Vets fees

[Gettingbysomehow]

I'm fuming!! I have a very sweet gentle cat, never bites unless playing and even then its super gentle. She's 13 and needs a blood test to check her thyroid levels.
Vet says she'll need sedation and a day in kennels which will cost £500.
I've had 10 feral cats previously and never once have any of them needed sedation and a day in kennels to recover for a simple blood test.
I said no originally it isn't necessary.
The day of her appointment is here and I get a phone call from the vet to say she'll need sedation. I said absolutely not.
I said if you are unable to do a simple blood test without it costing me £500 let me know now and I'll go elsewhere.
There was a lot of backtracking the other end and they said "If she doesn't let us do it" it will still cost you £75. WTF!!
Since when are vets demanding to do this for tests.
Does your vet insist on sedation for a simple blood test!
I have insurance but as I said to them I do not use it for things like blood tests because if I over use it the premiums go up every year and it becomes unaffordable.
I think it's more about making money these days and much less about what is good for the cat.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-66733077

I think it's very vet and/or area dependent.

We're in the NW and very rural - we use quite an old-school farm vet and the prices are so cheap compared to when we lived in the SE. As in, the old vet was over double what we pay now for exactly the same treatment.

Two years ago, I needed to take one of my cats in to see the vet at 11pm on NYE. He got a full exam, anti-sickness jab, antibiotics and painkillers. We were charged £94.

Is the vet you use a chain, by any chance? They seem to be the worst offenders.

Have you been given the option of trying an oral sedation you give at home 90 mins before the appointment for bloods. This medication takes the edge off without full sedation and works for most cats. With bloods its tricky as they have to sit extremely still with their head elevated while the sample is taken from the jugular vein. It might just be that your kitty is wriggly and they cant get the sample?

Well what did they say when you asked why the cat needed sedation? There must have been a reason as that's absolutely not normal practice.

If you don't like what they are offering then decline and go elsewhere.

I was quoted £300 for. Ultrasound scan with sedation. So £500 seems excessive. I knew my cat wouldn't need sedation though, as she'd had loads of heart scans. I'd ask them to fry without sedation first.

Doesn't help now, but as per the BBC article the fact that the competition and markets authority are reviewing vets is telling. I think the proliferation of big chains have generally been terrible for pet owners and their relationships with their vets. Any pet owner can fill out their survey -

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/how-to-respond-to-the-veterinary-services-market-for-pets-review

Vets all over the UK are welcoming the review. What we don't appreciate are the tabloid headlines with "rip off vets" in them, pointing the finger at the veterinary professionals on the ground. The vast majority of us have absolutely no say in pricing, and contrary to popular belief most of us don't have financial targets. We are salaried employees who take home the same amount each month whether or not you go ahead with the pre-op bloods, IVFT, anti-parasiticide treatment or whatever else we are recommending with our up to date knowledge of best practice.

In my opinion, the review will either force the big bosses (who we've never/will never meet and don't give a monkeys about our mental health or the utter abuse we receive on a daily basis) to lower the prices, or the public will find out that veterinary treatment costs, in light of the massive overheads involved in running a vet practice, are in fact fair.

Thyroid meds for my DC costs over £60 from the vet. Online same medicine costs less than £20.00. Says it all, really.

How does that say it all?

Do you know how much your vets can buy it in for before they put a markup on it? It's unlikely they can buy it for less than £20 direct from the wholesaler.

What overheads do you think an online pharmacy has? Do you think they are comparable to the overheads of a veterinary practice?

Do you value being able to get medication at the point of needing it?

Do you feel the staff who work at the practice deserve to get paid, or should vets be non-profit?

@Orarewedancer quite. It's the investment company lot I take issue with. My vets has recently been bought out. Costs have increased and out of hours service massively reduced. Veterinary costs are obviously not cheap - last year one of my animals was in for an operation and all in including pre op diagnosis, stopping in overnight, antibiotics and follow up was a little over £1k. Certainly not pocket money but excellent value considering the time and skill required of the vet and nursing team I thought. But I'm quite sure the same would cost a lot more this year now they are part of a big chain. And I doubt the vet team doing the work would see much more, if any, of it either.

