Cost of antibiotics

[luluskiptotheloo]

My dog has an ear infection and the vet prescribed an antibiotic after taking a swab.
I picked up the prescription today and it cost £88.
I double checked and was told I was only paying for the tablets.

Does this seem expensive?

I guess it depends on the type of anitibiotics (unlike the NHS which has a fixed cost and is very cheap compared to the actual cost of lots of medicines).

When you say you were only paying for the tablets does that mean they didn't charge you for issuing a prescription?

Tablet antibiotics for an ear infection? That's not usually appropriate. Topical treatment achieves much better concentrations. Unless theres a compliance issue?

We have tried the gel in his ear and it hasn’t worked. Vet said there were 3 types of bacteria found and as there is a lot of discharge he wants to try tablets before applying gel early next week.

I just thought they may have charged me for vet ringing me to give results of swab but no it’s all for the tablets.

Depends on the type of antibiotics, the size of the dog and the length of the course. They should be happy to provide a breakdown of the charges/copy invoice next time you're in.

I have the invoice, the charge was just £88 for 25 clavaseptin 500 mg tablets.

How big is your dog? I paid £30 for a week's worth (8 tablets) when mine was a pup. I'd say it's right unfortunately. I sympathise though - my dog also has issues with her ears and its cost us an absolute fortune!

Big dog = bigger bills I'm afraid. That sounds like a big dog and a long-ish course to me

Is he insured?

Dog is a Labrador, can’t remember his weight but he’s a big lab. So that’s around £10 a day for tablets.

I was charged £80 and again 10 days later when ddog had a lump- by a locum vet.. A week later regular vet said he had written down it was a tumour likely cancer.
How were anti biotic gonna bloody help that?? Charged me a further 1.5k for surgery..
Felt robbed tbh..

www.animeddirect.co.uk/clavaseptin-palatable-tablets-priced-per-tablet-500mg.html?gclid=CjwKCAjwkqPrBRA3EiwAKdtwk6cQxpwmeJXnaIbo81xOv1HkOMCYSrPsoJt628k2XZe-z4-oY4N_rRoCA_gQAvD_BwE

If this is the correct tablets you are talking about, OP, then definitely not worth £88! According to this it's 99p per tablet

Animed Direct cannot examine, take/send/interpret the swab results, diagnose and prescribe for the dog for 99p per tablet.

threemilesupthreemilesdown
OP said:
I picked up the prescription today and it cost £88.
I double checked and was told I was only paying for the tablets

If they have included all that in the cost then yes of course not surprising it cost that much. I only posted that because OP mentioned the above.

Animed also have minimal staffing costs, overhead costs, insurance and equipment running costs.

You can buy prescription medications from online pharmacies for cheaper than your vet can from their wholesaler. Then on top of that, there's rules that mean your vet isn't allowed to buy from such online pharmacies, they have to buy from certain suppliers.

Sounds about right to me.

In future you can ask for a prescription and order your medication online.

As it happens I have recently become much more knowledgeable about antibiotics for ear infections than I'd like

30 x 250mg clavaseptin cost me about £55 (ish) from my vet. So seems about right.

Medication can be expensive and as a pp said you are paying for the time / staff / overheads of the practice etc . Our pony has ventipulmin , I could in theory get it for £45 ish online with a prescription from my vet , I choose to pay the £80 my vet charges because if everyone chose to go online then independent vets like mine would struggle to stay in business .

Waiting my intention was to point out that the online pharmacy has neither the diagnostic capability nor the overheads that the veterinary practice has, so it's meaningless to compare the medication costs between the two.

Just to be clear previous to this prescription we had paid £120 for consultation and laboratory charges for the swab. This £88 was purely the tablets.
I worked out I could buy them online for around £32.
This feels like daylight robbery.

There will often be a markup on things you buy at the vets. If they didn't make a profit to pay the bills/wages and invest in new equipment etc they would close down (a bit like all the high street shops due to everyone buying off the internet).

How do you think vets make enough profit to stay open and pay for their staff and equipment?
It's called mark up...when you sell things for more they cost you..and its how business works.
But I guess vets are ment to act like charities not small business...

That's one hell of a mark up! In future ask for all prescriptions to be just that. A prescription, not the medication itself. Get it bought online.

The veterinary medicines directorate (VMD) prevent veterinary practitioners from prescribing genetic drugs. We legally have to prescribe branded drugs licensed in the target species as a first choice.

Your vet will buy a relatively small quantity of drugs and will not be eligible for large scale discounts.

Online pharmacies can offer cheaper drugs as they will be able to access large scale discounts but you’ll still need a prescription from your vet and it’s reasonable for your vet to charge for the time it takes to review your pet’s history and write this prescription

One of mine has had ear problems which we found are due to very very narrow ear canals, she’s now has sedation and full ear flush and a barrier emollient put in. This is along with twice weekly cleaning with otodine. My vet checks the swabs themselves for £18.

Sorry ear flush is roughly every 6/8mths