AIBU VET BILL £5700

[bellewilson]

Long story apologies- We own a beautiful Exotic cat she is one year old. Perfectly healthy took for one year vaccinations and she had a bad reaction temp and loss of appetite and started getting wobbly on back legs after 6 days. Obviously back and forth to local vet but when became wobbly local vet suggested she was better off being assessed in local veterinary hospital. Take her there (have insurance with £4k limit was supposed to be their top of range superior plus policy) vet hospital assessed her and said we need to admit her for tests and suspected neurological FIP (cat coronavirus) sedated her and did X-ray and scans and biopsies of fluid found in chest and abdomen and blood tests. Only had her in for 24hours and bill was £3150 took a week to finally get results as positive for FIP carrier with low probability of infection which means with her ongoing symptoms they think she has neurological FIP. So as now 7 days later our cat has got more poorly not eating or drinking having to syringe feed/drink. Re-admitted to hospital and they agree to only do minimal care to keep her comfortable whilst antivirals drugs kick in (drip and appetite stimulation) and would cost max £280 a night admitted for 3 days and everyday checked with vet the bill and costs and how much left on insurance. Collected today to be told owe £5700 so £1700 over insurance. Was expecting £600 max but £1100 more than I was told on the phone several times is a joke. Ask for bill breakdown and it’s CF at its best and laughable they can actually get away with it… from working it out the initial £3150 they have charged approx £1400 just for sedation to do the X-ray £450 and ultrasound £680 plus extra for biopsy and tests plus nursing care and £450 consultation. I made it completely clear to them we couldn’t afford a large bill and they agreed all along to do a direct claim with our insurance company and get pre authorised payments from them through a portal. Turns out didn’t do that either so if insurance doesn’t pay we have to. What can we do. I have Googled and average cost for Anastasia for a cat is £300/400 in Uk so how can they charge 4x the average cost. AIBU? Any advice please so stressed.

The kindest thing is to prevent long drawn out misery. I hope I made the right decisions for my dogs and at the right time; I wish I could have had the same options for my late dmil, who would have much preferred a gradual medically induced sleep into forever.

Er of course vets can recommend PTS. It's definitely not "not allowed".

I have £4k lifetime cover for my two rescue girls with Petplan but reading this, I am beginning to wonder whether it's enough? I insured some of my cats years back with Petplan and found them to be good back then.

We are fortunate to have an amazing vet who doesn't charge an arm and a leg. There's been times I've asked, "are you sure?" when they've told me what my bill is! I totally credit them for keeping my old boy going to reach the age of 20. That cat so much wanted to live, right up until the end! He was dragging his back legs, doubly incontinent, had arthritis, bouts of vestibular disease, blind in one eye, diabetes, god love him but the spirit that cat had, was indomitable. He ate like a horse until the day before he died.

I'd never have given up on him, never, not unless he was in pain. He was seeing the vet weekly, and saw him 2 days before he died, and we had had the euthanasia conversation more than once. My boy got to decide when it was time.

Fortunately, people can choose to spend the money they earn in whatever way they wish. Do you think they are going to donate the money they spend on vet car on people starving, kids freezing etc!!!

You've gone mad lol!

What's worse is people spending thousands on cars or flights... Why is spending on a pet less worthy?

My vet summoned me to be present when my dog was PTS. Nobody could bear to drive. I was fine going to be with him in his final monents, I held him close against my body, and I felt him die, And blubbed all the way home. Of all our dogs, I loved him best and still miss him.

After many ,many years in this wonderful field this is my experience too and i couldn't agree more , thankfully i have never worked with a money grabbing vet either.
We can't win , most people have little idea of what our work really does entail , 'cosmetic tidying' on a deceased animal that the owner wants to see 7 days after being in the cold room being just one example !
We know how expensive our equipment , meds ,sundries ,overheads are , but most of all we know that the vast majority of us are kind ,compassionate, dedicated , work bloody hard for average pay and do the very best we can for your 'family member '
I'm off too .

She told me he wasnot going to recover, quite straightforwardly. Do you want to be here to see him out? I love my vet, she's not corporate.

I didn't say they can't recommend, of course they can. They can't make an owner pts though. That needs the owner to agree, and many are emotional and don't want to hear it at that time, hence discussions about other options.

Yeah it's difficult for a vet to recommend because you might want to pts to end suffering, or because you don't want to deal with the care of an old/sick pet or you don't think it's worth the money, or you just don't have the money. Vet can give you options and recommend but only you know what's right for you and your pet. And it may change as your circumstances change. Life isn't fixed.

I'm sure every vet has been called a murdering bastard a few times for even suggesting pts might be a option. I've seen relief on their faces when I haven't reacted badly to it.

The whole 'medicines are a rip off' thing...

Vets (well the ones I know personally) try to reduce the cost of routine stuff, but they do have to make money somewhere, they are not a charity.

When it comes to medication, they CANNOT hold the same stock as VetMedOnline or wherever, in fact they're not even subject to the same trading rules as such online huge pet pharmacies.

They can't even buy meds in from those places themselves.

They can't sell them to you anywhere near as cheaply as those places, and meds are something they can add a mark up to (like other sundry items) that have a relatively low cost price, even if its nowhere near as cheap as other sellers.

Those cheaper things would be the items everyone wants cheaper, spays, neuters, vaccinations, parasite treatments. Stuff they know before they get an animal that they will need yet will still piss and moan about the cost!

And then when you've had your cheaper routine stuff... off you trot to the huge megabiz to buy your cheap drugs and where does your vet make their profit from?

They sell up to a corporate giant, starting with their out of hours service, ending with the entire bloody practice... because it costs an absolute bastarding fortune to run a building, pay staff, have all the fancy tech in house (because you do not want to go to a referral vets 100 miles away that costs 500 quid to walk through the door do you?)...

