Vets charges £17 for 15 paracetamol

[Messyhair321]

This is normal paracetamol isn't it?
How can vet charge £17 for a box of 15 tablets when I can pop to the chemist & get them for £1. ??!

My dog insurers, quite rightly, refuse to pay invoices for vastly overinflated meds/supplies so my vet now knows not to overcharge. I never tell a vet my animal is insured - surprising how different the treatment and invoices can be.

Ouch seems most is prescription cost. Thankfully my vet just told me to buy paracetamol myself and the dose to use. The specialist referrals did try to dispense it at great cost, which I handed back and asked to remove from bill as they already knew it was part of her daily meds mix.

There is a risk I think that as OTC people will continue to dose up pet when it's not been seen by a vet or see others use it without knowing dosage or if suitable for their dogs condition.

Also had Gabapentin & tramadol which was cheaper to get vet prescription and take to human pharmacy, but I don't blame the vet for the costs as they couldn't buy it in anywhere near as cheap.

Yes you can. Vet advised me to use 3 human paracetamol for my Lab. 8 hours apart.

^Also this. Which means you end up paying more as you max out earlier.

That is crazy! My dog takes gabapentin daily, our vet said on days he isn't doing so well we can give him a higher dose, or to save money he can have paracetamol. I was impressed that they suggested this! They certainly didn't prescribe any for us, just said he could have 1/3 of a regular tablet if needed. Dogs can also have Calpol.

I'm not in the UK but a few years back my vet tried to charge me €30 euro for ear drops that I had gotten on prescription myself a few weeks back from my own chemist on prescription for less than a fiver. Some of them really do take the piss.

These threads make be super grateful for our vet.

My beagle has twice had minor injuries that required painkillers - they didn't even insist on an appointment, just said that as his weight is X, you can give him half a paracetamol twice a day.

We always have it in the house and it's the first thing he gets if he has a minor injury (limp or cut paw, for example) - always solves the problem and he's never needed further treatment.

Take them back @Messyhair321
I was sold shampoo for my miniature yorkie for £30. When I realised I went back for a refund.

Absolutely immoral

Vets are not my favourite people right now. I have just been charged £24.50 for a 5 day course of Antibiotics. I looked online and the tablets are 64p each. Daylight robbery if you ask me

I never say its for the dog or the guinea pig!

I booked an appointment at the vets but could only get in the following day - the vet said on the phone I could give him calpol if I thought he needed it while waiting for his appointment.

As said above, many pharmacies won't sell medication if they know it's not for human consumption. I was once refused as I mentioned it was for my cat. I guess vets have other hoops to jump through which raise the price.

As has already been said, vets are not allowed to prescribe or recommend a human drug if a veterinary version is available, or to advise you to buy something in terms that break its licence. Plenty of us do, but technically we shouldn’t, so every vet who says “you can just buy the human version” is to some extent taking a risk by doing so. If the vet is young and/or working for a harsh, possibly corporate, employer, they may just not bother to risk it and stick to the letter of the law instead.

and here’s the regular reminder that the vet is very unlikely to be raking in the benefit of any charges directly, because they are probably employed by a corporate. And that online prices are cheaper than many practices can buy themselves from wholesalers (they’re not allowed to buy from online veterinary pharmacies for resale, only to write prescriptions that can be used by clients).

so yes, it’s frustrating for owners and seems unjustifiably expensive, but the reasons for this are not just veterinary greed, but far more complicated. And being blamed for the system is one of the stresses that drive A LOT of vets out of practice, hence the current staffing crisis in the sector.

I had a very unhappy chemist when I told him the piriton I wanted to buy was for a cat. It was a Sunday afternoon and the vet had told me over the phone to give Piriton for my cat's allergic reaction to a bee sting.

She did eventually give me the medication though!

Why not check that you are prepared to pay for something before looking? If it's unclear ask. If you consider it unreasonable then decline. That's the usual order of things.

Nobody is forced to use any vet. I don't insure and have a list that I've vetted before I need their services. I don't even want to consider DIY prescribing to save say £17 because I'm not qualified to judge, and therefore pay for the vet's expertise and judgement. Frankly the amount of time and effort involved in obtaining and providing those 15 tablets was probably more than £17. Just go somewhere else that suits you better. Or DIY based on unqualified discussion on social media.

