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!

The irony is that if you’d spoken to your vet when deciding to breed they’d likely have outlined the potential downsides and costs for you.

That was in reference to you and. PP agreeing that it was unreasonable for a cat to be seen before flea treatment was prescribed. Legal compliance isn’t unreasonable.

hiw do you know your drug costs were inflated? Do you know the purchase price for the practice? Or are you assuming that cos human drugs/online pharmacies sell them cheaper that the economics would be the same (hint. They aren’t)

You should try requiring a large animal vet. Standard £50 call out fee even before examination/consultation or medication which is additional. And that’s weekday working hours. More for OOH, weekends or bank holidays. I literally cannot bring a sick cow to a vet so I have to pay. But I don’t complain because a vet has the knowledge and ability to diagnose, treat and hopefully save the life of an animal and I can’t.

My cat had exactly the same thing and it cost £3k, she was very very poorly and nearly died. Thankfully I had pet insurance so only cost me £80, you'll find it difficult to get insurance to cover you now and unfortunately this type of thing can reoccur. Hope puss is feeling better.

Your cat would have had a surgical procedure to unblock his bladder and flush it out. There's not a chance in hell a cat would just lie there and let someone place a urinary catheter in his penis and continuously flush it out etc. Therefore, he would have either been anaesthetised under general anaesthetic or placed under sedation and maintained on oxygen. This would have required a minimum of one vet surgeon and one veterinary nurse to be with him at all times, constantly monitoring his vital signs etc, as well as using specialist equipment and having him on fluids and other expensive medication. This procedure generally takes a long time to do and recovery is long and crucial afterwards. He most likely had a urinary catheter and collection bag overnight, and would've been closely monitored. I'd say the care he received would've been far more intensive than a routine castration or spay.

Also, there is a massive shortage of both vets and nurses in the industry now, and many vet practices are having to pay huge locum fees, out of desperation to have the staff they need to run. Especially out of hours, when they generally run on minimum staff.

Vets and vet nurses are paid terribly in comparison to human doctors and nurses. Yet the amount they are able to do and are expected to do is huge. There is such a large suicide rate within the industry too, due to all the stress they are put under, because people can't afford or don't want to pay their vet fees.

Pet plan are definitely recommended for insurance, but always go for a covered for life policy and next time get it straight away. Your cat won't ever be covered for this problem again by insurance, and it's highly likely to happen again!

Our local vets quoted us £1200 to remove some of our elderly dogs teeth. They had no space at our local vets so we went to another branch of the same chain in a small town a few miles from us. They charged £650 so roughly half of the original quote. It did seriously make me query our local branch as they do seem to have extortionate costs. My dog when he was a puppy swallowed one of those small packets of silica gel and they charged £180 for an injection to make him sick.

“It’s all about money”
A Business wanting to make money? Absolutely shocking
I have friends who are vets and the amount of discounts and freebies they are expected to give because they should love animals so much they shouldn’t want to make money from them is ridiculous. People turn up with strays, ill treated animals etc and if they refuse to treat them or take them in they often get abuse. Vets will generally treat wildlife for free (although I offer to pay) but they aren’t a dumping ground for unwanted animals or for animals who’s owners can’t afford treatment. DD does voluntary work in a vets to help with her future career and she is absolutely shocked at the attitude of a lot of the people who come in.
My vet friends generally DO go the extra mile but they are also short staffed, struggle to get some equipment and basic supplies and are generally knackered. They aren’t rolling in money either

The out of hours vet is expensive whereas my vet is £32 for an appointment - I've joked and asked if they did humans, a bargain compared to private human gps.

I have insurance for my dog though, the cat is Dp's DD's and not insured but as older we wouldn't be paying out a fortune

Generally insurance doesn’t cover pre-existing conditions so you would need to read the paperwork carefully.
You could shop around vets but the new price seems reasonable (although some recommended treatments have been knocked off).
I’m wondering how you thought you were going to pay for your cats vets bills when you got him.

I would look to move him to an independent vet if there's one locally. There is one particular national chain that seems to have a monopoly and because of that gets away with charging through the roof. A few years ago our then vet told us our cat absolutely had to have a procedure that involved putting a camera up her nose at a cost of ££££s, when actually a simple blood test, which they inexplicably didn't carry out, would have diagnosed the issue anyway. Our insurers challenged the fee and the vet had to back down and cut the bill. We've now moved to an independent vet which charges us half the consultation fee by comparison.

YABU, even vets have their own cats insured. Fwiw your emergency consultation fee is cheap! I've seen it as high as £305 for middle of the night.

Also this is a recurrent condition and will be excluded from your insurance policy now. So better get saving.

