Advice about crazy vet’s bill

[eyespartyparty]

DCat was kept in overnight at our vet’s last night (we had a 5pm appt).
I posted previously about her using the kitchen sink as a litter tray, about a week or so ago, and then the last 4 days she’s vomited all her food up after eating so we took her in.

They phoned just now to say they did some blood tests and scanned her tummy, the bloods were normal but her intestine looks inflamed so they want to do another scan at lunchtime to see if there’s any change. She’s not vomited since we took her in.

At the end of the call the receptionist said we are looking at a bill for around £1500 so far. Is this normal?

We have no insurance for them (we have 2 rescues) as we had trouble receiving a payout with our previous cat - he died at 13yo and every little claim was a quibble or not covered.

I absolutely adore both of our cats but financially if it goes any higher we just physically couldn’t pay it. What are you meant to do in that situation - go and pick them up??? Does this sound like a normal bill for her being there overnight? We have very little vet experience so would really appreciate any advice.

It does sound pretty normal. For someone who had a cat who took ages to investigate and find out what was wrong, things can continue to mount up. We were insured and even then it crept up to double what we were covered for. I paid £4k out my own pocket then she passed the next day.

our next resume cat we took no chances. It’s a stupid amount per month and doesn’t cover his teeth but it covers a lot more. People say to put money away in an account , but had I done that with my last cat I’d still not have enough.

At this point you may have some trouble with insurance if your cats have pre existing issues. If not, jump at the opportunity and get insurance while you can.

I totally agree.

As for those insisting on insurance being an absolute requirement - some of us prefer to self-insure. My cat, until the last 3 months of her very long life, required next to know veterinary care, other than yearly checkups and vaccinations, so insurance would have worked out much more expensive.

Of course one never knows whether a pet may need more frequent and expensive treatment, but I am willing to opt for conservative management and potentially euthanasia rather than subject pets to prolonged intervention or surgery.

Some vets will recommend all kinds of interventions which may not always be in the animal’s best interests. When our labrador was diagnosed with haemangiosarcoma - which is invariably fatal within weeks - they actually recommended chemotherapy! We chose to make these weeks as comfortable as possible for her, spoiled her rotten, and when she deteriorated we had a vet come to our house to put her to sleep.

Yes unfortunately vet bills are very high.

If your kitty has intestinal inflammation it might be worthwhile trying her on grain free food, just in case that's causing the problem - worth a try. Hope she gets better soon.

Sainsbury pet insurance paid out with no problem, when our cats were ill. We had the top level policy. We had to pay a percentage of any bill, once we had paid £99 in a year for problems, but that was never an issue. Our last bill came to more than £700 and I got £500 plus back from the Insurance - and the cat died hours after we got him back from the vets, sadly. I've always insured my cats, as soon as we got them. It's not worth NOT having it for them, tbh

Hope all goes well for yours

Completely disagree.

Once a cat goes over 7 years old, insurance goes insane. Over 9 years old and you’re expected to pay insane amount and 20% of costs. If they have ANY pre existing conditions - forget about it.

I have always insured my pets and been screwed over by many insurance companies. My 15 year old cat was quoted £2k a year min with additional costs so we decided to save instead.

Insurance companies are out of control these days if you want anything over accidental cover or for a pet over 5. But if you don’t have insurance you should have savings.

At our vets, currently: the cost of a consultation and a scan is £500
That's without sedation.
Cost of a cat being kept in overnight £300
That's just the overnight bit, not any treatment or tests or anything.
Cost of an operation to remove a lump in intestines is £2000 plus an overnight stay on top.

I think we need to stop applying human medical sciences, ethics (and culturally British medical ethics at that which is currently very much quantity over quality of life) and expectations to animals and take a more pragmatic approach.

I would have tried dietary management with a cat with GI symptoms and so be it if something very acute got missed in the meantime.

Hi, I am a vet. Your vet should have given you an estimate of costs on admitting your cat to the hospital. It should be on the consent form as an estimate, and they should keep you updated if a new investigation or procedure is advised.

Some vets will allow payment in installments or klarna.

This thread was mainly to ask others’ opinions on whether the bills sound in the correct ballpark seeing as we have little experience here.
I do appreciate everyone’s comments re insurance but as I said upthread, we really got ripped off previously so when we got our 2 lovely rescues we decided not to. There’s not a lot else I can say about insurance as we don’t have it.

I’m waiting to hear back from the vet - they still haven’t returned my call asking for an itemised bill so I can see the breakdown.

Hoping she is home and cuddling us very soon.

But £2k a year is still way less than a complex vets bill- saving won’t give you the £15k cover I get with my insurance unless you’re saving literally £££££.

When my 10 year old cat was kept in overnight it was around £1500. Hope this helps somewhat.

It is when it comes with multiple caveats and extra expenses that can be incurred depending on vet plans for a cat who has no pre conditions and doesn’t go outside. It takes the piss some of the costs and you’re often left fighting for compensation. If you do claim then your premiums will go up the next year and so it goes on in my experience.