I agree completely I have raised it with them. I'm totally incensed by this I can't tell you.
On top of our dog being ill we have to deal with the vets fleecing us

Not strictly true for our vet practice though. The vet we used to see there told us to use human meds over the counter for our other pet.
I disagree with you I think it is greedy to charge over £1 a tablet. But beside that, they didn't give me an option. Didn't discuss what meds they were prior to handing the tablets over.
They charged & then gave us the meds.
They know when your pet is ill you are in a state.
I feel absolutely enraged about this.
Charging extortionate prices might well take away funds from treatment that my dog will need.
And she's not a cashcow, just because she's insured, doesn't give them the right to take the piss.

Try a bill for £600. Not just the £17.
But It was this charge for paracetamol though that has made me wonder whether the vet is being straight with the costs.
You live & learn. I will be looking hard at what they're doing from this point on.
NB it's fair to say that I was easily taken advantage of , clearly upset, my dog had just been diagnosed with an aggressive cancer.
And so I think they should have talked to us about what they were going to hand over, if I'd known it was paracetamol before I'd paid I would have handed it straight back.

Also I'm pretty sure that your suggestion of the 15 paracetamol being equivalent or costing them more than £17 is a bit of a reach. I don't think so, everyone's knows that vets charge more for meds than other companies. Which is why a lot of people ask for written prescriptions from them.

You haven't said what treatment your dog received, and £600 is not unusual or at all unreasonable for an acute consultation. If you are convinced that your vet took advantage of your distress then you must of course use another. There is no evidence from what you've said that you've been overcharged for either treatment or medication. Vets are highly trained practitioners and if you had to pay for acute treatment privately, the cost can easily exceed £600, and most GPs are not as extensively trained as vets.

This is why most farmers learn to treat their livestock and only call the vet when they can't manage. They also weigh up the cost and value of vet services. Pet owners if we treat their pets as family members must be prepared to pay for vet services none of which have been forced on us.

*I had a very unhappy chemist when I told him the piriton I wanted to buy was for a cat. It was a Sunday afternoon and the vet had told me over the phone to give Piriton for my cat's allergic reaction to a bee sting.

She did eventually give me the medication though*

And this is the issue. The vet (incorrectly) tells people to buy things from the pharmacy. The pharmacist gets it in the neck for (correctly) refusing the sale.

Some pharmacists might give in purely to avoid conflict but they are not legally covered for the sale and their indemnity insurance would not cover them in any legal action taken if harm were to come to a pet.

One blood test. And the paracetamol.
I have used vets before in not naive to the costs. But I do think they're taking the piss actually & I think I'm entitled to hold that opinion.

@maryso I'm also aware that vet services aren't forced on people. But having said that, we were not told that the pain meds were actually paracetamol. Had we been advised prior to the vet handing them over AFTER we'd paid, we wouldn't have agreed, obviously. And we were home (12 miles away) when we opened the box & realised what they were.

Much later I realised that there was nothing special about the paracetamol, they were just human meds. So in short I feel it wouldn't have been unreasonable for the vet to advise what he was going to give our dog to take away prior to the end of the consultation.

And I believe that inflating prices because they know that the customer is insured is not just morally wrong but also is against the RCVS standards. It also breeds mistrust. And I imagine as any professional you don't want that.

Unfortunately we are moving area at the moment within a couple of weeks so no point in moving practices right now but will be moving vets due to move shortly anyway.

Of course everyone is entitled to hold any opinion!

It was £617 for a blood test and a pack of tablets. Was the examination, and deciding what to test for, and extracting blood, and diagnosing condition from test results, and judging whether or what to treat, all free? Happily your dog did not need further treatment, and you can go elsewhere.

Where is the evidence that prices are being inflated? Not doubting, just curious. And even if they are, they have to reflect local competition. If a vet does not deliver value, owners can just go elsewhere.

Most people referred for diagnostic tests on the NHS happily are not diagnosed incurable. Some would like to believe a blood test is cheap, however the process of GP, referral, testing and consultation costs thousands, more for complex cases. Vets are no less cheap.