Cost of vets

[RichieRich64]

I got an 18% notified of a increase to the "wellness plan" (aka regular payment to offset cost of vax etc) immediately after my annual renewal. This is on top of last year's increase of 15%. This vet practice was sold to a big 6 provider (Linnaeus) last November.

So AIBU to be feeling a bit used here? This is not insignificant as I've a dog and two cats so this is now over £600 pa.

When I complained about this, the items included in this wellness plan are really inflated - 3x for annual flea treatment, for example, and if I withdraw from the plan, I'll be charged this full rate.

Are these people just doing it because they can and are colluding in a cartel of costs, as was suggested on R4 today? I heard one vet industry chap suggest it was like private health care so we should expect to be fleeced (I'm paraphrasing a bit but that was the gist).

We're relatively well off but HTF do people afford this stuff with this kind of inflation.

</rant>

Well £600 for 2 cats and a dog is fairly average
I was paying nearly £1000 per year on just insurance plus 20% copayment as she was old
Also if you find out the date of the healthy pet plan started I'm sure you can cancel on that date
Vets bills are generally expensive the day mine passed away she was in the vets all day and it was £850
Having a pet these days is a luxury to some people

It isn't like private health care, it is private health care, of course it is expensive.

I have two dogs and a cat and pay for my vacs, buy wormers and flea stuff online and it’s less than £600 a year. Look at somewhere like HyperDrug for OTC wormers etc, they’re about £3 a pill. Does the plan include dental?

Well that’s not strictly true, or it would’ve always been the case?
The hedge fund companies can charge what they want and yes it’s greed.
So many animals being dumped because people cannot afford the treatments. Sorry but £70 for five minutes is not private treatment!

@RickyGervaislovesdogs recently I paid £250 for a private consultation (for me not a pet) which lasted less than 5 minutes and the surgeon did the actual procedure straight after the consultation,for which I paid another £499. All in all time taken was less than 15 minutes for everything . Sadly they can charge what they like. Do I agree with it? No not at all.

100% agree. Many vets now have become utterly extortionate. It's very sad, and is making pet owning out of reach for many people now.

We have had pets for 25 years - got a cat aged 17 now. (Had 4 cats over the years,) and we won't have any more pets when she's gone. The vet bills have risen so much now that it will be untenable to have any more pets.

Problem is, it's an open ended cost.

There is no limit to it. You could end up paying 5 figures. People have been abandoning pets left, right, and centre this past few years because they can't afford the vet bills. Never happened up until this past 5-7 years. Not to the extent it does now.

@AlwaysGinPlease Without knowing what you had done (and I’m not asking you to divulge that) but I don’t think you can compare the two. Presumably your issue was sorted, with animals it can be a suck it and see approach, they can’t talk, it can be a guessing game, trying this and that.

We also have the NHS as an option.

My dog had an ear infection and was offered an mri - £1k minimum, by their own admittance it might show nothing. I had an ear infection, I didn’t get an mri and I doubt it would’ve been the first option even if I had paid privately. (I ended up in hospital, so it was serious not just something I could’ve treated at home.)

Vet bills didn’t used to be like this, going forward I expect there will be less pets. People will happily go without or share food but shelling out hundreds for simple things like fleas is beyond. We have one of the highest vet charges in the world and it’s not even going to the vets who get all the stick. 😫

I just find it very sad, for animals stuck in rescues, for people who love their pets and the joy they bring.

@RickyGervaislovesdogs

I agree. I grew up in the 1970s and 1980s, and my parents, and extended family, and neighbours, and acquaintances etc etc all had pets. Some had cats, some had dogs, some had rabbits, guinea pigs, rats, hamsters etc. We had dogs. Always one or two. And we were not rich.

I don't ever recall anyone EVER not being able to pay any vet bills. They were not out of reach for people. They were just fair and reasonable prices, and having a pet was in everybody's reach, even those families who were not loaded/had only one parent working.

Many people I know now cannot afford a QUARTER of the price that vets charge. One lady I know has a dog, and the dog has had 4 or 5 procedures and ops since Spring 2022. The lady has spent £13,000 in total. Like fuck would I have shelled out that much for a dog that was already 12! Doggo died a few weeks ago aged 14, despite £13,000 of treatment in 2 years. They saw her coming!

Even if you have pet insurance, there's loads that they don't/won't cover, and you have big excesses, and some things they will only pay so much for. eg, if your pet is diagnosed with diabetes and they have to have meds every week for the rest of their life, they will only pay for a year, or 2 at the most. They have the insurance tailored so they don't have to pay much out!

As I said, me and DH have had pets (cats and rabbits and hamsters) since the year 1999 and we have NEVER been shocked by vet bills. Til 2 years ago. The last one though was a visit to see what was wrong with our cat as she was struggling to eat, and she had 3 bad teeth .... causing her bother. She had to have those 3 teeth out, and the consultation, her meds, and having 3 teeth out, cost us nearly £1500.

As I said, we will NOT be having any more pets ... Nope.

