Been quoted £615 for cat's dental appointment

[bendmeoverbackwards]

My cat had her annual check up and jabs a few weeks ago. Vet said there was a lot of build up on her teeth and she needed a dental appointment.

They have just sent through the estimate and it is £615 as an anaesthetic is involved.

Is this usual? How often should this be done or do people routinely clean their cats' teeth? I know our cat wouldn't tolerate me coming anywhere near her mouth.

Just to clean! Wow, that is a lot. A full mouth extraction, then fair enough, but to clean?? Wowser. Can you ask other vets roughly what they would charge for a scale and polish?

That's about the same as my regular surgery - except they needed to do a 2 stage process because two lots extractions were needed . The first chunk was about £600 - that would have been for a clean under anaesthetic with or without extractions. I found a second surgery for the second lot that charged £400 all in (and would have been the same price for the first round). I've seen posters in Ireland say they pay a heck of a lot less, mind.

The reason it's so expensive is because it's impossible to properly clean a cat's teeth without anaesthatising it. It shouldn't need doing again for a while, at least.

Since then, I've changed my cat onto an oral health dry food. I do try to clean her teeth with a cat toothbrush and paste, but she is not having it.
The dental stuff was at the beginning of this year, when she was four and a half- it went from a scale and one extraction needed to a scale and multiple extractions in the space of about a month.
We haven't had a health check since because of lockdown.

My friend paid £400 for both of his cats to have dentals. I think mine were £150 for a scale and polish. I also got given some toothpaste to give to Cheddar. She was pretty good at allowing me to do it. Bizarrely, it was vanilla flavour and she absolutely hated the flavour. So I stopped. If it has been chicken or fish flavour she'd have been ok.

I am clearly going to have to look harder for a cheaper practice if it comes up again!

My DP took our cat in last year because she was suddenly a bit off her food, and the vet said she needed a scale and polish and s tooth extracted. He paid £150 at that appointment, and we were told the surgery would be another £350. The vet rang when she was in, and said she would need more than one out, so I said fine, go ahead, and then was presented with a bill for £650.

She had six out in total, but it seemed like a lot of money, which of course was not covered by our insurance.

I’m not sure what would have happened if we couldn’t pay. I had to stick it on my credit card.

I actually asked my own dentist about it because I had a checkup the same week, and she said it’s the GA that’s the mega expensive part. (Fortunately I didn’t need expensive treatment too!)

I paid around £450 for my DC. This included the clean under GA, x-rays and two teeth extracted. That it cost a further £700 in emergency care because his kidneys failed most likely due to the GA is an entirely different story.

We were told it could be anything from £150 to £500 depending on what needed to be done so if he had not had to have teeth taken out, it would have been cheaper. Perhaps your quote is for worst case too?

My boy had a full scale and polish (and we were expecting an extraction but vet said once cleaned up the tooth was fine). He had lost a back tooth but we hadn't known and they x rayed to make sure nothing was wrong re the root. They also did his bloods for his arthritis at the same time.

£368 in total and insurance paid about £160. He's 12 and first dental ever required.

Had they had to do the extraction was expecting bill to be £550/£600.

I paid similar for approx age 7 year old cat to have teeth removed (perhaps 4-6 teeth) and full clean (South East). I was advised to put the cat onto full dental food - only available from vets. Sorry, no thanks. I changed his crunchy to an oral one (bigger kibble) and continued to allow him meat, fish & pouch. He died 3 years later, much loved. He knew it.

Hi just reporting back as I still haven't had this done. It wasn't marked as particularly urgent and money was a bit tight last year so I left it.

However I spoke to the vet recently and they said it's Grade 3 so it really does need doing.

Insurers say they will only cover if down to an accident or injury which it isn't. Just have to suck up the cost won't I?

Is it worth looking for another vet as TCN suggested?

Recently, a friend's vets changed ownership (one of those corporate owners) and prices skyrocketed. She swapped to another vet as a result.

We paid around £450 a good few years ago, so your quote doesn't sound outrageous. Although our vet offers a fixed fee dental (£200) if you're in the Healthy Pet Club. They were happy for us to join on the spot, and a years membership was £120 so we saved a bit there.

Thank you, I'm going to ask around locally to see if there are any cheaper options.

OP, our cat needed dental work but it was extractions of 4 teeth. As you, we were not covered by the insurance as it wasn't caused by illness, she's just a cat with bad teeth.
It cost £500 or so to have all 4 out, they warned it could be more if the extraction was tricky when they got in there but I think your quote is steep! Definitely shop around!

The cat will be noticeably happier when it’s done.

@bendmeoverbackwards

OP

I was quoted 400 for my dogs teeth, and was horrified

I ended up going to the Animal Trust to get are and it cost me 230 I instead

Animal trust is a non profit vetinary chain and they’re total angels. It’s not means tested or anything, anybody can go.

Here’s the link below - they have nationwide branches and are brilliant:
www.animaltrust.org.uk/

That does sound expensive. One of ours had a full dental clearance for less than £200, admittedly about 10 hears ago. The other had a few extractive more recently and I'm sure it wasn't that much more expensive. Worth shopping around... I'm in the midlands

Maybe shop around and get quotes from other vets?

Mine needed anaesthetic, 5 teeth removing and a bloody good clean and scrape.

We paid £260 but our usual vet had quoted us £580 for the same treatment

This was just a yr ago btw

I live in an area known to be expensive for vet treatment, however even I have baulked at what you were quoted!
My cat needed 4 teeth out and plaque removal along with a week of pain meds. This was £330 and included an x-ray of gums

Definitely shop around!!

Sounds about right even though expensive.My vet quoted £100 for the anaesthetist alone.
The bill for my cats dental was £1.000 ,but he had all his teeth out apart from 4 fangs and the little front ones.

London prices we would start at £250 if no extractions needed (anaesthesia, full assessment including x-rays as needed/charting whole
mouth, full descale, polish) up to £600 if multiple complex extractions are required. Very occasional extremely complex cases £800-1000. Healthcare plan members get discounts too.

Update - went to a locally recommended vet last week and was quoted £350!

I’m taking her in tomorrow to have it done, she will probably need a few extractions. I’m worried, she’s never had a GA before.

One of mine has got that dental reabsorption (?) thing which is quite common in older cats, although she’s had it for 2 or 3 years & she’s only 7 now.
Vet said she would need most/all of them extracting, but she hasn’t seemed too bothered by it, although she can’t really chew her food and often regurgitates.
Her breath has got terrible though so at her checkup last month I said it’s probably time to have them out. Vet said it will be a max of £800
She had the first go last week, which cost about £350 - they only extracted on one side, because her blood pressure was beginning to fluctuate too much (she’s a very small cat) although they did also do some cleaning on the other side.
It’s a big job as it’s not just extracting, they have to cut and lift the gums, clean everything out underneath and then stitch it all up again.
I was very relieved to have the payments spaced out between credit card statements!

@bendmeoverbackwards

Update - went to a locally recommended vet last week and was quoted £350!

I’m taking her in tomorrow to have it done, she will probably need a few extractions. I’m worried, she’s never had a GA before.

Just seen your latest post, @bendmeoverbackwards

I was worried about the GA too (although she has had one before, when she was spayed) but she was fine when we got home, just a bit spacey, and starving because she didn’t want their food in their cage!