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.

If they own the practice and employ others rather than have partners they can be for sure.

Yea they’re a business but charging 10x the amount for a simple shampoo or tablet is daylight robbery. Vets are supposed to be animal lovers so huge profits that make it impossible for some owners to afford to keep their pets alive is inhumane too.
I have always insured my pets but if my cat (for example) has a relapse of a condition he had when young that was fortunately covered by his insurance (but won’t be in future) I would not have the funds and would have to watch him die. The same operation cost a fraction of the cost at the Pdsa that price things up according to their worth. I get they have to make a profit but it needn't be harmful to an animal life.

I did make my limit clear lots of
times and made it clear what we could afford. My issues isn’t with vet fees in general as our local vet bill was only £250 for putting her on a drip and blood tests and keeping her in for a day. It’s the fact they have changed the goal posts and charged a lot more than what I was told and agreed to. I asked costs and total costs and my insurance to be pre approved before treatment commenced. We paid £700 for her which is completely irrelevant as it was both of my daughter’s Christmas and birthday money combined as they really wanted a cat.

I sincerely hope you don't have any pets.

We'll soon have posts like this when Primary Care is privatised.

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

Thanks @StatisticallyChallenged
OP if this is the case I'd argue it's two separate conditions. One for the allergic reaction to vaccines and then the coronavirus as a separate issue

Indeed. Some people's premiums will be sky high.

You only think this because you don't see your NHS bills!

This^ I'm sorry to be harsh but you should have more than £4000 a year if you have a pedigree. I have 4 pedigrees and their insurance costs me £100 a month for £7000 a year cover.

Pedigrees tend to be more fragile or they do silly things. One of my cats has pica and she decided to eat a reel of cotton. First I knew of it she'd stopped eating. A large number of tests were done before one vet decided to just look in her mouth to see the pink cotton. This cost £2000 and this was about 6 years ago!

Yes x

My daughter’s dog ate 6 raisins that my granddaughter had unfortunately dropped on the floor, while at our house. We had heard that raisins are not good for dogs, so we rang a vet, was advised to take her in. The vet made her vomit, to get rid of the raisins, 5 minutes later we had a bill for £150!

Agree - everything feels quite bleak

The pdsa is heavily subsidized , its a charity that relies on donations to be able to offer that service, costs to them remain the same.
The drugs you buy from a vets have to by law be purchased from a veterinary wholesaler , vet practices cannot buy them at the cheaper prices offered by online suppliers that you can buy them for.
You are not obliged to buy the product from the vet , you can buy a written prescription for POM products from your vet and then get them from an online company or even a human pharmacy in some cases.
Even with the cost of the prescription your meds may work out cheaper , there are options just ask your vet

The difference between vets practices is what makes me think some practices are rip off corporations. We have horses, my vet is a family owned and run practice, others on the yard use the bigger practices and I would confidently say my vet is 20-30% cheaper. And my vet has invested thousands the last few years. New premises, opened a small animal practice, basic horse hospital etc.

Was quoted 1k for a dental for ddog at our small animal practice last year. Anesthetic, cleaning, tartar removal, check for cavities, potentially remove a few teeth if necessary. My horse vet comes, sedates ponies, files/cleans/checks teeth, costs £140 per pony. Little pony might need a tooth removing at some point, complicated because of where it is. Will basically go in from outside, push tooth out rather than pull. Day surgery at their place, deep standing sedation, dress wound etc plus abx and pain relief at home. Quote of 1k. It's too far to get ddog to unfortunately.

Our local small animal vet got bought out a couple of years ago, prices jumped 20-30%, staff redundancies, loads of experienced vets left. It's not any better, worse but more expensive.

I don’t think most do, but they should be giving you all of your options.

That must have been a tricky procedure, no?

Then contest it and say you told them repeatedly. See if you can get it reduced down to your maximum.

I think you could definitely ask. Did you factor in that the costs would be plus VAT?

