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.

No cat or dog is worth that amount of money being spent on them.
Most people don't even walk their own dogs nowadays...
Owners wonder why cats go missing. IT'S IN THEIR NATURE to wander, fgs. 🙄

with respect you are missing the point☝👀
It's not about the dogs and the cats it's about the vet's new car, next holiday etc. The dogs, cats et al are just a mechanism via which the veterinary staff acquire the things which they covet.

Like food, clothes and a roof over their heads

I work in a vets (minimum wage) and I agree that fees are expensive. It is the 'higher ups' who set the prices though - the ones who don't have to deal with the clients.
The client facing staff like the vets, registered vet nurses, VCAs and receptionists are the ones who take all the flack and sometimes abuse.
Vets are also have the highest suicide rate because of this, their hands are often tied due to costs and animals are put to sleep because owners can't or won't pay. Then the owners lash out and blame the vets for being greedy. It's not the vets ,it's management, the directors, the higher ups.

No cat or dog is worth that amount of money being spent on them.

In your opinion. I wouldn't have hesitated to spend that on my cat and he was worth every penny of what was spent on him.

I honestly don’t think a 4k lifetime allowance is enough. You should shop around for a plan that renews the claim maximum each year. As an example five years ago my cat was diagnosed with Lymphoma. If I hadn’t had pet insurance he would have been doomed. 18 months of treatment included blood tests, ultrasound scans, chemotherapy, antibiotics, regular monthly consultations, two small surgeries, and a couple of overnight stays. The fees came to around £16000 in all. I have pet insurance via ManyPets and the maximum yearly claim amount is £12,000, which resets each time the policy is renewed.

And putting a beloved pet to sleep when there’s an alternative will fix all that won’t it ?

👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻Finally. At last.

I know this to be true from the vet I know, who has walked away from the profession she loves because of corporate GREED. It’s about time something was done about it. It’s theft. The ones setting prices should feel the repercussions not the staff, I think most people know it’s not the staff. But agree, you must take the brunt of frustration and abuse. It’s interesting that I don’t believe one vet on this thread has commented on the directors/management whatever you want to call them.

For me, I doubt I’ll get another pet once my current has passed. It’s heartbreaking as it is, even when you have a lovely vet, who does what they clinically can. Once their time is up, it’s painful without the feeling that you are putting your pet through too much, just because you can- should you? the doubt, the guilt may be you aren’t doing enough.

We're lucky that the directors of our vets are also practicing vets and so have to face the clients. They have a lot of branches but only locally and haven't sold out yet.

You should stay away from pet ownership. Can’t imagine anyone that cares for their pet would hesitate to pay that if they had the means and it was beneficial for the pet.
Not sure what the relevance of some abusive arseholes you know ,that don’t bother to walk their dog, have to the cost of vet treatment.

It's indeed a very large amount of money, but equally I agree with a PP who said in the UK we only think this is astronomical because we don't pay for our healthcare at the point of contact. The average vet isn't actually paid that much given their level of qualification.
Vets complete years of training - you are paying for their expertise as well as the consultation and actually medications themselves. Anaesthesia can be very complicated and as an owner of exotic pets, we have lost pets under anesthesia before.
If the cat is exotic, it sounds like it might have been an exotic vets, which are even more expensive again due to their specialism.
It's something that needs to be taken into account when considering pet ownership and probably isn't emphasised enough.
However, it does sound like it wasn't communicated properly and you should have been given a quote in advance which you could accept or reject.

@user1483646497
I don't think most people have enough sense to know that a vet is a skilled profession that can be expensive. Its vets practices being bought up by hedge fund managers and reducing the 'elimination of suffering' to a money making exercise for a minority that I object to.