@SabreIsMyFave Me too. DM was sahm, dad worked we had dogs and cats, not that dad was short but no chance he would’ve been handing out hundreds/ thousands each time!

That poor lady, that’s daylight robbery and praying on vulnerability. Vet should be ashamed.

I don’t blame you, I think many people feel exactly the same. There’ll be even less vets about.

I've just had a quote to clean my cat's teeth which includes up to 3 extractions if required...£800

Exactly this. My dad would never have paid an extortionate vet bill either. We never had credit in those days/no credit cards etc, so we could not have put anything on a credit card. And we had very little savings. Maybe a few hundred!

So yep virtually 3-4 months wages on a vet bill would not have happened. Dad would not have paid it. (In fact he couldn't have!) Not sure what he would have done if we had had a monster bill. Don't like to think about it! Thank God that never happened!

Coz that's what some vet bills are for some people (these days) - 3-4 months wages! It's absolutely shocking if you think about it really.

Yes looking at it like that you're right. I couldn't have mine done on the NHS as the wait list was ridiculous and it was painful but I hated paying so much.

And thinking about it, things have got ridiculously expensive with vet trips, also Pet insurance. I know some vets are in it for the love but I think these days, it's mostly all about the money. Very sad like you say, for the ones in rescue.

The problem is the large vet ownership companies that have bought up all the independent vets and now can charge what they like because there is no local competition.

It's a shame because the vets themselves take the wrap but it really just CVS and the others who now own vets and appear to be hiking prices up.

Coupled with increasingly unwell dogs because of poor breeding practices - it's a nightmare.

The 600 is only for the vaccinations, flea treatment and 10% off other treatments. We still had to pay several hundred to get cats' teeth extracted and our JRT got glaucoma and in the end had to have eyes removed. That was covered separately by insurance luckily (dog only, a further £250pa) but that plus the meds in the year leading up, was thousands.

We love our pets but the costs now are insane. As far as I can see, people pay up, but it seems very inflated due to this cartel effect.

The plan renewed end of January and they increased the price in March without any option to back out, other than to pay full inflated price on the flea treatment already suspended. A racket.

I used to use a really nice independent vet when I had my dog. The owner retired not long after the pandemic and sold to a large group. The costs then went up massively. A consultation from £35 to £60 and a private prescription from £10 to £26. There was also a real push from the vets to have expensive tests done even though they weren’t warranted. The whole thing became an exercise in extracting as much money from owners as possible.

I’d love another dog but I really don’t think I can afford it any more.

Who is this with? I have pet plans for my cats but I don't want to have to stay in the plan after a year! I already know it's over priced.

I used to argue with my vets. My most memorable one was when he was having a dental and a lump removed (lump covered by insurance) and they wanted to give him fluids. I asked why fluids, "well he's insured isn't he?" I said yes but that wasn't a licence for them to print money, and I had a yearly limit on claims, and unless he was going to be under for hours there wasn't a chance he was having the fluids. I even uttered the words "he can have a drink when he gets home" as I crossed it off the quote.

Vet didn't know what to say and when I told my Dad he was mortified at what I'd said. I used to stand up to them all the time.

DDog has gone over the rainbow now, not through lack of fluids I would like to add, and I would have given him my last penny to save him, but the vets take the mickey.

A vet in Frome so unless you live there it may be different.

I have worked as a vet receptionist for 20 years. Even with staff discount I can’t afford to own a pet- I just can’t afford the vet bills.

Veterinary care has changed so much since the 70s and 80s. Vets are able to offer much more advanced treatment now compared to back then. And unfortunately, this does come with a price tag.
In the past few years, Vet and vet nurse wages are also slowly rising to a livable wage (still shit, but now closer to a human doctor and nurse salary - funnily enough, no one calls them greedy 🙄)

The biggest change in the 70s and 80s is the vets to jobs ratio. In the 70s there were often vets out of work currently around about 40% of roles are empty. This has pushed up salaries to those vets we have.

Vet care has become very expensive for a number of reasons, but a main one is that the level of care customers now demand is far higher than it was.

Gone are the days of quickly removing a strange lump, sending a dog home and hoping for the best. Now there has to be a full discussion of the risks, possible treatment options and any operation that is performed has to be done to the highest standard of care. It’s more akin to human medicine now. And of course that costs a lot of money.

Private healthcare is expensive. Vets are highly skilled professionals who work incredibly hard in very stressful jobs and start their careers with enormous burdens of student debt. They absolutely deserve to be paid properly relative to human doctors, (ie six figures for senior / consultant level) which has not historically been the case. There is also currently a shortage of vets due to the explosion in pet ownership during covid, so surgeries are having to compete hard to fill their vacancies.

Proper insurance is part of the cost of responsible pet ownership. If you can’t afford that insurance, you can’t afford to own the animal. Full stop.

I guess vets offer a service that is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it. If pet ownership declines hugely then vets could find themselves out of work and slashing prices to stay afloat.

It’s different to human medicine in that it is predominantly consumer driven rather than need driven. No one needs to own a pet and people may start choosing not to if it’s becomes too expensive.