And on top of what they're paid to do, people also want them to take in strays, save wildlife for free (but the meds and miscellaneous stuff and time is not free), check microchips, watch videos about 'is this a tick... no dear its a nipple'... (and many want them to do more, like deal with stolen pets, lie to customers and say they've euthanised a dog but really they've hidden it out back to take to a rescue...).

So glad I decided after a couple of years of Saturday Girling at my local vets, that veterinary work was NOT my future!

I don't think anyone is vet bashing. I think there is a suspicion that in some cases a whole raft of treatments, tests are being pushed on owners for profit. Our cat recently had blood and urine tests for a UTI requiring two visits. It cost a fortune. In the end the treatment was metacam and antibiotics, the same one she had had previously that had been extremely effective for the same issue. When I go to the GP with a UTI they are not doing tests on my kidney function etc. Not sure why my cat gets the VIP treatment - oh yes because they can charge us for it.

but you would complain if the vet kept prescribing metacam (and it seems in your cats case, antibiotics which are supposed to be prescribed carefully to reduce the contribution of veterinary prescribing to anti microbial resistance globally) for recurrent uti’s and your cat actually had undisclosed kidney disease, a resistant infection, crystals in the urine which can lead to a blocked urethra or a bladder stone, no?

As said above, vets are currently busy enough without doing unnecessary things, they advise what is the best thing to get your animal the most appropriate treatment. You can decline this and continue treating based on guesswork but a vet is not going to advise this as best standard care.

Or because cats are much smaller and much more liable to kidney issues due to breeding/eating and drinking things they shouldnt and an antibiotic can cause damage much more easily to smaller organs?

You say nobody's vet bashing then essentially say they're rip off merchants...

Oh and your GP would test your kidney function if you regularly needed antibiotics

But you've taken up the slot that another paying client then couldn't have? Should I not charge my clients to review a one page contract variation because it only took me six minutes, when I could have been doing another piece of (potentially more valuable) work?

It also depends on the age of the cat. As mine got older he needed bloods done more often before anything was done or he had medication prescribed

Our follow up consultations are £64 ish it’s about £2 difference from the initial consultation. Now the initial consultation can be anywhere from £10-30 mins.
One vet didn’t charge as literally lifted an ear flap- saw me in the car park and said I’ll just do it here- don’t go in they’ll charge you.

You can normally check the wound yourself. My dog had an op yesterday, told to look out for redness, swelling of the area. He has to go back in two weeks to have the stitches out.

Infections can develop really quickly, so surely your vet would need to check a wound daily /every other day and charge you each time on that basis. 🤷🏼‍♀️

“I don't think anyone is vet bashing. I think there is a suspicion that in some cases a whole raft of treatments, tests are being pushed on owners for profit.”

I think this is factually correct, isn’t it? That’s where they make the money and ask if you have insurance. If you say no, often treatments are scaled back.

There are vets on here, so can any of them confirm that they are under pressure to bring in revenue? depending on the practice. Must feel like a sales job if so.

Or... they ask if you're insured because if you aren't there is potentially no point exploring various diagnostic options as they'll cost too much and the client gets upset/angry.

I have two insured dogs and one, elderly, not insured.

Funnily enough, my vets care of all three (and all previous dogs) as been exemplary. My vet (both of them) are practical, honest, and up front about costs, I have never had an unexpected cost from them.

There are veterinary companies who are not transparent, not particularly 'honourable', of course there are, in every trade and industry and business on the planet there will be some who are rip off merchants and arseholes. But to suggest the entire profession is... is ridiculous, particularly when most pet owners have absolutely no idea of the actual finances involved in owning and running a vet practice.

Our cat was recently hit by a car. We took her to the local pet hospital and she waited in A&E for three days to get well enough to be sedated and have a scan so they could see what was wrong with her. It cost £3000 just to get her through those three days. A scan was going to cost another £1500 and that didn't include any further treatment. After three days she was still not up to it and there was no clear idea when she would be. I could see our vet bill running into 10s of thousands and we very reluctantly had to put her to sleep. It was a horrible, painful, expensive experience.

I'm so sorry @sweetgingercat. It sounds as though you did the right thing for your cat though. If there was no improvement in 3 days it would have been unkind to put her through more.

“Or... they ask if you're insured because if you aren't there is potentially no point exploring various diagnostic options as they'll cost too much and the client gets upset/angry.” Really? A vet would make that call? As to whether you can afford something or not. Isn’t that a bit rude? No one is suggesting the entire industry is corrupt, but it’s really not acceptable that some are, is it. Or do we just accept that there is corrupt greed in every enterprise. Perhaps we do.

In my case I don’t have insurance because I know I’m going to pay no matter what and can’t be bothered to enter claims, pay the excess or what have you. My Lab is 12.5, I really don’t see the point in insurance now. At the same time I don’t want him put through unnecessary procedures for dollar. Which is precisely why I left the previous practice I attended, along with a vet whose business it was before it was sold and its reputation sullied.

Transparency- if a vet recommends a course of treatment or whatever they should be able to justify it. If they can’t, that’s a problem.

Probably not no point but it helps the conversation if the vet can take an educated guess whether something will be covered. My horse is too old to be insured now and but has had several claims. And yes the conversation did used to cover whether he was insured. But also who with. Because some insurers they would bill direct and others they wouldn't. And once they knew what cover I had they could discuss whether there might be a quibble or whether pre- authorisation may be required.
I've had a 3am emergency pts to avoid suffering where the vet had already been with me for 5 hours trying to save my horse. Because she knew who I was insured with she was able to tell me there was unlikely to be a quibble over the payout so there was little risk in not waiting for morning to discuss with the insurance company. That knowledge was worth a lot emotionally.