Why are scans and X-rays so expensive? You already have the machines and the vets are there for the day already so why £400?! I understand medication and overnight care etc

Well they need to recoup the money spent on buying them or they wouldn't buy them in the first place

X ray machines are really expensive, and so is the maintenance on them, so they're used on a cost recovery basis - you calculate the cost to buy, the service contract and the expected number of years it will last. Then, how many times you expect it to be used per year, plus running costs. That's divided up, so that the machine will 'pay for itself' over its lifetime. Regularly used equipment will therefore be cheaper for each use than less commonly used stuff. Additionally x-rays will need to both be done, and assessed by a skilled person, which takes time. The same with scans - ultrasound scanners are pricey, MRI scanners are crazily scary to buy.

Here is a link to a not for profit vets local to me, the website shows a clear list of prices for the different treatments.
It should be compulsory for all vets to clearly indicate what the prices are for different treatments, so that customers can make an informed choice and shop around if necessary.
Vet Treatment Prices & Offers | Animal Trust Not for Profit Vets

@StoppoChoco That’s what all practices should have and closer to what they should be charging I would say.

I had a look out of curiosity cruciate repair is £1600. I paid £7.5k around seven years ago 😳 it was a top orthopaedic surgeon, but still! Heck of a price difference.

I had a look out of curiosity cruciate repair is £1600. I paid £7.5k around seven years ago 😳 it was a top orthopaedic surgeon, but still! Heck of a price difference

We paid £4.5k for a cruciate ligament repair (medium sized dog) 6 years ago at a top veterinary hospital. We paid £3k for the other leg at a rural veterinary practice 3 years ago. Quite a variety of prices, but no doubt much depends on the complexity of the op, the age of the animal etc

Oh OP I feel for you, we went through something similar last year when our dog got a bacterial infection and meningitis - the bill was £6k over 3months!

In terms of insurance you shouldn’t have to pay for what your insurance would cover, so in this case the £4K, until the Pet Hospital has at least tried to recover it through that route. We had to print some forms, sign them and hand them over for them to complete and send off. We never heard another peep, so I assume it went through.

The remainder though, we did have to pay, but then we had a really good experience and they were really mindful that we didn’t have a bottomless pit of cash.

I really hope she improves and you get it all sorted.

I know I complained about prices and charges earlier in the thread but we had a very positive experience at our vets yesterday.

Our boy is diabetic and we use a Vetpen for his insulin, it’s a lot easier than using a syringe and therefore less stressful for animals. However the specific insulin cartridges have been out of stock for months due to a manufacturing issue. We only have enough left for another few days so our vet booked us in for an appointment yesterday so that we could be shown how to administer the insulin by syringe.

We were in there for over half an hour being shown and then doing practice shots into a towel.

Went to the reception to pay afterwards only to be told that the appointment was free of charge!

Veterinary care has come a long way since the 1980’s. Animals can now experience similar care to humans with advanced drugs, diagnostics, safety procedures and highly skilled staff. Really amazing advances have taken place. Owners now expect this level of care too. Unfortunately this level of advancement does cost money.

👍

Veterinary care has come a long way since the 1980’s. Animals can now experience similar care to humans with advanced drugs, diagnostics, safety procedures and highly skilled staff. Really amazing advances have taken place. Owners now expect this level of care too. Unfortunately this level of advancement does cost money.
TL:DR =don't get a pet, it'll cost you an arm and a leg 😱 (possibly literally if the pet is a certain type of canine: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-66082157 )

@StoppoChoco
I don't and never have had any pets. There are people who moan about the cost of pills and potions, injections and private operations for humans but don't flicker and eyelid at shelling out thousands for a pet who is blind deaf arthritic, partly paralysed, incontinent etc which is not, imo, caring for an animal. Prolonging a life which can't possibly be enjoyable.
Most people would baulk at paying privately for ops and injections for family.
They're animals not humans and they seem to be morphed into a pseudo human lifestyle with food menus which are ever more exotic and vitamin loaded, special beds and clothing, even sleeping in human's beds after walking around outside and doing their business.
🤮

The average vet salary is surprisingly low around £47k.

So that’s about 8 poorly cats like the OPs. Someone’s doing good out of it clearly