Costs of medication from vet - a sense check!

[mintbiscuit]

Our BT is being treated for an eye ulcer.

Vet sold us clorogen eye drops (£60) and Loxicom (£30) painkiller

Clorogen is an OTC medicine for humans at £10.

Loxicom is £5.98 online without px.

I feel like we’ve been well and truly shafted! Is this right???

The eye drops even have instructions for humans!!! Why am I paying such a huge mark up???

In the future can I just request a prescription and source elsewhere?

The charge probably includes the vet's charge for issuing the prescriptions. By all means ask if you can source repeat Rxs yourself (if needed).

I think people in the UK, being used to the NHS, often have little awareness of the true cost of healthcare.

consultation was another £40 (which I’m fine with)

but a mark up of £50 for the eye drops which aren’t even a prescription medicine is insane!!!

Our vet always tells us if we can buy the same medication online or OTC without paying for a prescription.

It is a rip off though I'm sure someone will be along shortly to try and justify it!

See, this is what I’d appreciate! A heads up to say you can get this elsewhere for less money as it’s not a prescription! That is great customer service and feels more ethical. I can then make an informed choice.

Maybe we need to look at other vets.

@mintbiscuit we're really lucky to still have access to an independent vet with reasonable prices.

Sometimes I do buy from them direct as the prices they charge aren't awful and it's more convenient but I at least appreciate the honesty!

One of my cats is on regular Metacam and we could get it online for less - but I can pop into my vet and have it in my hand five minutes later so it's worth paying the extra.

Just a heads up, if you do buy something over the pharmacy counter dont tell the pharmacist/healthcare person they are for your dog or they will refuse the sale!

My dog is on long term meds and the vet gives me a prescription (at a fee) that I can use to purchase the medications cheaper online. My insurance company actually suggests buying online as it is cheaper. Vet charge is£32 for a prescription I can use for 6 months.

I pay £24.50 for a vets prescription & then buy online for a third of the normal vets cost for my dogs regular medicine

We get a prescription and buy on line.

My vet once said it was due to licensing so rather than use her prescription ddog could take calpol for pain relief (not sugar free as servers are bad - pharmacist was confused why I wanted the one with sugar for my dc… you cannot tell pharmacist it’s for a dog as their licence won’t let them sell it). Our dog also has piraton for wasp stings as his face puffs up (as a puppy he’d chase and eat them so it was a regular thing). Vet specified piraton and no other brand as some ingredients aren’t okay.

In the past I have purchased a prescription from the vets and purchased the medication online. They gave me some excuse about online ordering in higher quantities and getting it cheaper which they weren't able to do - apparently they pay more than the online shop. I think it's bullshit and they could buy it from the same online store for cheaper.

I think it used to be a way for them to make additional income but now a vets appt is so expensive that I'd say they don't need to.

Last time I took my dog to the vet he had a limp. She felt his leg and he grumbled. She said she didn't feel safe and gave him metacam. £90 bill for 5 mins. It's actually took longer to pay.

I was screwed for loxicom last week…£28 for a 10ml bottle!

My dog will be on it long term as it’s working, so I’ll happily pay the prescription fee and source it online. It’s such a poor business model…I’d happily pay a couple of quid more but they take the piss

It genuinely is true that we pay more from the wholesalers than you can buy online. Sometimes it's cheaper for me to source something on line for my own animals rather than get it at cost from the supplier.
You can always ask for a prescription, I usually tell people on long term medications that this is an option and sometimes even point them at suppliers online if they are a bit technically challenged.
I wouldn't how ever think to offer you a prescription for a one off bottle of loxicom though as firstly you need to start using it straight away , not wait for 48 hours . And secondly, the prescription charge would be more than you would save .

Thanks to everyone that replied! Really helpful responses from all.

I get a vet prescription for £25 which lasts 6 months and then pay £7 for the meds each time at our local pharmacy. Buying the same drug online which was marketed for dogs used to cost me £40 a month. It's insane - something needs to change.

Agreeing with @3smallpups that it genuinely costs more for vets to buy from their wholesalers, in many cases, than you can buy things for online. It’s madness but it’s true. Also please remember that the majority of U.K practices are now corporate owned. The vet you see will have no control whatsoever over the markup or pricing of goods or services if they work for a corporate. Frustration at some pricing is fair enough, but don’t think it’s going into the pockets of the frontline staff. It isn’t, unless you use an independent practice, and even then the only people who control the prices or take home the profits are the owners, not junior vets. end of announcement

@TarnishedMoonstone and @3smallpups thank you for your explanation re the wholesaler…fortunately my vet is one of the vanishingly few independents, and the loxicom I got last week was for immediate use, as you rightly say. However, when I have the follow up appointment today I’ll ask for the prescription (for which I’m perfectly happy to pay-I know I’m paying for the vet’s expertise in this) and buy online

My DM lives in Spain and gets prescriptions from her vets for free and just takes it in to the 'hooman' pharmacy.
It's amazing how her dog's medication is often the same as the stuff she's prescribed.
I object to a £90 consultancy fee for a two minute consultation each and every time, particularly if there are on going investigations.
I took dog to vet for a rabies vaccine so that five minute consult cost £90 + vaccine cost

Up to a point - but the meds ChenDog were prescribed by my vet are available in human version (I’ve taken it in the past) and dog version , although it’s the exact same med. I could only get the human form from my local pharmacy via my vet prescription when the dog form was no longer available (online or via my vet) due to a supply issue. The system is set up so that vets can’t prescribe the human version even if it’s cheaper - that surely needs to change.

@SirChenjins that’s right, vets are only allowed to prescribe the human form if there is no licensed veterinary equivalent available for a drug. You can Google the prescribing cascade for details. There are good reasons for this to do with the food chain, antibiotic safeguarding, etc, but it is also a nuisance in many ways. It won’t be changing IMO, and every individual vet is bound by it, we don’t have discretion to ignore it.

Yes, that's what my vet told me. I know there's currently no discretion to ignore it, but where there is a perfectly safe, cheaper alternative the regulations should allow vets that flexibility imo. It seems like a monopoly at the moment which I'm sure must result in dogs being given human meds which the vets don't know about are which probably aren't ideal but are affordable.

Independent vet user and they tell us if and where we can buy it cheaper if necessary. Tbh though their prescription meds are pretty competitive when you add in the prescription charge.

Unfortunately now the chains dominate they also dictate prices to a point as a lot are joined to drug companies and labs. So everyone pays more whether it’s the independent using them or the chain wanting to make money.

It used to be the case that you could prescribe generic medications but the regulations changed so that if there is a veterinary licenced form of the medication then we must use that .
it did massively ramp up the costs overnight and obviously if drug companies are going to the expense of licensing a drug, they are going to put a massive mark up on the product to make it worth their while.
i used to expend a lot of effort sourcing the most cost effective drugs for my clients but I absolutely can not do that now .

@3smallpups what was the reason for that change in the regs - pressure from the drug companies?

Yes, yes, yes!
I had one of mine on four meds for years. From vet £785 for six months ( she was tiny) online after paying vet £20 for each prescription, the exact same drugs in the exact same packaging was £145 for six months from Animed.