To not pay the whole vet's bill

[Member869894]

Hello. Honest opinions please. I took my dog to the vet today as he has breathing difficulties. The vet listened to his heart and lungs, pronounced them fine and then said he'd do a couple of blood tests and call me with the results. The whole thing took15-20 minutes.
On leaving I was presented with a bill for £188!!!!! I said that I would pay for the consultation fee (£56) but that I hadn't been told that the blood tests would be extra or that they would be so expensive

I'm kicking myself I didn't ask more about if the cost of the blood tests and if they were included in the consultation as Iif I had known how much they cost I would have said no. Equally, I think I should have been very carefully advised of the cost before they went ahead. What do you think?

That’s pretty cheap for blood tests! My dog has run up £4.5k in diagnostic fees in the past 3 weeks. Vet fees are not cheap!

Oh that’s great - I’m so glad Zara is recovered so well 😀😀

It can be soul destroying. There’s only so much discount a vet can give ( we’d discount treatments regularly and still get shit on by the customer) and to see otherwise fit and happy pets not given the best we can because the owner thinks insurance is a con or they just refuse to pay for treatments is horrible. self insuring is all very well - but you need to be able to get your hands on 2k or so immediately because if something happens before you’ve saved up, then what? ( and that’s before a household emergency that might have a greater need for the money!)
every payment plan that a vet lets a client set up is money out of the practice - the staff still expect paying, the rates still need payment, buildings and equipment still need maintaining, wholesalers still expect payment - that installment client isn’t helping with any of the costs - but bills still need paying.

over and above all that though - to be told you don’t care about the animals because the owner ( who chose to have them!) doesn’t want to pay for treatment they need is horrible.

Vets make my blood boil. Their charges are astronomical and I've yet to meet one with any compassion or kindness. And they are usually wrong in my experience about diagnosis.

But you always ask what extra costs are involved with tests etc. Pay the bill and learn the lesson

@Trudij123 I could clearly see how much the whole staff cared, making a fuss of her and giving her big cheers when she came to show her walking after a few weeks, as well as being patient with my anxious phone calls on her surgery day! She's a lovely cat, really sweet natured. Not exactly the sharpest tool in the shed, but hey, we can't all be a rocket scientist. My other cat is a feline genius and slightly evil with it.

This. Anyone that buys these poor dogs is contributing to their appalling health problems. Adopt don't shop

"I’m not saying the vets are wrong but I’d be questioning that as ‘standard’ for straightforward surgeries that would be fairly short in duration. We don’t do it as standard for humans, including young kids if you want size comparisons 😝. It is necessary in some cases but not as a general rule, particularly for routine ops and where there is no indication investigations would be required for underlying conditions. Would be interesting to hear from any vets here on how animals may vary in this regard, wildly different physiological response to anaesthetics??"

Sometimes there is absolutely NO indication that there is anything wrong with an animal, and the owner opts for pre anaesthetic bloods and it shows underlying kidney and liver problems. This also happens in young apparently fit animals. So I suppose "you never know" is the answer.
It does happen.
There really isn't anything like a "routine" op. Complacency is a dangerous thing. I've had young fit animals in for routine ops die under induction of anaesthetic, and 15 year old dogs come through a dental with flying colours.
A GA is a GA regardless of how routine the op is. A hysterectomy is a routine op, but it is still huge abdominal surgery. We do it every day multiple times but people think "routine op" and it's easy to become a bit nonchalant about it.
Obviously longer anaesthetics like complicated dentals or orthopaedic repairs can take hours and the risk increases .

The bloods are an option. They are Gold Standard. If you can afford it, it's wise to have it done especially in higher risk groups.
The annoyance (on the vets side) comes from receiving abuse for simply offering the blood test. We never force anyone to have it; it's an option.
I'm not even going to respond to the comment above about vets having "no compassion or kindness...usually wrong about diagnosis". You have obviously never seen the staff in floods of tears about their patients, working for free, coming in outside of their paid shift to check on pets, taking animals home overnight, and much more. What a horrendous comment.
I'm glad I've left the profession. I miss the animals terribly,
Not so much the humans.

