vet bill - aibu

[dailymale]

I have a small herd of guinea pigs, they are our beloved family pets.

We have a local vets which we've used for years without issue. Since Covid, you now drop pet at door and discuss with vet the issue, before they take pet and return, having admistered drugs or whatever, and present you with bill.

I took one of our pigs (pig 1) to the vet with what could be 2 things (A or B) - both contagious to rest of herd and need to be dealt with quickly. I asked specifically to check this. Pig 1 returned, vet didn't know, gave a cream which does not help either malady, paid £70 bill.

Returned 2 weeks later as the cream hadn't worked. Saw a different vet - again said, please check it's not A or B, given a treatment for A as they wern't sure which one it was. Fine. Paid £30 bill.

2 weeks after this, returned with all my guinea pigs, as they all now had symptoms of B. Saw original vet and said, I think it's B, please check. Vet returned, and had treated them all for A, said they also might have B but haven't treated it. The dose given to smallest (pig 1) sounded too high, so I asked for receipt. £120 bill.

The receipt didn't match what she'd told me, nor what each pig should have had, based on their weight. It was immediately obvious that the smallest guinea pig had been given double to the dose they should have, of a medicine that they can easily overdose on. The vet confirmed dose but said it was correct based on her weight - she'd checked, and brushed off my obvious concern.

When I got home, I looked up data sheet, sure enough, dose completely wrong for all of them - some too high, some not enough - the vet had given them all the same regardless of weight. Called vet who was super patronising, before checking and realising she had made a mistake, but they'd be fine, she was sure of it and I should just keep an eye on them, or wash it off if I was really worried...

I was completely furious, spent the next hour cleaning up little pig, then worried for next few days.

They are all fine. I've since gone online, bought the treatment for B and they are all looking much better.

The vet has called today chasing payment for the £120. I really don't want to pay!

1. The vet caused me a massive amount of stress. She also said she'd checked weights when clearly she hadn't.
2. The treatment they gave was incorrect for all the guinea pigs, not just the little one, and would have been ineffective for the largest ones.
3. The treatment given was not suitable for the issue I took them in for

AIBU?

One of my cats came time two years ago with an old eye injury that has never ever bothered her. Vet last year insisted it was still healing and had she had surgery on it etc etc. Wouldn't take it's old and not bothering her for answer and insisted on delaying vaccination to treat it. I duly gave the expensive drops. Which made absolutely no difference. Took her back and another vet asked if I'd noticed an improvement. Err no because it wasn't an issue in the first place. Arghhh!

My vets are very good usually but are mainly Spanish or Italian and it's made having consultations over the phone in the car park quote difficult.

This is the other issue - this vet is on a busy street and you have to shout over the traffic noise, with a mask, in front of people holding cats and dogs. It's ridiculous. A phone call pre, potentially during and after treatment would be far better.

If the vet has genuinely wrongly dosed the piggers and then had a patronising attitude, I would report this to the RCVS. This is what they are there for.

I wouldn't use the threat of this to get them to waive the bill as you will lose credibility and it would be morally wrong. I would write to them and tell them that you have reported the vet and you are not prepared to pay the bill and exactly why. I would be gobsmacked if you heard anything more from the RCVS either

@Popchips

Vets make a fair wage - and do they should! They’ve studied for years and the job is hard! However please don’t think vets are rolling in it! It’s the share holders and the business managers that the money is going to.

People think nothing of paying £90 for an emergency plumber but get angry at paying for a vet to examine their animal.

However the money goes to the people on top not the vets

(20 years experience working for a vet)

This is a ludicrous example, (as a few people have said.) You would only pay that £90 for the plumber, and then maybe 2 or 3 hundred on top - maximum. Because anything over and above that would be covered by house insurance.

And even if you HAVE pet insurance; unlike with home insurance, and car insurance; pet insurance doesn't always pay out (and even when it does, it doesn't pay much!)

So £200 or £300 for a plumber, compared to having to pay £10,000 of £13,000 vet bill, because they often have a cap of around £3000. There is no comparison!

Insurance companies (as I said earlier,) cap their payouts, so they end up often paying barely a QUARTER of the money out It's disgusting, and I don't know how they get away with it.

If you had a car accident and your £10,000 car was wrecked, or something happened to your house (like a truck drove into it and caused £20,000 worth of damage,) you'd never get the insurance company saying 'sorry, we're only paying £2,350 towards your car,' OR 'we're only paying £4,930 towards the £20,000 of damage to your house.

That would be scandalous, and quite possibly illegal. So how do they get away with it with pet insurance?

Also, when pets get to 8-9 years old, the insurance premium goes through the roof, making it unaffordable for many, and forcing them to cancel it. Because they know older cats have more health issues, and they don't want to be paying out.

But just in case people DO carry on with the pet insurance, they cap the payouts, so they're not too out of pocket.

@LadyWhistledownsQuill

40 years ago there was relatively little that could be done in many situations that are now treatable. We now have everything from chemo for dogs to Supervet type situations. 40 years ago those animals would simply have been put down, which is cheap.

Yeah, it's funny how they now offer chemo for dogs, and also cats ... And they also manage to offer a bloody whacking great vet bill to match it! My old neighbour was offered (it 2 years ago,) for her 15 year old dog.

A course of chemo treatment was offered, and the dog would have to stay at the place he was getting chemo, (for about 6 weeks,) as he would be radioactive.

She received a quote of £7,000.

She laughed and said 'I am a 47 year old single mother with four children, we are living in social housing, I am wearing Primark clothes, and I drive a 22 year old Vauxhall Corsa. Why would you imagine in your wildest dreams that I would have £7000 to pay out for my dog? I don't even have a credit card!'

She had to make the heartbreaking decision to have him put to sleep. He was 15, so was probably near the end of his life anyway to be fair ... If he was human, his equivalent age would have been early to mid 80s... It was actually disgusting that they were trying to push a vet bill of £7,000 on her, when the dog was pretty much at the end of his life!

If she had borrowed the money (via a loan for example, if the bank had LET her borrow so much,) she would have been paying it off for 6 years at over £100 a month!

Also, WTF is a 'supervet type situation?'

Supervet situations are things like paying Noel Fitzpatrick xMillion quid to fit your tarantula with three prosthetic legs, and a pair of prescription sunglasses...

He does the things other people don't do, for millions of quid. He also does the things other people DO do for far more than they do them for.. cos he's on telly and they aren't.

Does the fact I dislike the sweaty little twat show much?

@WiddlinDiddlin