Vets Emergency cost - AIBU

[Aretheyhavingalaugh]

I had to take my cat to the Vet yesterday as he wasn't going to the toilet or eating and then started vomiting. I called them for an emergency appointment which they said would cost £102 just to be seen, obviously its extortion, but I took him. When they saw him, they said he had a blocked bladder and without immediate treatment would die, they said this is a life threatening condition. The £102 consultation consisted of a few questions and the vet feeling his abdomen, they prepared an estimate which was £1824 to do the procedure, blood tests and scans. I told them I simply could not afford it. Upon looking at the estimate, they were charging £57 to admit him to the hospital ( take him upstairs) £40 for a bandage! £323 accommodation costs to keep him until 8am this morning ( more expensive than a hotel room in Mayfair) 1 specific kidney blood test was £170, bearing in mind, a human can get a full blood test for £95 privately. I told them I could not afford it and would have to take the cat elsewhere that was cheaper. They then managed to decrease the cost from £1824 to £863, taking off the blood tests, scans, making the accommodation slightly cheaper. It was still way too expensive, but if I didn't pay it, the cat would have died. I felt like they emotionally blackmailed me. When I got the very same cat neutered, it cost £65 which included the procedure, all the accommodation costs which was staying there the whole day, medication etc so how can they get away with charging this extortionate amount and basically holding me to ransom? By the way, the £102 consultation fee is on top of the £1800 they first quoted!

Have you got your cat insured? Sorry your cat is very unwell, you must be very worried

YABU. We in the UK have become so used to free medical treatment that we really don't understand how much it all costs.

That sounds like a perfectly reasonable quote to me. £102 for a consultation sounds reasonable.

I wouldn't advise insurance - they'll always find a way to wiggle out of paying out and you'll have wasted your money paying premiums.

No insurance, I will be sorting out ASAP. Insurance has to be in place 2 weeks prior to trying to make a claim. Cat is only 1 year old so very unusual to have this happen at this age.

@DenholmElliot1 that is terrible advice! I have pet plan for my cat and they have always paid out, his premiums are £19 a month and he’s had thousands of pounds of medical treatment paid for.

£1824 to unblock a cats bladder? Really?

My insurance also pays without a struggle

Thank you, will get that sorted for future. I am fuming and can't understand how they get away with charging so much

I know. I'm sorry. Our cat came home in the summer with a mystery cut on her tummy - her skin had been totally torn open. That cost us £800 in total.

I also recommend pet plan. I’ve never had them not pay, and we’ve had it cover thousands over the years now. But they won’t cover this now as it’s a pre-existing condition.

I’m sorry that your cat is unwell OP and hope you can get him fixed up soon, blockages are dangerous. The quote seems normal to me in my experience with emergency vets. Our local emergency consult is around £260!

@Aretheyhavingalaugh but do you understand anything at all about what it costs to run a vets practice? I suspect you have zero knowledge.

inagree with the poster who said that people have absolutely no idea what health care costs.

So the 'price' seems consistent however the question is HOW can it be so expensive? £57 to walk upstairs with the cat?

Vets are very expensive to run. Highly trained staff, expensive equipment, etc. The fees also have to include the running costs for the building, staff wages, pensions, sick pay, medicines, telephone, internet access, everything. Plus profit.
This is the price of private healthcare.
The fact your vets were willing to negotiate down the price is probably more because they are compassionate with care and were foregoing their costs so your cat wouldn't suffer

And quite obviously you could have avoided all this by paying for insurance which for a one year old car wijld
not have been expensive

IMO if you can't avoid a big bill you either get insurance or don't get an animal. It'snot up tosomeone who has trained for years and has all the vosts of running a practice to subsidise you.

They get away with charging so much because that is what it costs unfortunately. Pets are incredibly expensive and owners need to pay insurance so that, in the event of an emergency like you are experiencing now, they can cover costs. I'm sorry you are going through this, and hope you manage to foot the bill. I was stung with my first pet when I didn't bother with insurance, thousands of pounds later and had to put my girl down anyway. Dreadfully sad. Your indignation at the cost is probably misplaced stress and upset.

Good luck for your wee baby x

It wasn't the fact that I had to pay something, if they had said £300/£400 then I would have not even questioned it, but bloody £1800 for a tiny procedure. I get you need insurance and I was more than willing to pay as I didn't have insurance but not to be emotionally blackmailed. Why quote me £1800 if they could then 'manage' to do the procedure for £1000 less?

Definitely get insurance
Mine got some weird thing (the vet calls it a weird Ollie thing) that was like triaditis and was really sick
Between out of hours and my own vets it was over £3000 and the insurance covered it all

Vets do not make huge amounts of money. This is the actual cost of healthcare which UK humans are shielded from by the NHS.

Did you know the cat's diagnosis? No, so £102 is entirely reasonable to see someone highly trained, working unsociable hours who does.

Get insurance, unfortunately you have blown your chances with this cat as it now has a pre-existing condition that won't be covered.

I have Direct Line multi-pet policy, always paid out, vets like them, it's very easy.

@Aretheyhavingalaugh becuse the procedure was more risky to do at a cheaper price - they did it without taking bloods for example - so riskier

and sounds like they provided a discount to you which you should be grateful for. All vets staff at all level train a lot - and don’t get paid huge amounts. They’ve basically agreed that they will make less money because you were too tight to get insurance.

Nonsense. I'm a multicat household - claims for one of my (now deceased, kidney disease) cats came to best part of £1k, and there's currently an £8k claim going through for another of my cats. All that for £90 a month. Absolute bargain. Insurance is ALWAYS a sensible choice.

Shit sticks op!! I paid 2k for my ddogs cancer surgery and aftercare..

Definitely get insurance asap but as pp said this event won’t be covered. I’ve too found Pet Plan excellent. Our policy covered all expenses, apart from a reasonable excess of about £80, when our one year old cat was hit by a car last year - 7K in total
Vet practices are very expensive to run unfortunately. I imagine neutering is done at a loss to the practices but they keep the fees low in order it remains affordable to most pet owners and reduces unwanted breeding

I'm married to a vet, individual vets are not loaded, some corporate practices make good money for their shareholders though...

Boy cats are prone to getting blocked, because cats are fussy about tap water.

Exam cost, fairly expensive but emergency, presumably OOH, you might get a basic exam for £50 in hours, but you're paying for the qualified people to be sat in the office in case. The basic exam has barely gone up in the last 10 years, cost of living on the other hand. (Which is probably why vet starting salaries have actually decreased even if you don't account for inflation).

Admitting isn't just the physical act, it's also a time charge for the paperwork involved.

Veterinary medicine is often more expensive than even private human because there aren't the economies of scale, everything possible comes from human usage, things that don't are way more expensive because there just aren't the numbers using it.

Accommodation isn't just the space, it's the salary of the professionals generally supervising, plus heating and electricity bills.

Vets s

Thanks for all replies and advice. I just can't believe it's more expensive for a cat to have a blood test than a human!

It doesn't sound expensive to me, sorry. The fact you can get blood tests for £95 privately is irrelevant as it's very unlikely they are testing for the same thing. They have cut the price by not doing some of the things you mention. That might come back on you though as it means they aren't doing all the diagnostics they should. That means they might miss something else that is going on...