When I was a single mum I had four cats and even though we were not well off by anyone's standards I could afford treatment food, annual vaccinations and vets fees for all of them. Most of them lived to 19/20 without incident, just the odd tooth removal.
Now I'm on a good salary, my son has grown up and I own my own home but I cannot afford to have more than two cats because the cost of pet ownership is risen to almost unaffordable levels.
I HAVE to have them both insured because vet's costs are so massive and I always have a reserve of £1000 in savings to pay for items that are not covered.
I simply would not own a cat or dog without insurance now - I have friends without insurance who have spent £10,000 on saving their pets lives because they don't have insurance pretty much their whole life's savings.
Also its important to be proactive and ask before treatment starts how much each section costs because they often will not tell you, you will just be presented with a large bill.
I also shop around if I have to for example if a cat needs teeth removing which is not covered by my insurance, one vet quoted £1,500 and another £300 for the same treatment.

"as a cat lover the kitten one makes me wince particularly. A fracture ffs. Get it in the right position and a kitten will heal in no time."

Well there are fractures and fractures. The old adage of "cat fracture? put the two ends of the bone in the same room and it'll heal" ain't necessarily so, and isn't always humane either.
Not very displaced sacroiliac luxation in a cat that is moving pretty well? NSAIDs and cage rest, great. Displaced, unstable, painful sacroiliac with the poor article hobbling a couple of painful steps crouched low and then collapsing on its side vocalising? Um, no. Put a screw across it or euth it. Displaced, overriding, unstable, painful humeral or femoral fracture? Fix it, amputate it or euth it. Not fair to leave it. Can't cast it. In fact you'd be hard pushed to cast much in a cat (I've seen a distal radius casted in a cat, you might get lucky but this one wasn't, a couple of months and cast changes later the non union was still flopping all over the place, we sighed and amputated it).

I guess I wasn't sobbing my heart out in theatre yesterday euthanasing a 13 year old dog who I had known since his 1st vaccine as his cancer was too advanced for surgery to help and I know he is the best friend of a little boy with autism.

You sound like a wonderful vet

Hope your dog is better.Bless him they need walks at about 0500hrs in this weather,plenty of shade,fresh clean water etc.🐕🐶🐾🐾

Anyway!I'm sure you know that😀.

Consultation fee is just that.Any further investigations will always be extra.
You should pay up as you didn't ask the cost,didn't say no plus you need the results.

Hope you get it sorted.
Your dog is worth it.🌈

It makes my blood boil when people expect people to train tirelessly for years to develop skills and knowledge that only a tiny proportion of the public have purely out of the goodness of their heart... I'm sure vets DO care deeply on the whole and do their best. However they can't work for free. That's just not how life works. Pets are a lifestyle and financial choice. They're not a right. When it comes to keeping them healthy and happy the buck stops with you, the owner, nobody else. If you don't want that responsibility then don't get a pet, nobody is making you. It's not even like you can accidentally aquire a pet. You've 100% made the decision to take responsibility for that animal yourself.

@Ahurricaneofjacarandas Absolutely!

And not to be ripped off by the vet is always a bonus!

Are they a good vet? If so, pick your battles and take this as a learning experience.
Plus, having the blood tests rules out any further issues, and just like us, it's good to pick up on anything else going on early.

@Lonecatwithkitten ignore this post! I don’t think it’s at all representative of how people feel about vets.

My poor cat has just been diagnosed with cancer following removal of a lump in his mouth. It cost over £700 for his surgery and I paid extra for the pre-op bloods and post-op fluids. My vets looked after him beautifully and gave me the devastating news with compassion. I can’t imagine being a vet is easy at all, but I’m grateful we have you all to look after our furry friends!

YANBU- vets are ridiculous prices. Hope your dog is feeling better

It is concerning that you say you wouldn't have had the blood tests done if you had known what they cost. It is how they find out what is wrong in many cases and therefore what treatment is needed.

Paying for this type of thing when needed or having appropriate insurance is all part of being a pet owner.

I hope your dog is ok.

you are right. They should have told you the blood costs. My vet always does.

We don’t ask the cost because a) it’s irrelevant if our dog is ill and b) we have insurance.

They should have told you the price, but I am quite surprised you didn't know the consultation doesn't cover this. They have to pay the lab to do it. You can pay just the part of bill, but you probably end up on their black list, so they won't accommodate you for any emergencies etc.

Doubt very much you can pay part of the bill. Most vets are payment at the time of treatment. That privilege used to be common, but got abused by liars insisting they'd pay later and never in fact doing so.

The costs of running a veterinary practice are sky high. Is it ridiculous to charge to cover this and staff, insurance, training, equipment and medicines as an absolute minimum? You have no idea.

Sorry OP you requested a service from a professional..you got that service,,you pay for that service!

So knowing that, do you just not check the price?

@SmartCarDriver my vets always makes it clear what the cost is, they don't just assume that the customer is always aware of how high the price is.