As my name suggests I’m a vet. I’ve been a vet for many years, own my own practice (with one partner) and employ quite a few other vets, plus nurses, support staff etc. I can assure you I’m not rolling in it. Our profit margin, similar to many other practices is around 10%of our turnover. Which is about 60k profit split between two partners. We do run our cars via the practice so do have a slightly higher income than this. We plough a lot of money into keeping our equipment up to date. New ultrasound last year, 35k. New endoscope this year, 20k. Our staff are averagely paid as vets, the more senior ones are close to 40k per annum. Compare this to one of my children, in a corporate job, similar age to those vets, on 120k per annum. For similar hours but no out of hours work. All our vets take part in the on call We could sell to a corporate now and cash in, but we don’t want to as it will radically alter our loved practice.

20% of our turnover goes straight off in vat. Our annual indemnity insurance is several thousand. Each bottle of injectable medication can only be open (by law) for 28days- it then has to be thrown out. If only one dose has been used (eg an emergency drug) then that whole cost is wasted.

Cost of sedation or anaesthesia will not mention the qualified nurse monitoring the anaesthetic, the second nurse in kennels monitoring recovery, the multiparameter machine checking vital signs, the heated blankets used to prevent heat loss, I could go on..

I recently had a referral to a private medical consultant for myself. Initial consultation £220 (15 minutes). Follow up (5 minutes) cost £120. My insurance paid most of it. I paid the excess.

Pets are a luxury not a necessity and good insurance is vital. My dogs are insured in case I need to refer them for specialist treatment. Sadly we all have to make decisions based on cost. If I ask an owner if they are insured it is not so I can charge more, but so I can offer them all the options and they can choose what to do.

This. Anyone that has had to have dental treatment knows how expensive medical bills can be and most of that treatment involves no overnight stays. I really hope we never lose the NHS.

we had this with our dog , his came to £8800 as he has to go to vet hospital for mri, lumber punch ect and stay for a week to work out what was wrong with him. We were only insured for 3.5k ! but as it went over two policy terms as he started to get sick just before the end of the policy , they did pay out the full £7k and we had to pay the vets £1800. Lesson learnt I should have had a policy that covered 15k but to be fair the insurance paid out with no qualms and we only paid £13 per month for it. It’s now gone up to £57 a month but he is insured for life for the same condition. It will get cheaper next year if there’s no claims and after two years clear it’s not considered pre existing so I can shop around. It is a hell of a lot of money but that’s having an animal they aren’t cheap! I was so thankful he was alive to be honest.

When my sisters dog ate some of her medication the vet walked us through an immediate purging exercise. It required hydrogen peroxide and a turkey baster. (And a lot of towels clean up the results). Then we brought her to the vet to be checked.

Do it yourself? Scale, polish, x-ray to look for hidden problems, all under GA.. yourself.

You couldn't, it would be illegal even if it were possible. I'd suggest you actually watch a dog or cat dental before making such a silly comment.

There are ultrasonic pet toothbrushes though - they don't clean under the gumline and can't tell you if theres decay and disease that isn't visible to the eye. In fact they cause issues with pet owners not understanding that their pets teeth may LOOK clean after a few goes with one, but under the gumline, theres nasty shit going on.

I feel your pain as my one of my Persians and her late sister ran up bills of 23k. Fortunately covered by insurance. Because of the NHS people don't how much things cost. I don't think they've particularly taken the mick. One of mine was seen at a vet hospital and the bill was £5k

My dog managed to get hold of some grapes on a Sunday evening so out of hours. £400 to make her sick.

Out of interest what insurance companies do the vets/in the know on here recommend for solid policies? (Mine are dogs though not cats)

Op I really feel for you, when you've made it clear your limits they should be communicating with you when it gets to that point.

Not read the whole thread, but our dog last year had a double knee op and then a hip op. Will need her other hip doing at some stage.

the imaging (sedation, X-ray and ct/mri) cost £2000 alone. This was at a referral vets. And with the ops her costs have come out to around £13,000 last year. She is 2. We have fantastic insurance that has covered all but the first £69.

referal vets are significantly more expensive than standard vets as others have said. Our super referal vets are just that, beyond amazing and worth every penny. Keep us informed and thankfully direct claim so we don’t get involved.

sadly it sounds as though you don’t have enough coverage, the alternative isn’t worth thinking about but is the only other option for many people.

animals are expensive.