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.

This. People would be horrified if they knew the full costs of medical care. Just because it's an animal doesn't make it cheaper..

What a nightmare. I got charged £35 for an ‘aftercare follow up’ to check my cats wound, to be told it’s fine after 30 seconds. You can’t tell me that’s not greed

Every time I go to the vets I think exactly this.

if you think vets are taking the mick I suggest you spend half an hour googling the cost of medical treatment in America. I saw a video a couple days ago where a 7 year old boy was diagnosed with diabetes and needs
$3000 worth of medication a month. No insurance and the mum was trying to work out how to tell the kid.

So sorry to hear about your lovely cat

The sedation for X ray sounds incredibly expensive - I used to have a horse and when the vet came out to sedate him it was expensive as he needed so much but nowhere near that

We had a moggy with suspected FIP, have the vets taken fluid from the abdomen?

Ours was booked in for an ultrasound where presumably they'd look for fluid - I'm wondering why they did X rays unless it's because it was because they were investigating for other things - AC had a tummy like a water balloon and had incurred weight loss and wasn't eating and had frequent bouts of diarrhoea, so they suspect FIP based on the consultation, the ultrasound was to follow this up.

Really hope it isn't FIP and it's just a reaction to the vaccine (AC went very wobbly after a wormer once, but that was about an hour after). It's an evil condition and I hope they can find a cure for it

I've just found an email from my vet about it and the next step was to do an ultrasound to draw fluid and examine his organs to see if they were consistent with the fluid buildup FIP gives, likely no sedation needed.

The costs were very reasonable, although we're subject to increase if the samples needed sending to the lab for testing

I can only think the costs are still much (though definitely query the sedation that's extortionate) as they were having to look for a variety of causes - at this point the suspected FIP was already quite advanced in AC, and he'd been showing several classic signs of FIP and they suspected it during his consultation - he'd also been a few months before due to going blind in one eye and had always suffered with diarrhoea

I think @Silverbook is right. Sadly it seems you're under insured. My cat insurance covers up to £1500 of treatment per year. I'm sorry your cat is so ill.

Exactly my point. The procedures require the same amount of skills, equipment and drugs.

You spent 5,000 on a rabbits ears?

This is why I don't believe there's a cost of living crisis.

They are not price regulated and can charge whatever they like. It’s hardly like you are going to shop around when your pet is in desperate need of treatment and how many people know a fair price for the different treatments a pet may need during their lifetime.

So? They've trained hard and worked hard. Would you begrudge that home for a footballer?

I was reading what people are spending monthly on pets nowadays, even without vets bills. It's quite astonishing.

An odd thing to say? It was 8 years ago when there wasn't a cost of living crisis and the £5000 was spread over a year of different treatments and vets etc.

We both earn above average salaries, have no children, we just skipped holidays for a couple of years. (also it was her eyes, realised there's a typo in my original post).

😂
good luck getting people to run up £100,000 worth of debt if their final earning power is only £10/hour more than a manager in ALDI.

Well I'm pretty sure my vet didn't have a CT or MRI scanner in the 80s.

I doubt they would have been able to save my cats life when he had heart failure and give me 6 more precious months with him.

I had an operation and tests overseas and it came to £40k! We are just out of the loop with the true costs of things with the NHS.

With a pet though, I think past a certain point they should outline the options - ie it will cost this much, can you afford it. Although what would the option be if you wouldn’t or couldn’t pay. Put the animal to sleep?

You need to be sticking on pre and post op consultation fees, any bloods, ECGs etc you need doing to have your op, anaesthetists fee and possibly the hospitals own fee to all those estimates.

Oh and if there are complications you pay for all of the revisions as well.

still bitter from the year of 8 self-funding eye operations

These prices are from the Royal Veterinary College a private business totally separate to the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons who provide no price details.
Plus if you check their website in detail they have not update their prices since December 2021.
This is the current rod to beat vets with.
Oh yes and I am 25 years qualified with various additional qualifications a snd skills the highest paid vet in my practice and I earn £37.71 per hour and I work a 45 hour week.

I was quoted 5k to have a tooth removed from a horse (a few years ago now). As the horse was eating well, comfortable in the bit and unbothered by his unpleasant halitosis I declined. It fell out 3 months later.

Contrary to what someone said upthread, vets have always been expensive. I grew up with dogs, cat, horses, small furries etc, etc, and my mum was always joking that she wanted me to become a vet because I'd save the family thousands.

I don't have a dog because I know I can't afford potential vet fees. It's irresponsible to have a pet if you can't afford them. People on here are always worrying about whether they can afford to have more than one child etc - the same logic ought to apply, in spades, to pets.

Vets spend a bloody long time training to become vets. I don't remotely begrudge them charging highly for this. Even though I'd love to have a dog or two.

I think people are so spoilt by the NHS that they expect there to be an animal equivalent.

If you’re considering changing pet insurance company after this, take a look at the co-op.
I pay a bit over £300 for my dog which covers her up to £16,000.

@Toomanycaketins yes last year my cat was referred to a specialist centre (my vet actually recommended the super vet but we went to a similar place nearer to where we live) 10k is about what I ended up paying. Half of that was covered by insurance. Very pricey but I’m grateful every day for what they did. Oh and I’ve also increased my coverage now too after that all came as a bit of a shock!

I got my dogs teeth cleaned.
We live in France.
Amazing job, they kept her all day until she was properly awake.
€90.00

With a pet though, I think past a certain point they should outline the options - ie it will cost this much, can you afford it. Although what would the option be if you wouldn’t or couldn’t pay. Put the animal to sleep?

Well that is what they do if you ask them what the other options are. Sometimes pts is better than very expensive treatments that don’t work anyway.

<likes>

My vet is amazing. Most are.

So expensive

I've had two cats die in the last few years with sky high bills. One was in vets then hospital and it came to 5k, one overnight and 1k

Cue covering current ones for £12,000 a year