Friend’s cat needed an ultrasound- she was quoted hundreds as it needed sedation. Went to another vet, who just picked her up cuddled the cat and he let her do the ultrasound. 🤷🏼‍♀️ Probably unusual for a cat to let you do this, but the first vet wouldn’t even try.

I never tell the vet I have insurance, as they max out. This meant I paid more. Don’t think this just applies to pet insurance either! I know someone who works in health insurance for humans and had to refer the surgeon/practice to GMC for removing gall bladders during other surgeries. Adding time on to already needed ops (you don’t need your gall bladder) so they whipped it out and charged for it.

@TidalShore I've always been the first to defend veterinary prices and for the most part still do. Owners have complained about prices since the dawn of time, but in recent years even I am struggling to understand some of the costs. Fortunately I've never worked somewhere with such high costs and I feel sorry for those who do. I now work for a charity practice so that I don't have to have cost conversations every day. I'll never go back to private practice as the stress from owner expectations and money caused massive burnout. Unfortunately I'm far from the only one and the veterinary workforce is in a crisis, with experienced vets and vet nurses realising they can can earn far more money for far less hassle in other jobs.

I appreciate your understanding of who is at play when it comes to the pricing. Bottom line is there are a lot of people earning ££££ - and it's certainly not vets - and their salary has to come from one place only - pet owners. Fortunately for them they'll never have to come face to face or over the phone with a single one.

Orarewedancer Wow! How on earth can you justify the difference between less than £20 and over £60 is beyond me. I'm not taking anything away from my vets excellent service for which I am paying a lot of money but I don't begrudge it as my DC's health is most important.
However the cost wholesale of the medicine must be less than £20 or the online vet pharmacy wouldn't be making any money at all. So the vet surgery (part of a well known company) is making profit on the medicine. Needless to say I request a prescription that costs £21 and buy online. Times are tough for pet owners.

Volume pricing mostly. Yes vets put a markup too, but I'd not be surprised if the cost they buy in at is similar if not more than the cost the online pharmacies sell at. Happens everywhere, not just veterinary medicines.

@sunshinesupermum let's say your cats on Thyronorm. Your vet practice might hold 6 bottles at any one time. An online pharmacy warehouse may hold 6,000 at one time.
When the online pharmacy places an order for 6,000 units, they're going to get it at a substantially lower cost per unit than the vets who buy 6 units.
Then when they add their markup to each unit, they don't need to factor in, for example, initial and maintenance costs of x-ray machines, anaesthetic machines, blood machines, various insurance policies, staff CPD, out of hours cover (including outsourcing - that comes with a fee), RCVS fees, and the salaries of highly skilled professionals. Consult fees alone don't cover this.

And no, a practice cannot buy from an online pharmacy therefore cannot buy it at the same price you can - though that would be nice!

I'm glad you appreciate your vets excellent service, but your initial comment very much does sound like you begrudge paying for it.

And of course the vet is making profit on the medicine, just as the online pharmacy would! But it's no where near £40.

That's crazy pricing. One of our cats had a broken claw removed under sedation (so didn't have the lab costs for the blood test), cost around £75. Picked her up after a couple of hours so no excessive boarding costs. So grateful for our lovely independent vet.

I don't necessarily begrudge vet practises charging what they do, but equally if the medication isn't urgent, I'm not going to pay double or triple the cost of something I know I can get online for much less.

Prices also vary hugely from practise to practise which doesn't help. Like I said above, I got an OOH appointment for my cat on NYE a couple of years ago - the appointment, plus painkillers, anti-sickness medication and antibiotics came to less than £100.

I've seen people on here say they can't see an OOH vet without paying at least £150 for the appointment alone.

The Vets already charge a consultation fee before you even open the door ,tripping up on medication is a bit much it makes people not go to the vet and makes the animals suffer, lots of animals are dumped because people cant afford vets fees