To think that the vet chain that charges £1800 to keep your dog in overnight on a drip is ripping caring dog owners off?

[FizzAfterSix]

A week ago my poor little 8-year-old dog vomited a few times, refused to eat all day and that evening began emitting bloody diarrhoea. I called the nearest emergency vet in a panic (I thought he was haemorrhaging!) and asked if I should bring him in.

The vet took some details and told me it would cost £1.800 to keep him in overnight. I was all set to bring him in but when she took my details she discovered I was registered to the wrong surgery. I then called another emergency vet who was brilliant and explained that these symptoms were not an emergency and that I should call back in the morning which I duly did.

The diarrhoea and vomiting had stopped so the vet suggested that I syphon chicken broth into his mouth regularly and make sure he was drinking water.

2 days later he still wouldn’t eat so I took him to the emergency Medivets, who I had originally consulted on the phone, on Saturday morning. They took an x-ray (which didn’t show up anything) and prescribed some antibiotics. They charged £450.

It’s 3 days later. My dog hasn’t eaten for a week now and is subsisting on chicken broth and a digestive probiotic support gel I am squirting into his mouth once a day. He's drinking water.

The vets don’t have anything else to offer me. I’m worried that they have fobbed me off with antibiotics which aren’t doing anything and which maybe supressing my dog’s appetite. How can it be reasonable to charge £1,800 (one thousand 800 pounds) for an overnight stay, especially in these awful times with so many people suffering financial meltdown?

I’m so depressed that small local vets have been taken over by these horrible greedy amorphous chains who care more about the bottom line than animals they are treating. Has pet insurance given them license to overcharge? And more pressingly, how can I tempt my dog to eat?

Just out of interest, what breed is your dog?

Interestingly, the Queen and the royal family are avid users of homeopathy and it hasn’t done them any harm

Didn't stop them catching Coronavirus, though.

Being in comfortable accommodation with access to the best conventional treatment money can buy (and be offered free, as nobody working for the NHS was ever going to say Charlie couldn't have had a ventilator because of his age if he'd needed one), pollution free air and the best food in the world prepared for them for every meal probably has more bearing on their health than the sugar pills they take.

I would have thought that chicken broth would be a common sense response to any ailing carnivore that could be dehydrated/with vomiting or diarrhoea - the usual response is 'chicken and rice' for dogs and 'chicken in broth' for cats, for example - it seems strange that anybody would be surprised that is suggested for an animal that can't be physically seen.

Having said that, yes, it is a phenomenal amount of money to charge - but they wouldn't just stick him on a drip and shove him in a cage overnight to have a look at him in the morning, they would have needed to assess him in case he needed emergency surgery and prep accordingly.

Oh well if such giants of intellect like Prince Charles with his six O levels, supports homeopathy who I am to say otherwise.

The fact that you were willing to pay a fee for a vet to tell you to feed your dog chicken soup and found this to be good value for money, kind of says it all.

@Booboostwo
How do you know what I paid this vet? Besides, she didn't just advise me to feed my dog chicken soup, we had a consultation which included advice about my other dogs. If you'd bother to read my posts you would see this.

My health choices are absolutely none of your business. As for your patronising contempt for the beliefs of those without hordes of O levels, words fail me. Plenty of people have extremely successful lives without a conventionally `successful' early education. You don't mention the Queen, but I doubt she got the required number of O levels in your book to make decisions about her own healthcare either.

I'm really not sure what the purpose of all your responses to my post are. I am hardly likely to change the beliefs I've upheld all my life because one narrow minded, frothing random on an internet forum tells me I'm wrong.

I don’t know how homeopathy can be classed as a “discipline”.

Homeopathy doesn't do any harm in itself because it's just sugar, water and woo (and a healthy dose of coincidence).
It can do good through the placebo effect, and the wider (holistic?) advice bolstering the actual 'treatment'.
When homeopathy does do harm is when it is taken instead of, or potentially delays, the individual concerned accessing proper medical help. Which doesn't seem to be the case here.

@FizzAfterSix
Then why leave your dog a week with clinical signs before revisiting?

You're the one who said without someone telling you to give broth you don't think your dog would be alive after a week, which implies you'd have sat at home and watched him starve.
You'd have been better off seeking veterinary advice earlier.
Also chicken broth isn't homeopathy

I'm really not sure what the purpose of all your responses to my post are. I am hardly likely to change the beliefs I've upheld all my life because one narrow minded, frothing random on an internet forum tells me I'm wrong.

Except it's many rational evidence-based posters and no one here is frothing except you.

Why post for opinions if you have no intention of listening to them?

You seem quite happy to slag off a vet who gave you a broad estimate for treatment you did not even take, then sit and watch your dog eat basically nothing for a week on the advice of a homeopath who you paid.

It's good that you did eventually seek proper conventional therapy but
It's hardly surprising that posters may be questioning your financial priorities

If it's narrow minded to not believe that water has magical memory then I am proud to say my brain is narrower than the head of a pin. In fact it's so narrow even magical water could not get through. It's bigly narrow.

