got a bill for £200 for spaying two cats recently, but I reasoned I am paying for their experience and the after care.

I pay for Petplan insurance and a pet health club as well so it does mount up. But I did once have a cat with a rare condition where one operation alone cost £1,500 and he wasn’t insured, so I have always got it after just in case. You do wince though at the desk

I had a friend who was head of the Xray dep at one of the NHS hospitals here. She used to xray her dog at work instead of at the vets and saved herself hundreds of pounds.

We have never taken out pet insurance because it's always a gamble. However, we have always made sure we have a fund should it be needed. Many friends have found their pets aren't covered by insurance as the animals get older.
But vets charges here in the UK are astronomical.

We care for some cats in Spain and the vets bills there are peanuts in comparison!

I've had insurance on my cat since I got her plus a kind of health care plan with her vet so she gets health checks and flea and worming etc, if I take her in for any reason they won't charge unless it's an insurance job.

Only bummer is the last time she got checked they said she had a grade 3 heart murmer. I can use insurance to investigate properly but vet said its basically pointless and any treatment she might get doesn't really work, so I haven't bothered but if I wanted to change insurance provider it will put the cost up. still rather have the insurance though.

boysey

Lmao that's hilarious! I'm wondering how on earth she did it or was it before the days of the electronic pad things that are programmed to a specific patient? (Sorry radiographers I have no idea what they're called, maybe modules?)

Our horses are insured, the dog is not. Frankly I don not understand why the cost of treatment is far cheaper for the equines (and the vet comes out to the horse) than it is for dogs.
I'm also not impressed that the first question is 'Are you insured' I always say no I don't think so regardless as I'd rather hear the necessities than the possibilities.
We were somewhat annoyed that when our dog (middle aged rescue) was lame hind offside the vet wanted to do xrays (which as I understand do NOT show tendons or ligament damage) and diagnosed off the xray that the ACL was damaged. I agreed to the xray to rule out hip issues, and also the fact while sedated for that could have her teeth done (she is not kind to the vets!) as they needed doing. We were then quoted several thousand for repair surgery.
Strangely enough (or not!) the manipulation for the xray combined with several days rest of not playing ball and not going for walks meant she came sound in a matter of a week or so.
I still fail to understand how the vet could diagnose ACL damage from an xray though.(Vet didn't know what I knew, and suspected dog might be insured).
Dog is still sound 2 years later. Cost of xrays was about £500, for the equine vet it was about half that and they brought a portable machine out rather than me take the horse to them, so far more convenient.

I'm going to carry on with 3rd party insurance (essential IMO) with Dogs Trust annual membership for £25/year.

The total bill came to £900 and I had no insurance. The next day she started eating normally again!

My bloody cat always does this! The last time he hadn't eaten a mouthful for 5 days, went in, had a small fortune worth of tests (which were all clear) and he came home and gobbled up a whole tin within two minutes of getting in the front door I swear he does it on purpose too, he always gives smug glances while he's eating his 'recovery' meal. If there is such a thing as Feline Munchausen syndrome then he definitely has it

Veterinary care is very expensive and I think many people don't factor that in when getting a pet. A neighbour of mine buys statement dogs for up to £1k (latest was a rare type of husky) and then brags that she goes to the PDSA and gets vet treatment for free. They apparently now have a 'one pet only' rule and she thinks this is a breach of her human rights.

It’s expensive because 20% VAT is added to every bill (I’m amazed nobody has mentioned this so far).

I find it distasteful that VAT is not charged on Jaffa Cakes (a basic necessity?!) yet pain medication and treatment for an injured animal is subject to this tax.

Unfortunately as people have said above the NHS makes people very unaware of the cost of treatment for any animal, including humans.

I have a horse who often needs treatment, he goes to an equine hospital. The costs of running such an operation are huge, 100 staff, top of the range equipment that costs £100,000 of thousands, drugs that cost £loads, let alone the rates, taxes, premises etc. The upside is many of the staff are better trained and more knowledgeable than in the NHS and your horse is able to have MRI scans etc without the long wait in many areas of the country.

Insurance is a good idea, but like human private insurance they can exclude areas of the body after one claim.

The realities are that medical treatment of is extremely expensive, a fact which the NHS shields us from, and that veterinary practices are businesses, not charities.

The veterinary profession, and in particular the small animal branch of the profession, has become increasingly corporate in recent years. Independent practices all over the country are being hoovered up by corporations backed by private equity funding. They are in a race for scale and market share and are competing to become the Tesco of veterinary medicine.

The business model of the corporates is to compete hard on price for routine work, eg vaccinations & neutering, then make profits on the rest. Thy push insurance hard, and they work on the assumption is that the animal is insured. It’s big business, and the era of the small independent local vet is ending.

Prequelle It was about 15 years ago now, the dog was a big one I think it was a Lurcher/Deerhound type. It had its Xray before the patients clinic opened, its wasn't queueing up in the line.

I didn't expect it to be boysey I was just genuinely interested in the logistics. Don't think you can get away with that stuff nowadays, a shame!

18 months ago I had a 1.8k bill for three rounds of blood tests on 4 horses..... So a total of 12 blood tests.
I don't begrudge paying it but what I do begrudge is the extortionate mark up that vets put on drugs, a probiotic for my dog costs me £9 on viovet, the vets charge £36 for the same thing.

We cant compare with human treatments thaks to NHS but think how much a car repair costs or using a solicitor or barrister. These are professional people who we pay for their services. I do have money stached for vet needs which I think works well for vet bills. And yes they stay sensible when they hear you have no insurance.

Reading this post has made me think about either getting pet insurance for my 4 cats and the dog or just putting money aside for them all because it would be extremely pricy to insure them all especially if I never ever needed to use it.

People who save rather than taking out insurance; could you get your haves on£5000 in a couple of days if you needed too. Vets will want payment up front.

Yes the payment up front thing is something my equine vet doesn't do. They are just generally far more sensible and reasonable.

Spending 5k on a cat is mad imo

Just because we can doesn't mean we should. The supervet for example. Some of those animals would be better off being pts than being wheeled around on trolleys with metal implants. I hate it.

I have great respect for vets but I do think they overtreat and overcharge sometimes. It's like an insight into the horrors of private medicine (thank god for the NHS). One practice I was with when I lived in London ran huge banks of blood tests on healthy animals as a routine - a check up cost hundreds. My cat actually ended up getting so stressed by going in that he ended up actually ill as a direct result.

I have found that it is a lot better if you don't act embarrassed, but raise the cost issue and the issue of over-intervention directly. I have excellent vets and they are really honest when I ask "What would you do if this was your cat and you were in my shoes".