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.

I think that's sensible.

I don’t understand the outrage at veterinary costs… particularly dentistry.

If you only went to the dentist every 10-20 (dog) years, never brushed your teeth, hunted mice or chewed on sticks and bones, then turned up at a private dentist with bad breath or a swelling on the side of your face… they would be X-ray, filling and extracting the hell out of your mouth.

it would cost a fortune, and it would be very unlikely the dentist would squeeze you into a packed ops list and lose their lunch break, because they didn’t want you waiting in pain to get treatment (as vets frequently do)

dentistry is easily one of the most time consuming and technically difficult work vets do if done properly.

My current (not for long) vet, recently built a state of the art animal practice. It is on a standard with the local private hospital. It has four! Receptionists. It has fancy lights, comfy sofas, fresh flowers. There prices have quadrupled and the last (and final) time U went they spent half an hour trying to upsell treatments for my perfectly healthy cat.

The original partner resigned, and has set up back where we all started, in a converted house down the road. Everyone has decamped back.

The super expensive flashy new vets are now struggling for customers. It's the care you want, not the bells and whistles.

Our 11 year old dog is diabetic. When he was first diagnosed our vet was charging us £60 for four insulin cartridges, four week’s worth, and £55 for a box of 100 needles which screw onto the insulin pen.
Once I became more familiar with the condition I discovered that with a vet prescription I could buy the insulin online at a cost of £72 for ten cartridges (plus £13 for the prescription). The biggest rip off was the needles. I found that some meant for humans also fitted the insulin pen and a box of 100 was £4.20.

By law he has to have a health check every six months due to being on a controlled drug, that costs £220 due to having blood tests.

Last year he developed cataracts and we paid £5200 for surgery to remove those. He was at the specialist vet for 8am and we had a call at noon to say that the surgery had been successful but he was unsettled so could we go and sit with him. However, we weren’t allowed inside due to Covid restrictions so we spent 5 hours sitting on the grass outside the surgery with him (it was rural so not like we were sat at the side of a busy road) with a nurse coming out every hour to check on him. He didn’t get the proper post-op recuperation inside which we paid for though. Must say though that the vet there was very upfront with pricing as he initially needed a number of eye drops and all of those used were also human ones available from a pharmacy so we were advised to get them that way. One in particular was priced at £53 from the vet and £4 from a pharmacy.

Insurance or not you the owner decides which tests to do.

The advice you get changes dramatically when you tell a vet you don’t have insurance though. With cat 2 I was told she needed a huge array of tests (including sedation and overnight stay) but when I asked about costs and said I don’t have insurance the vet switched immediately to “the tests are just in case, overwhelming likelihood is that there’s nothing wrong”. It was quite shocking to see the complete pivot.

And vets are (ime) really not at all clear with you regarding the chances of your pet surviving to live a happy life. With cat 1 he had a heart condition that (on reflection) was always going to kill him within a couple of miserable months. I didn’t know that when I took him to the surgery, and I took the vets at their word when they said the tests and treatment were necessary. I’m not an expert and the vet is - they must have known the chances of survival were slim and didn’t bother telling me that. When I’m feeling charitable I think the obfuscation over chances of survival is because many pet owners would rather spend fortunes on a pet that was always going to die soon than wonder “what if”. When I’m feeling less charitable I think it is because it’s pretty easy to offer hope in return for cash.

The worst thing that happened to animal care was pet insurance - it gave a green light to many vets to put their prices through the roof.

This is why animals don't receive the care they need a lot of the time now - and even euthanasia is phenomenally expensive (9 years ago had to have a cat euthanised - it was £95! God knows what it is now. This is why many people dump sick animals, or keep them alive even though they are in obvious distress..

My little dog has something going on and my vet would like a CT scan, which their practice cannot do. She has referred us to a specialist centre in the next county for the CT.
It's £477 to get through the door. That doesn't include the scan. I don't really get why we need the consultation - why not just the scan and the results sent to my own vet?
If my GP refers me to the hospital for X-rays or scans, I don't see anyone beforehand. The report is sent back to my own GP and he delivers the result. If he then thinks I ought to see a hospital consultant he refers.
Vets are losing the trust of pet-owners. At weekends now we are referred over to some weird contracted out service and have to phone a call centre 350 miles away, then get charged £200 to see a random vet who is working out of our own surgery.
Vets are clearly reluctant to give out prescription for pet owners to fulfil online, much cheaper. Our practice is now charging £15 for a printed prescription.
And it will be our companion animals that suffer in the end, as people no longer insure, rely on OTC medications and crossed fingers.

Veterinary paracetamol is exactly the same as human paracetamol, but you obviously need to alter/reduce the dose for body weight. And the same is true of human medication: I had a post surgical infection over a long weekend, so while being turned away from A&E, I borrowed a dose of co-amoxiclav from the dog. When I saw the on call doctor, once he stopped laughing, he prescribed the exact same dose of the exact same drug but with an easier to swallow film coating.

Tell them to listen to their call recordings and honor their previous statements.

