Vet Bill - advice

[wast542]

Looking for a bit of perspective here.

My dog was booked in to get a specific surgery and I dropped him off. An hour or so later get phone call from vet saying he didn't need the surgery but was just going to be sent home with antibiotics and see how that goes. Picked him up that day.

Couple of weeks later I get a query from my insurers and I notice that the vet have claimed for the surgery that was never performed. I did tell the insurers he didn't have the surgery and told them what was wrong with him. It was merely an infection.

Now get bill from the vet as obviously the insurers rejected their direct claim and they are charging me in full for the surgery which he didn't have.

What do you think about this? Should I just ask them to amend the invoice to only include what was actually done. Surely they are wrong to expect me to pay for a surgery that didn't happen.

I have no specific knowledge, but surely you can't be charged for a surgery that didn't occur? Have you called the Vet?

Of course you should. You're not going to pay an invoice for work you didn't have done.

It will most likely be a situation where the surgery has been billed up and invoiced on the system and then not cancelled when the vet decides it wasn't necessary and then this 'outstanding' amount has been sent to insurance

Just call them and explain what happened and they'll remove the invoice

It’s probably an “admin error”. Just phone them to discuss & ask for a revised bill.

There's no way this is deliberate, it would be fraud and malpractice. As PP said, just call and explain, it's very likely to be a clerical error due to a glitch in communication between staff members, that's all.

They probably priced up the surgery before it was performed, forgot to cancel it and then a receptionist just sent it off to insurance because they weren't told not to.

I would go and speak to someone at reception and ask them to amend the invoice - it shouldn't be a big issue to solve.

It sounds like they may have billed the surgery as that what he was booked for. Then not taken it off when it didn’t happen. It’s pretty common for someone else in vets to do the billing so mistakes can occur. Call the vets and query it. Obviously you should not be charged for surgery which didn’t take place

Speak to your vet - it's likely a mistake.