To think vets charge too much **title edited by MNHQ on OP's request**

[Looobyloo]

I took my 10 yr old cat to the vets earlier for a check up as she has seemed a little lethargic. Vet examines her and says she has a little arthritis in her hip and needs these tablets, one a day. I ask how much, she says £9 a tablet! Everyday for the next, however long she lives. £63 a week!

She gives me a free sample and says if they work she'll give me a prescription So I can get them online. I checked online, 49p a tablet.

We don't have insurance as we've never been able to get her to the vets for injections etc as she's very stroppy (she attacked the vet today)

I know people say don't have an animal if you can't afford and we do have a private cat fund where we put £60 a month into. But even then £63 a week! I'd be torn if it was life and death as much as I hate to admit to it.

Are vets just taking the piss nowadays?

I was charged £25 for eye drops for a hamster that cost £7.22. Human eye drops cost less than that.

The cost definitely varies from practise to practise.

Our previous vet was a chain in a naice middle class market town. The bills and costs definitely reflected that.

Our current vet is mainly a farm vet that also treats domestic pets. The costs are probably half of what we used to pay for the same treatment. Our dog and cat have both been treated there and costs are minimal. My cat had three appointments for an eye infection - treatment included two lots of antibiotics, painkillers and a swab to check for infections. The total cost was less than £100 including appointment times.

Our old vet used to charge £35 per appointment - even if it was a follow-up, you still got charged.

Our current vet is much better imo - very down to earth and pretty old-school in their approach but my dog loves going in and I don't feel ripped off when I leave!

@Veterinari hear hear. Your eloquence in defence of our mutual profession is awesome as always. You have said everything I wanted to say far more coherently.

I am one of the ones who has left clinical practice because I got so sick of the 'robbing bastards' type sentiments and the damage it was doing to my mental health. I lost one of my best friends to suicide 4 years ago, the most loving, compassionate and intelligent woman I knew; I will never stop missing her.

I now have a job which pays a lot better, I work fewer hours, help a lot more animals in a different way and don't have to deal with any shitty owner's attitudes. Stress levels are massively reduced and I am no longer on anti-Ds.

Quite:

1. Yes vets are generally very keen to take as much of oyur money as possible, esp in small towns with not much competition.

1. This is your warm up to post-Brexit NHS.

People seemed to have become so used to having the NHS they have noooo idea that any form of brexit means the end of it.

I agree with the people who say if you can’t afford a pet don’t get one. I have seen plenty of people whose animals have suffered because they couldn’t pay for them. You often see articles about abused, starving horses owned by people. That is why the charities are bursting at the seams with unwanted animals.

Mind you plenty of people have children they can’t afford as well .....

Our vet quoted £750 for an operation for our dog. He was a bit of a wet lettuce.

We went elsewhere, £1500 for the same operation (almost £2000 when all said and done including blood test, xrays etc). But the vet seemed much more confident, had much more experience, and was much friendlier. He also specialised in small dogs and my (super nervous) small dog warmed to him really quickly.

We went for the expensive vet.

Yeah it's crap, but you do what you have to do. I'd rather him go to a vet I was comfortable with and I was sure would do a good job.

@shegrowshorns yes my horse vet seems to be the same asks what the insurance limit is then bills you for that amount

If you are looking for insurance for your other cat make sure you use a company your vet deals with directly rather than you having to pay up first my friends dog ate a football sock late one Sunday night it was a life or death situation her vet refused to operate unless she paid upfront despite proof she had insurance she didn’t have access to that kind of money bank wasn’t open to withdraw from a passbook savings account so she ended up taking him to the rspca who did the operation for a donation She then changed vets and insurance company

Veterinary care (under insurance) is like claiming for a damaged car. The cost of the actual care needed is not the same as the cost of the care recommended.

Pet insurance is a green light to charge for absolutely anything remotely related to the issue, as long as it's plausible, the insurance company gets billed.

This results in skewed figures when assessing the cost and benefits of having a policy.

For example, we had a 13 year old collie, never had any insurance for her. DH best friend is a Vet so gives "mates rates".

The Vet found a small lump just inside her anus during a check up. The Vet was quite open about the fact that if we had a policy he would have reccommended the following . .