A bandage was £40 😩which is I'm guessing where they got access to the vein so no elaborate stitching or wound care required. Mine was free or included. I'm with an independent vet who is great . I switched from a national who was trying to upsell constantly. They even said my cat had a heart murmur and they could refer him to a cardiologist. I got him checked with the independent vet and they said he didn't have one.

I recently spent £600 on two lots of treatment for Dcat ulcer cleaning under sedation. Antibiotics, biopsy , steroids, blood tests. My cat has had a lot of issues and my bill is around 2k total. Your veterinary practice is a rip off they have got too used to insurance so whack a zero on as it's not the customer directly paying. Same thing happens in the US. Do you live in London ? I can only think of that maybe covering . You can buy a policy with manypets which covers pre existing conditions up to 1,500 7k for other things in total they have to be clear for three months after 2 years clear it resets to not a pre existing condition.

Neutering is generally done very cheap as a loss leader/welfare thing.

When we had a dog the online pharmacies were cheaper than the cost to the practice of the drugs, before any mark up, just saying.

Lots of drugs are way more expensive in animals than humans because of the cost of testing in animals and the relative numbers. There are relatively few generic animal drugs too because of numbers. Vet practices aren't making much money because surgical time is charged at way less than legal/accountant time, there's almost no chance to mark up drugs even to account for wastage of short shelf life drugs that are urgently needed when they're needed because of online pharmacies.

Would you rather they underquoted then hit you with a larger bill?

most vets will quote for everything - especially for procedures like dentals as the number of extractions required can’t be ascertained until the tartar has been removed. Then if it costs less that is a bonus! That’s much better than underwriting and then having to charge more or even not doing a proper job because you’ve quoted incorrectly.

apomorphine, the drug used to induce vomiting is eye wateringly expensive and comes in glass vials. Once open the whole vial has to be charged for hence the cost. It’s frustrating when folk see a ‘simple injection’ and complain about being overcharged despite having zero clue about the actual economics. It couldn’t be that that drug is really expensive? Nope it has to be the greedy vets fault!

Your veterinary practice is a rip off they have got too used to insurance so whack a zero on as it's not the customer directly paying

could you price up an emergency procedure to unblock a male cat’s bladder please @Meili04 ?

perhaps we could all learn something from your expertise on appropriate veterinary pricing.

My DCAt has had an amputation, tail surgery with x-ray , cystitis , oral ulcer requiring sedation excision cleaning antibiotics , biopsy , steroids all of these together have cost under 2k. The procedures in the last few weeks were 600 so it's not a massive price rise recently My vet even said cat drugs and equipment are cheaper compared to dogs 7k of cover is very very good. That was the price they set and I never quibbled over it. I do have insurance many pets do pre existing cover.

I’ll take that as a no, you can’t 😁
easy to criticise when you’re unaware of the economics I guess 🤷‍♀️

Cats are cheaper than dogs because in veterinary medicine they dose by weight, and most cats weigh less than pretty well all dogs.

£2000 on a vomiting cat? The vets are taking the piss.

£102 for an emergency consultation is reasonable. I would not pay £2000.

Not vomiting, blocked bladder, which is a common emergency in a boy cat. Even if it doesn't mean actual surgery (ie cutting with a scalpel) it definitely involves a fiddly procedure including lots of skill, and presumably sedation (trying to put something up a non-sedated cat's penis strikes me as a good way to die a death by a thousand cuts).

Sedation also requires monitoring, plus drugs which are not exactly cheaper than anaesthesia.

Vomiting dog, yep simple injection of a vetspecific (expensive) drug, plus time of a vet/nurse for supervision - make sure the dear creature doesn't eat what he's just thrown up (yep, had to do that with my old Labrador).

It maybe costs £2000 but that's not the same as being worth £2000.

Agree with what everyone else has said re the importance of insurance.
However, shopping around also makes a massive difference. Out nearest ooh vet charges £130 for standard consultation. One 10 mins further away treated our dog last year for £90 which covered the consultation, an hour and a half inpatient care, medication given there and medication to bring home with us.
Vets prices differ wildly.

That's exactly my point. When you say that out loud, £2000 to clear a cats bladder, it sounds beyond ridiculous. Clearly most posters don't agree and it could have been mitigated with insurance, however it doesn't make it worth £2000

@Aretheyhavingalaugh once again - you clearly are unable to understand the information many people on this thread have given about the reason for the price.

i think that @Moveonswiftlyplease comment and your response in fact clearly demonstrate what your issue is - you don’t think that a cats life and health care is worth that.

do even if you accept that is the cost - not you and @Moveonswiftlyplease think that the value of healing a cat is not worth it.

you are both perfectly entitled to think that an animals life is not worth £2000. Many people would think that. But don’t pretend it’s the vets who are the ones being outrageous here.