£240 for my cat a week ago, including getting his ashes back but there was other options cheaper
I didn't pay, some kind friends did who said I shouldn't have to feel like I was paying to end his life and cleared his whole vet bill for me

Why? You can love and care for an animal without pissing away all your money on it when it's sick. Animals die, that's nature. Our job as owners is not to let them suffer

People have much higher expectations of their pets nowadays, and the treatments available have become commensurately sophisticated and therefore more expensive. In the past people did love their pets but there was no talk of “fur babies” and the dog’s name was not included on Christmas cards etc they way they are now. So animals just got pts rather going through weeks or months of treatment which they frankly cannot comprehend and which in some cases prolongs their suffering.
Sorry but some of these pet owners need to get real.

It was more about the range of options used to be presented. Now to get that I have to push for it. Outside of emergency situations, there should be time to discuss possible treatments and for the best to explain why they recommend one over another.

Sorry your cat is so sick OP.

Referral vets are always expensive due to their expertise and equipment.

Try and use independent vets not those who have been bought up by Private Equity firms who are just in it for the money. CVS Group being one of the worst.

If the first question your vet asks is "Is your pet insured?" run a mile.

I know this won’t help, but, 7 private equity companies own all the vet surgeries in the uk. Their investors want their pound of flesh 😡

I wish !
Self employed
£32 per hour
No holiday, sick pay etc
And I pay my own professional subscription and indemnity insurance
Might take up tutoring instead

My cat had serious FCGS (FCV positive as he was a reacue) and required a full mouth extraction, with 3 days post-op care (at the Hospital), plus 1 month of medication (4 meds). This was a complex surgery that used a specialist dental vet surgeon (as you need specialist xrays to make sure all the tooth remnants are gone).

This was in the South in 2019.

I paid £3,500 all in with my insurer eventually covering it all (policy was £10k max).

What OP posted is absolutely ridiculous for a cat. Prices are way inflated and it definitely looks like they padded the bill.

I think this is a little unfair.

finding out if a pet is insured helps broach the issue of referral costs and whether this is even an option for this client. Because clients love their animals it can be a very delicate conversation to feel a way through with them, what are they prepared to do, how much are they able to spend, without making it all about money or the client feeling that they are letting their animal down if they can’t afford gold standard medicine, almost everyone has a financial limit.

You do also occasionally meet people who don’t understand that all the money and super vets in the world can’t save their pet or turn the clock back on ageing. There are also people who want everything done, declare money is no object, with absolutely no intention of paying a penny, running up debt in every practice in town. medicine is definitely an art with a side order of psychology.

the vet is trying to work out they have the means that allows the vet to do gold standard medicine, get a firm diagnosis, prescribe the best treatment, or make an informed guess at what they think is going on, based on the information in front of them, interpreted through their own experience. Sometimes the conversation may go that they could do x y or z tests but the treatment for all the likely conditions would be the same, however having a diagnosis would inform on the likely success of this treatment and future prognosis.

a lot of clients do seem to think that vets have a crystal ball… often you only know if a test was necessary once you get the results back, many things involve a process of elimination. Unfortunately you can’t just plug them into one of those machines that they have at the car dealership and see which error code comes up.

Vets charges are Totally outrageous!!
We pay because we love our animals.
Must admit it terrifies me at the thought of the NHS getting systematically dismantled and outrageous medical bills for a family member
It's well known people have had to sell their homes and declare bankruptcy in America to pay medical bills.
I hope there is someone who can help point you in the right direction of a veterinary ombudsman who can scrutinise your bill.
Hope you're kitty 🐈‍⬛ is feeling better soon xx

Because I charge £50p/h for 1:1 tuition for gcse maths students, and I have only trained for 4 years, and am not responsible for the life of anyone's pet if I get it wrong!

I charge the same for tutoring, but that’s not most tutors’ main employment - the majority are teachers. Teachers get paid around £20-£25 per hour for normal work. Self-employed charge out rates are usually more per hour because there’s no sick pay, mat leave, paid holiday, etc. It isn’t reasonable to compare a contracted wage with a self-employed charge out rate.

A vet being paid £35 per hour works out at nearly £70k per year - a good salary considering national average is around £33k.

I don’t know any vets on more than £30/hour. Maybe clinical directors/practice lead vets

If all this was triggered by a vaccine reaction then the primary recourse should be the vaccine manufacturer, not just your personal insurance policy and certainly not your personal funds.

Our cat had a bad vaccine reaction and we didn't end up paying a penny, not even the excess on our insurance policy. I think the insurance covered some of the costs but the vaccine company covered everything that insurance didn't.

I havent read full thread but for anyone struggling to pay for medication, get the prescription from the vet and buy the medication online cheaper. I felt rude doing this until my vet tried charging me £29 for a pack of antibacterial wipes. They obviously don't like you doing it but tough shit. I pay them enough for a monthly package that covers fucking nothing.

And sorry to hear about your cat OP 💐

@bellewilson we’ve recently treated our cat for FIP (he’s alive and back to his annoying self!) the costs were astronomical! We maxed out our insurance very quickly and then had to use savings to pay for his treatment. I didn’t so much mind paying for his care because the vets were wonderful and kept him alive. The mark up on medications was what annoyed me most!
Bova (the company that makes the GS medicine) have reduced their prices in the last couple of months. They’re much much more reasonable now - we paid £600 for 10 tablets.
I’d be going back to the vets and pushing for them to reduce their prices on the meds as neuro needs a higher dose. There are support groups that can help you with FIP treatments that can tell you prices to expect and they’re very good at getting you to fight your corner at the vets. Just shout if you want some help with it