Full CT scan £550
Biopsy under sedation £1250
Overnight stay £ 78

All charged to the insurance company.

What the Vet actually did was a regular X-ray, which didn't show up anything obvious, and a wait an see approach regarding the lump. It was gone when he did a follow up three weeks later.

So we actually paid less than £200, for what would have been an insurance claim of almost £1800.

@Spinnaret

I’m glad you’re in a better place now. Well done on taking constructive action to improve your situation. It’s incredibly hard to ‘walk away’ from a career that you love and that you’ve worked so hard for. I’m really glad you’ve moved on to something better.

Unfortunately your experience is fairly representative of us all. So many of us are struggling, so many of us have friends or colleagues that have been lost to suicide. And then we come here to a site that is supposed to be supportive, to sneering and name calling from posters like @Looobyloo and @user1493759849 and others, who have absolutely no idea of small business economics or veterinary salaries, and yet still expect us to be responsible for their pet-healthcare choices.

But they think it’s ok because ‘surely we’ve been called worse’
It honestly makes me despair.

And yes, most vets are robbing bastards. Don’t get me started. I avoid as much as I can and that includes their annual robbing bastard vaccinations (which also damage their health)

Recently published data from the PDSA, so a charity not private robbing bastards, shows a dramatic fall in the numbers of animals having even primary vaccination courses because of this sort of attitude. Like measles, the diseases pets are vaccinated against are still out there, waiting to come back. I am old enough to remember working in a vets when I was at school in 1981 and parvovirus was a new disease. I’d come to work on a Saturday and the ward would be full of dogs dying with bloody diarrhoea. Most vets do not vaccinate annually for most diseases any more, but if your vet is vaccinating according to WSAVA
protocols, which they should be, they are acting in accordance with the best scientific advice. The vaccination visit is also an annual health check, where all manner of problems can be picked up early. If someone chooses not to go along with that, that’s their choice, but again the allegation that we’re doing this for the money rather than because we think it benefits the animal is exactly the sort of thing which makes the job so damaging to people’s mental health.

This thread is depressing and really unpleasant. I'm really saddened by the number of people who seem to think that having a pet is a right - rather than a responsibility. If your pet is in pain, or unwell, or suffering, you have an ethical and moral obligation to seek treatment for them.

Yes, some vets charge over the odds. But most are doing a decent job and have their hands tied over the charges because they don't set them - and they certainly aren't making a personal profit out of them.

If you can't afford routine treatment like vaccinations then you need to have a serious think about whether you should have a pet in the first place, because if something horrible was to happen - like an accident - how on earth is it fair to leave an animal in pain and suffering because you can't pay the cost of their healthcare?

I admit I have a rather jaundiced view of people though, because I've spent the last 15 years volunteering for an independent dog rescue. The number of dogs that get handed in - or literally dumped at the gates - because they need treatment and the owner won't pay the cost, is heartbreaking. It's particularly galling when those people are sailing off in new cars, wearing designer labels and toting around brand new iPhones.

This thread is one of the most ignorant and inflammatory I've seen on MN....@Looobyloo you disgust me.

@Veterinari and sorry you and your fellow vets are being so vilified on here...you do a great job imo. Have reported the thread.

Mines the opposite, I took my dog in for his annual injections. She did a quick health check and mentioned that he was showing early signs of gum disease. She said she could supply us with a gel at £25, or we could go to our local supermarket and buy a the exact same product which was repackaged for humans, at a cost of £2.50.

She's a wonderful vet

I think 33T0getherindreams has it spot on. Vets charge what insurance will pay.

I moved vet recently as the one I was at previously would charge £35 even for a mid treatment check up. So my vet now will treat the animal and if it needs just a super quick check over a week later to make sure all is going ok then there is no charge, previous vet used to charge for a 2 min look at the animal.

I am very lucky to have a very nice canine practice for our elderly dog and a really nice and knowledgeable road vet from a local practice for my two horses. Also one of the nicest and best equine vets I have ever met at our equine hospital, however we can afford to pay for our precious pets, no expensive holidays, flash cars etc.

Great, another vet bashing thread.

While I do think my old vets were money grabbing (we rarely came out without Harry being shaved for a blood test and we were told he had things wrong that expensive tests proved he didn't) I understand why our new vet is expensive. They have a lovely modern practice and all the latest equipment which has to be paid for.

