To be upset about receiving a further vet invoice

[Wickedwitchofthewest73]

Nearly 2 weeks ago our beloved pet had to be rushed to the vets in a very bad way. She had an emergency ultrasound and we were forced to make the horrific decision to euthanize. I was in that much of a state I just wanted to leave immediately and given the fact I've been a loyal customer for over 20 years,asked if I could pay tomorrow. This was agreed and the very next morning I called and couldn't get through on the phone so emailed to ask for the invoice. It was sent over so I paid it in full and let them know I had done so.
Fast forward to today I open the post and there's another invoice saying money is still outstanding. On closer inspection of the first invoice they sent they had not added a consultation fee.
I have sent them an email telling them how upsetting this is to receive when we are still grieving especially but surely the onus was on them to make sure it was correct in the first place?

@ConnieHeart I think that’s a comment on vets fees and end of life payments for pets. If you have a pet, vet payments are inevitable. So when people do not like the fees or end of life decisions about pets, they possibly think pets are not for them.

The vets clearly had not got the account fully prepared when the first payment was made and they hadn’t added the consultation fee in. It’s unfortunately what can happen. Vets are businesses not grievance counsellors. Maybe if you had looked at the first invoice you would have noticed the discrepancy. I’ve had many pets and being upset doesn’t have to last long if they have had a good life! Celebrate that.

I have sent them an email telling them how upsetting this is to receive when we are still grieving especially but surely the onus was on them to make sure it was correct in the first place?

For future reference this response also doesn’t work when a human loved one has died, even if in horrific circumstances.

Sorry, but YABU. I had to have my lovely dog pts last weekend. My grief over his death would not have been affected by paying bills on two different days any more than it would on one day. Of course the bill would ideally have been correct in the first place, but humans make mistakes sometimes. Unless the vets have generally been bad or incompetent, I wouldn't have given this a second thought tbh.

I'm sorry for your loss. The fact is though that when loved ones die, we need help from specialists to do the next bit. Your vet needs paying, the same as the undertaker, crematorium etc needs paying when a loved human dies. Just pay it, and then get on with grieving.

This sort of situation is exactly why I like it when business keep a card on file and charge it automatically.

A person’s resistance to paying only gets greater the longer it’s been since services were rendered (particularly when the service is for something you wish didn’t have to happen - euthanasia of a beloved pet, a root canal, private mental health treatment because you weren’t able to access what you needed on the NHS etc)

It would work better for everyone in most cases if businesses could make this frictionless.

There's no better time to send it. They probably left it for 2 weeks to give you time to grieve. If they sent it after 3 days you'd be annoyed, if they sent it in a month you'd be annoyed.

Long ago when I was young vets treated sick animals and nearly everyone could afford their reasonable fees. I think in those days vets truly cared about animal welfare.

Now they’re all part of huge corporations whose priority is profit. They aggressively push treatments and even use emotional blackmail. I have several friends who’ve been persuaded to have a battery of tests for their pets at a cost running int thousands, Who has that sort of money?

Friends cat was attacked by next door cat and she took it to the vet with scratches. She was put under a lot of pressure to have them keep it overnight for observation and to have them run a range of scans and tests. The cat was just scratched!

Lots of other bad experiences - including taking our aged gerbil (hairless and not eating) to simply be pts, and having a receptionist and vet try to pressure me to have tests and treatments on the poor creature. They saw pound signs.

i think they are money-driven these days.

Our dog is insured, so no massive bills. I’d never not insure a pet.
Our vet is brilliant and I don’t believe they’d ever advocate for unnecessary tests or treatments.

That's sad you've had such bad experiences.
I've been lucky with both my horse and dog vets (separate places) as both have been brilliant. When my dog went a few weeks ago, they sent a lovely card and her paw prints and have always been sympathetic and caring. Yes, they do cost a lot of money, but insurance has fortunately taken the brunt of that. I've never ever been pushed into unnecessary treatments. Ours are both independent though.

