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.

Was this on the nhs?

@ActDottie couldn't agree more!

You made it clear from the start that they had to run costs by you and that you were on a tight budget. I would email them and ask why the cost is so high despite clear instructions from yourself. Ask for the complaints procedure so that you can formalise your concerns.

An amalgam filling for £16?
My dental check ups, NHS rate are £22.50, they take 15 minutes. Not complaining, I've got a great dentist, but NHS fillings are a lot more than £16!

Some of that does seem extortionate. My dog had to be sedated and xrayed recently. A day at the vets with sedation, xray, tests, meds to bring home was €120. I'm in Ireland which I always presume is more expensive than the UK.

If you said from day one that they MUST check with the insurance before going ahead with anything then you may have a case against them. Obviously that would involve legal costs but surely they'll agree to a payment plan?
I can never understand small animal vet costs. I had a foal two years ago that had to be admitted to equine hospital for three nights. Intensive care, plasma transplant, tests, fluids, full livery for his mum and it came to £3600 which although painful, completely understandable. I only have to walk in the vet with my dog and come out £60 lighter!

The vet bill isn’t bad but your insurance policy is rubbish.

I feel sick on your behalf. It is outrageous. We've just had a surprise vet bill of over £700 for the removal of a tooth, one tooth!!!!!! I feel like I've been mugged. In fact I have been mugged before proper bag and jewellery taken from me in the street mugged and this was worse! This bill comes hot on the heels of a massive bill for a UTI. We don't have insurance because she is a cat and up until now has been in robust health. Our usual vet has changed practice. He was minimal intervention and entirely trustworthy. I feel like the rest of them are a bunch of charlatans. I know squat diddly about animal medicine so I have zero idea of what is necessary and what is not.

I'd bet this vet had money from other sources or else has sold their practice to a corporate.

Day to day vets are not rich like that!

The pp wasn't talking about a clean the same way you would clean your teeth at home a couple of times a day, they were talking about a proper full dental inspection & clean, which most people have regularly (e.g. once a year).

A private visit to a human dental hygienist costs anything from £50 to £100. Add to that the fact that animals really don't understand what the vet is trying to do, so have to be sedated, and the costs rocket. Once you add in any form of sedation, you double the staff needed as you have to have a vet nurse monitoring that while the vet does the teeth, then of course the pet needs to have an eye kept on it while it recovers from the sedation.

This thread is making me think again about whether I need insurance. I canceled it all because not a lot was covered for the cost.

The cat is 16 and diabetic. Nothing to do with the diabetes would be covered by insurance. We recently had a large vet bill £2300, suspected pancreatitis, turned out to be a kidney infection. Don't think any of that would have been covered. And it wouldn't be by new insurance now. To be honest if anything major happens now we know that would be the end of the road.

The dog is 12, he's had 2 lots of teeth out and dental isn't covered. But he's otherwise I'm good health so perhaps worth looking into that again.

We have pet insurance for both our cats but whenever we go to the vet we say we haven't got any. We pay the bill, get an itemised receipt then claim it back. I'm certain we get cheaper bills because they think we are paying ourselves, they don't bump up the prices.

It part of pet ownership - £4k is not a huge amount of insurance - especially for a pedigree that probably cost 1/4 of that

One of my cats cost £3.5k for emergency specialist admission, blood transfusion (from one of my cats - type A so rare - she's now a donor) - treatment and diagnosis - only to find he had cancer - I had a choice of paying more for chemo which would have given him 6 mths - I chose not to do that and he died in my arms the day he was due to be PTS.

Another injured her knee - had to have specialist treatment - £2k and decided she didn't need an op - a year later she's just done it again so I'm looking at £4-5k to get it fixed,

Good insurance is they key - Vets have to pay staff, rent, bills, tax, buy medicine, update facilities and equipment, continually train in new techniques and developments and provide 24hr care if pets are in patients - this costs money!

I agree it's not the vets but the private equity firms that are driving up the prices in the name of profit.

Our local vets practice has recently been bought out, and I'm very concerned about the impact it will have. Last year one of mine had to have a fairly big operation. The cost, including tests and diagnostics beforehand, the operation, antibiotics, being kept in, and check up & stitches removed after came to a little over £1,000 which I thought was very good value. I dread to think what the same would cost once the private equity lot have their hands on it.

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.

That was my point in a later comment. The industry isn’t price regulated so a practice can charge whatever they like ( and some do).
How many people will shop around if a pet needs urgent treatment ? from experience it’s the larger chains that seem to be geared towards making as much money as they can, presumably because they have share holders that want a nice payout.
My comment wasn’t a dig at vets, I’m sure all go into it for a love of animals, not to make money, but some are caught between two masters (an animals needs and shareholders ) and no one’s winning there except the investors and business owner.

Christ this is steep. Not surprised you feel robbed. My dog had a serval clearance recently for under £400

Is the £4k per year or per condition?

Dental sorry

Sedation may not be groundbreaking in your opinion but are you aware of how its administered ,how its dose is worked out , how the then sedated animal is constantly monitored throughout , how the signs are recognised if things aren't as they should be , or that things are going just fine , how and when to top up / reverse the procedure.
Vets aren't obliged but using common sense and communication on both sides makes the situation clear as to what the treatment plan will be.
Every one in this job has heard -'the money doesn't matter ,do whatever to save him'
Good luck trying to force an animal to eat when it has no appetite.
I know there are a few vets out there that charge to much , same as in all trades, but the majority of vets are trying to do their best for your beloved pets and from all the vet bashing threads that appear on here it is crystal clear that there is a lot of ignorance about what bloody hard work and skill using specialised meds , tools and equipment takes place 24 hours a day 365 days of the year in a practice.

But it's not greed. The vet is a highly trained professional who knows what to look for and when there are issues than may need treating.

But that doesn't actually mean anything. How do you know how much the vet earns, how much their partner earns, whether the property was inherited or purchased using an inheritance? It's like saying that because someone drives a new car they have a lot of money.

Not the OP but I know the policy - it's per condition per year.

our Insurance paid £5500 for a leg amputation, a few nights overnight, bladder surgery and all the scanning that comes with being hit by a car as a cat last year which was actually less then I thought

Reading carefully as I'm about to insure my new cat
So far I am leaning towards Tesco premier as Tesco were great with my other cat and do direct payment. £7500 is the limit and renews yearly

My vet wasn't as expensive as it was owned by the vet, but it's been taken over now
Annoyingly our town has no OOH cover so it's a 20 min drive for an emergency vet

It was in response to the multiple posts on here claiming that the extortionate fees are all going on the actual cost of treatment and not into the vet's pocket.