Vets Fees. Prescription Charges

[caspered]

I am just looking to gauge how much, if at all, my vet is ripping me off. I have a dog with arthritis which normally does not need much treatment, the occassional shot of metacam and kept out of the cold weather and cod liver oil. Just run out of metacam and can buy 180ml on web for £36.99. My vet want to charge me £56.99 for same. Asked for a copy of prescription for the drug that is already on my dogs record and they want to charge me £19.56 to print off the form!!! They said I could use it for 6 months, but quite frankly I would only use it once as we don't use metacam much! Sorry for ranting but I feel ripped off and don't even want to think how much I have spent at this vets in the past 11 years with my two dogs!

Your vet is still taking the responsibility for the prescription and you are paying for their time and professional judgement as well as the drug. This is reflected in a prescription fee or in the price of the drug if you buy it from the vet. If you are unhappy with your vet why don't you try another local surgery?

I agree with beautiful girls. Your vet has a surgery to run (i.e. a building to rent, heat, light, phones, equipment, staff - all things that are needed to ensure that they are there the next time you need them to treat your dog) and you are also paying for their professional care. If you buy the drugs online, the website doesn't have any of these costs, and therefore can sell it cheaper. It's pretty impossible for a vet to compare with online prices. We've just been charged £17 for a 32ml bottle of metacam today, which works out at 47p per ml (and was part of a £1500 bill!). Your vet is quoting you 31p per ml, so this seems pretty reasonable to me.

Can you not just ask them to supply you a smaller bottle? 180ml sounds like a lot if you're only using it once in a while.

Thanks for your feedback. I am happy to pay a charge for the prescription I just thought it was too much. I guess I will have to grin and bare it! Have been with this vet for life of my boys and don't really want to change now. Though I have found a cheaper vet locally. Anyone familiar with Vets4pets?

I run a small family practice that does it own out for hours emergency service 200yards from a vets4pets surgery. Yes for routine things like vaccinations etc we are a little bit more expensive than vets4pets.
However when your pet is sick at 4am I get from my bed and see you in our surgery that you know and you know me. If you go to vets4pets you have to travel 30 miles to a surgery that you
do not know to see someone you have never met before, oh and their out of hours charges are twice ours.
I have a comfortable lifestyle, but don't earn nearly as much as my friend who is a GP. The advantage of our meds over online pharmacies is that you can collect them when it is suitable to you and you don't have to wait for them to be delivered.

Our vet charges about 15.00 for a prescription which I don't think is too much. But our vet is fab and will do anything for us eg our poorly cat was ill and he even gave us his home number to call over Christmas rather than go to an on call vet we didn't know. When the said cat was put down he refunded us the meds we had brought even though he could not reuse them. I am happy to pay for this kind of service!

They also go out of thier way to help socialise all the waifs and strays I seem to accumulate. I think they spend all their profits on treats for them

caspered, if you think it too much I suggest you go and ask your GP how much they charge for a private prescription. I'd be surprised if it's less than £20 (and they don't have the overheads that vets do!).

Hi Caspered, I found your year old post when checking how much it costs for a vet's prescription. My older dog (14 yrs old) has been on Metacam for the past 5 years for arthritis but when she got dizzy and sick the vet advised me not to give the NSAI, give her half a paracetamol twice a day instead (she's 15kgs) Why was that not suggested 5 years ago I asked myself? Anyhow, she's fine on Paractamol and I shall not go back to Metacam unless needed. She also benefits from Yumove which I buy online for half the price and no prescription needed.
For anything else I go to my vets, they are a wonderful team and well worth the money but I will save money where I can. Hope that helps!

@Springerlady because paracetamol is not licensed for dogs and under veterinary medicines law vets have to prescribe the licences products first only when they are not working or there is a problem are they legally allowed to consider human medications.