What I want to know is why some practises get away with charging triple what others' do for exactly the same procedure

One reason vets quote a high fee upfront to random callers is because a responsible owner would have called their own vet, who would be local enough to see in an emergency. They don't want the expense and hassle of dealing with people who often turn out to be non payers.

This is a very upsetting OP. Thats a potentially serious set of symptoms that could have been one of a number of serious problems including injury, poisoning or illness; and quite frankly, well informed owners don't have to be told to make sure their sick pet gets enough fluids.

One reason vets quote a high fee upfront to random callers is because a responsible owner would have called their own vet, who would be local enough to see in an emergency. They don't want the expense and hassle of dealing with people who often turn out to be non payers.

I'm not referring to people who ring on the off-chance. I'm referring to cases where say, Jane is registered at surgery A and John is registered at surgery B, and both their cats are booked in for the same operation. They're roughly the same size and age and both surgeries go without a hitch. But, Jane is charged £100 whereas John is charged £300.

How can surgery B defend charging triple the price of surgery A for the exact same procedure?

There's so many variables in why different practices charge different amounts.

1. Overheads could be different. I'm sure its more expensive to run a clinic in London that it is say, a small local village.
2. Some practices will factor in the 'gold standard' costs. So they will, AS STANDARD include pre anaesthetic blood screens, IV fluids, use of monitoring equipment like ECGs/ multi parameter monitoring etc. Use of temperature stabilising equipment during the procedure. Whereas some practices (my own included) do not factor in these costs in the basic estimate and are asked at admit for example, if they would like pre-anaesthetic blood screening or not. That's why it is so important to get a price breakdown of what is and is not included in the final price.

So while it may look like 'exactly the same' procedure to an uniformed person, it could be that animal B received 'gold standard' care with a lot of extras, and animal A got a basic procedure with no IV fluids or blood work ups etc. But all the owner cares about is that their bill was for a cat spay for example, and Mr Smith down the road was charged half the price for his 'cat spay'.

Our practice always provides an estimate for any work done and phones clients if we discover anything additional needing done whilst the pet is under anaesthetic. The estimate could be from £300-£500 for example but should never go much above the upper estimate.

@NameChangedForThisOne7 thank you - that's actually really helpful!

@Veterinari:
Firstly, if you had read my posts you would know that I consulted 2 emergency vets late at night as soon as I noticed the bloody diarrhoea. The first one (Medivet) suggested putting the dog on a drip at a cost of £1.800; the second one said this was not necessary and to ring the practice in the morning, which I duly did.

They advised keeping an eye on things but proposed no further treatment at that stage. I rang the holistic/homeopathic vet for a third opinion. She suggested the chicken broth.

A few days later, not noticing any improvement, I went back to the emergency vet (as it was a Saturday). They prescribed antibiotics (which didn’t work) and did an x-ray.

When the antibiotics didn’t work, I consulted my local vet again. He said the first antibiotics weren’t working so took dog off them and prescribed ones which showed immediate improvement.

Consulting the holistic vet did not delay conventional’ treatment. I have no idea why you keep suggesting this. I am a responsible and loving dog owner and use conventional and natural’ treatments for my animals as necessary. I take my information from trusted professionals not random, frothing, over-invested hysterics on internet forums.

You write “It's hardly surprising that posters may be questioning your financial priorities”. Nobody has questioned my financial priorities except you. As I have already spent something in the region of 1k to treat my dog, (2 x-rays, 2 rounds of antibiotics, consultations and supplements) and given that every subsequent vet insisted that my dog didn’t need a drip, I will dismiss this point, along with all the others you have attempted to make.

At the current time, homeopathy is perfectly legal. If you wish to make it illegal, you must take this up with the relevant authorities.

Meanwhile, I and thousands of others, will continue to use it as and when, we so choose.

All our vets near by are owned by Medivet now.... so frustrating as you have no choice but to pay the hugely inflated costs.

Glad your Dog is on the mend

Sadly it's the way of things that most practices are being bought up by large corporate chains. My own practice included after 40 odd years of being independently owned.
In fact, you might be surprised to know that your own practice very well may be part of a corporate. We are told not to rebrand or make it public knowledge because they think it will lose them clients. I personally don't agree with this as I think clients have the right to know who they are doing business with. Most of our clients still don't know we are now part of a corporate chain, as no announcement was ever made and all of our branding/signs etc remain the same.
I feel very sorry for those who wish to remain independent because it will become increasingly hard for them to do business when against the big corporates who have buying power and can afford more up to date equipment etc. It's almost impossible for a new vet grad to start their own practice or become a partner these days.

Hi @toothlesspete and @NameChangedForThisOne7
I agree, it's such a shame that this huge corporate is taking over all the small practices; it must be very sad for small independents who can't compete.
The trouble is, I really like my local vet but only just found out that they are owned by the dreaded medivet.

But how do they do it?

Surely it's against competition laws or something? ( FYI I have no knowledge of competition laws lol)