I get why you are upset op. Losing a much loved pet is awful and this just brings it back when you are trying to move on. A covering letter or email and an apology would soften it a bit. I once had a sort of similar situation. My dog died after hugely expensive treatment at a very fancy specialist practice. Two weeks after she died they sent me a letter saying a further £1200 was outstanding. I knew it was crap (I had to sign for every single treatment she’d had and I knew I’d paid for everything) so I wrote back and queried it. They claimed it was an “administrative error” but the whole thing really upset me and I’ll never use them again 🤬
And, to be fair, my own lovely, local vet would probably write this off. I’ve been with her for decades and spend a bloody fortune there.
And yes, a large percentage of vets in the UK are now owned by Mars. Do you think they are in it for the love of animals?

Our dog was always insured, but the company wouldn't pay out for the last two (pretty expensive) things, the sevond of which was his end of life care and pts (small print said this wasn't covered after their 9th birthday, but we weren't aware of that).

Our vets were absolutely wonderful. I've just sent them a card to say thank you, actually. I'm sorry some of you have had unfeeling, money-grabbing vets.

Sorry for your loss.
I do think you need to pay the bill though, much as you hadn't realised the first one was incorrect/there was another one to come.

Losing a pet is upsetting, paying someone who put your pet out of their misery isn’t.

There will be things everyday that remind you of your lost pet. For us it was his wee face not being there every single time we put our hand on the fridge door.

Every time we opened a pack of mince/or cut up some chicken breasts, or stripped a roast chicken, not automatically putting some aside as a treat for him, every time we picked up a coat from the hooks and saw his lead hanging there (it's still there 18 months later!)

You are grieving and you will get reminders of your loss, and working through them is part of the grieving process and it will get easier as you go through that process. You simply can't control the reminders, you can begin to control how you react to them, and for this one you are over reacting and somewhat milking it.

They made a mistake but they also did you a favour when you didnt pay while you were there
So 6 and two 3s

When we lost our boy at the vet hospital - we made the decision to PTS while he was still under GA after they discovered widespread untreatable cancer - we never got to say goodbye which broke my heart, but it was the kindest outcome for him.

Before we went in they had asked us how much we had spent on the insurance already and how much was our limit. Then we discussed the procedures they recommended to work out what was going on. We approved, and they performed around £1.5k of procedures over the limit - the last one confirmed the diagnosis.

When we got the invoice through it was was 5p less than what we had left on our insurance limit. There are still some amazing vets out there.

Just pay it. One less thing to fret about.

I get it, OP. When we had to have our lovely cat pts last year I had to be taken out a back door because I was so upset. DP paid the bill and arranged for her to be privately cremated, and he went back and collected her carrier the following week. All fine. (We were insured, and are for our new cat, but had to pay/put in a claim.)

When I unexpectedly got a call at work a week or so later from the pet crematorium asking me to select an urn because her ashes were ready it totally tipped me over the edge. DP was away with work and we were both listed as her owners so they tried me when his phone was an international ring tone. I later realised I could have not paid ££ for their urn and just got a container then bought something more meaningful myself.

(One pp mentions working in a dental surgery. I was totally caught out by mine earlier this year. I needed a new night guard so had scans done, told that it would be about a week in the lab and I could pay when I collected it - reception would ring to tell me it was in. I thought it was taking ages, assumed the lab was very busy, then received a letter requesting payment for an outstanding bill! I rang immediately and paid over the phone, but was really embarrassed and a bit annoyed. They were very apologetic - I have been a patient there since I was a kid and realise it would have been some auto generated thing, but still.)

Perhaps they should ensure invoices are correct in the first place and if there is an error they should send a covering letter/email apologising and explaining the reason for the corrected invoice.

When my cat was put to sleep the vet sent me the invoice a week later. I was really upset to see they had put his next appointment on the invoice despite it being for euthanasia. DH complained about it when he paid and they were very apologetic but it's not good enough.

I thought that was normal, I've never paid after having a pet put to sleep, I've always been sent an invoice later.

It is. Ours always tell us to just walk straight out and they will sort it out later. Nobody wants to make someone who has just put a pet down stand at a desk and pay while they cry.

It will be a separate system.The vet they saw you will have charged empathetically,then got in trouble for not charging as they should by including a consult fee,and management will have added on the consult fee.the accounts department will have then sent out the letter.i would pay it as they will chase you for it,you will owe it,but I would move to a smaller independent vets for future.