I want the best for my cat so I'm happy to pay for it.

My sisters dog cost about £9000. Luckily she has pet insurance. She said however much you put away it never covers the cost of these really big bills. I paid about £18-£30 a month for 10 years for a cat but only made 1 small claim.

The ‘vets make money by fleecing you with yearly vaccines’ do make me laugh.... we charge about £25 for a booster. Treatment for parvo, distemper, lepto or cat flu?.....hundreds or even thousands. Even put to sleep when you see a sick parvo puppy with no money walk in the door is £150 for consult fee, euthanasia and cremation. That’s in the same 15min time frame as a vaccine. Where are we making the money? It’s not the vaccinations!

I always shocks me what people don't 'get' about the overheads involved in running a vets practice. Rent and rates, utilities bills, wages(which are shit by the way) , constant ongoing training which is a legal requirement of the registration needed to practise for ALL staff, often staying open 24/7. The online pharmacy can buy in bulk AND do drop shipping straight from a supplier. It's really not that difficult to understand, yet unless you've worked in the industry, no one does.

@user1471542018 can I ask you a vet question and completely take this thread off on a tangent? Is it dangerous for small dogs to have the lepto 4 vaccine?

@ scwibble I disgust you? I haven't killed anyone. ok, my the title in hindsight wasn't very nice but blumming ek! I've said I was sorry. I've agreed I could have got it wrong, what more can I do/say?

Just checked insurance, £15 a month for my three yr old, not looking like I can insure my older one now.

AmIThough I am a vet with 4 small dogs, 2 weighing less than 4 kg, and they’ve all had the lepto 4 vaccine.

@Looobyloo You do have some valid points, but I think you should ask for the thread title to be altered. Maybe to 'AIBU to think that some vets charge too much?'

@Looobyloo You do have some valid points, but I think you should ask for the thread title to be altered. Maybe to 'AIBU to think that some vets charge too much?'

I can see both sides here.

On the one hand, some vets - not all - do charge the earth, and make a killing from peoples misfortune (ie, their animals needing medical treatment.)

On the other hand, I know some vets who are wonderful, and have reasonable prices.

EG, we used to use a big national vets. Don't want to name and shame, but it's a big countrywide one and is often situated inside a big well-know pet/pet supplies shop. We got our 2 cats inoculated every year for the first 5 or 6 years of their lives, and it was £150 for the two. And then around £40 on top for the flea drops and worming tablets. Insurance doesn't cover this as it's 'preventative care.'

Then we moved to a small market town vet as we moved to a little village. We registered the cats there, at the tiny, independent, market town vet, and I took them for their yearly inoculations several months later. They charged me £65 for the two. Less than HALF the 'big' vets charged me. Also, flea drops and worming tablets for the 2 cats... £19 instead of £40.

I was shocked, pleased, and angry at the same time. Pleased that the bill was much lower, but angry that we had been charged so much for those 5 or 6 years.

In addition, my friend's little spaniel was attacked by another dog when they were out for a walk in the woods, and this dog ripped off half of one of his big floppy ears. The man bolted and took his dog and did not help her at all. So she took her dog (bleeding profusely from the ear,) as quickly as she could to the vets, and he said 'I will have to operate and try to fix his ear,' and said she should come back in 2 hours.'

She went back and called the insurance company who said they would not pay as it was 'only cosmetic' and the dog was not ill or seriously injured!

So she went to pick the dog from the vet 2 hours later, and told him the insurance will not cover it, and he said 'ok then, I will cap the cost at £1500.'

For repairing the dog's ear, and with the dog at the vets for just 2 hours - he charged £1500.

And then they wonder why some vets get a bad name.

Although, as I said, they are not all bad, so it's a shame to tar them all with the same brush.

I also think the insurance companies have a lot to answer for. There is so much they won't cover. In addition to seemingly cosmetic stuff like my friend's dog's ear, they don't cover eye treatment (like removal of cataracts,) and dental and suchlike.

Also, when it comes to a long-term condition, (like if a cat or dog is diagnosed with diabetes or epilepsy,) and they need long term treatment that costs £70-100 a month or so, the insurance companies will cover it, but only for a limited amount of time, like 12 months, or 2 years maximum.