I also think sometimes we need to look at the quality of life for an animal vs invasive tests. Especially for senior animals. I don’t believe every vet has the best intentions and sometimes it is greed especially if you had high level insurance like I did in the past.

If OP has a cat with pre-existing conditions and/or is old they most likely felt the same and has mentioned fighting multiple insurance companies (as I have in the past for my other cats) so I understand why they don’t have it.

Either way OP doesn’t have insurance and if they tried to get it now their animal has pre-existing conditions so most likely wouldn’t be covered. The fact is they asked if the overnight stay is about right and it is for vet costs.

Yes the bill sounds reasonable to me.

bloods at my vets are around £280, an ultrasound is around £450. Add in the initial consult and then overnight care and possibly some other drugs, it sounds about the right amount to me.

If you want your pets to be well and happy, you need to either insure or have a good fund available from savings for medical treatment.

It is appropriate to discuss pragmatic and sensible treatment options with your vets. That may involve a trial of antibiotics or anti inflammatories for example to see if symptoms improve, before doing further investigation which is often more expensive. I’d do this with your vets before your cat has another scan.

what is less appropriate is stopping treatment and bringing your cat home when she’s still unwell because you haven’t planned ahead or budgeted for veterinary care.

The problem comes when people don’t have insurance and don’t “self-insure “. Self insurance doesn’t mean just not having insurance, it means you put aside the money that you would have paid to the insurance company.

We don't insure our cats, just have a savings account. I would definitely ask what the cheapest options could be. It sounds like your cat doesn't need an overnight stay for example. One of our cats had a deep cut in its eye and the vet recommended getting it stitched by a specialist eye surgeon - we were looking at £1,500. I asked about alternatives and we settled on a regime of eyedrops which cost about £500. Healed very well. It's tricky when you love them and want the best care. If you were paying insurance on both cats you'd be looking at around £10,000 over their lifetime so it's not irrational to cover it yourself if you can.

Our 11 year old lab had a stroke in October and had to stay overnight. Our bill was £936.69. We had insurance but they only paid out half. We’ve been told if he has another stroke within the next year we won’t be covered. Your bill sounds about right.

On average 20 pet owners will pay more for insurance than their insurance companies pay out to the 20 vets each year. Because the insurance companies make a profit.

Of course it's possible that the vets charge uninsured individual owners more than they charge an insurance company for the same thing, but on average it still costs more to get insurance than not, I'm certain. It's just if your pet is at the unlucky end of the scale and needs a major intervention, those coats are shared by the owners of the more numerous, luckier pets, whose owners are paying out more than needs claiming back.

I seem to be going massively against the grain here but £1500 for what you’re described sounds absolutely insane to me.

We use a very small, independent farm vets and our bill would be less than half of what you describe.

this is why the government are looking into vet pricing because it’s just ridiculous.

yes people should be paid for their time and experience but sometimes it’s just a bit much.

Yes entirely normal. We had an estimate of £300-£500 for an overnight after surgery off everything - he ended up staying for another day and night and it became £1800 - no drop or anything but he was being monitored constantly so entirely normal. Scans etc are costly. Always have insurance. A simple op on my dog to remove a small lump near his eye - no cancer just he kept knocking it £3000.

I had a frank conversation with my vet yesterday about my 13yo cat. She’s got hyperthyroidism and is very unwell. £200 for tests yesterday and then to manage it it’ll be £40ish monthly meds and monthly blood tests on top. I can’t afford it and the excess on her insurance is so high because of her age that won’t help either. We’ve decided to spoil her for a few days then euthanise 😢

Insuring a cat across a normal lifespan will cost about £4000 depending on the exact product you buy. Obviously premiums increase gradually during their lifetimes and usuall the excess increases as the cat gets older.

For the insurance industry to function at all (which it does) this suggests that the average cat needs treatment costing approx £3000 over its lifetime, so if you choose to have an uninsured cat you should be expecting to have a budget of thousands to provide reasonable levels of treatment, unless you expect to have the animal put to sleep at the first sign of something that needs treatment. In the outlier cases some very unlucky cats will need many tens of thousands of pounds worth of care, but there will be a lot who maybe stay mostly healthy and only need about £1000 worth to balance those out. You can either gamble that your cat will never get really ill and choose the uninsured route or you can gamble by putting in insurance premiums that may pay out big if the cat gets really ill but there's no non-gambling choice.

£1500 is not that much no.

It would be the overnight stay... vets seem to charge around £600 per night.

So sorry for that difficult choice @PoliteSquid. I hope your DCat has a splendid last few days. We had a similar situation with a previous cat thoigh for us it wasn't about the money but once we understood what the various tests and ongoing treatments would be like, we knew that it would only cause our pet stress and misery and a poor quality of life, with a huge loss of trust because he would never understand why we were doing this to him on a daily basis. Sometimes PTS is the most loving thing to do.

How is your cat now? I think a staged pay plan will help this bill but if you have Blue Cross nearby perhaps try tgem next time.