Discussion
Came home last night and found our 5m old fox red Lab had escape from his crate and had a great time trashing the boiler room .
This in itself wasn’t a big issue, (our niece had walked him earlier and not shut the crate door properly ) but we then discovered he had found a bag of chocolate chips and eaten almost 1kg .
I got him to vomit with some salted water and some came up but no where near all of it so 10-30 on a Saturday night and we’re heading to the 24hr vets .
Now I appreciate it costs a packet to keep a surgery open 24/7 and it’s fair to charge a premium for people’s stupidity but I thought it was a little excessive.
£240 just to get him through the door .
£900 to treat him and keep him in overnight.
He was given charcoal to absorb toxins before his system, a drug to induce more vomiting and another to keep his heart rate down .
Most importantly I received a call at 7am to say he was bright and well and ‘eating like a little horse’
I’m collecting him this afternoon with a minimum bill of £1140 .
Or may be more !
Does this seem excessive to others ? , I guess they charge it because they can .
Any way it’s a lesson learned .
A happy ending apart from my bank balance .
Dave
This in itself wasn’t a big issue, (our niece had walked him earlier and not shut the crate door properly ) but we then discovered he had found a bag of chocolate chips and eaten almost 1kg .
I got him to vomit with some salted water and some came up but no where near all of it so 10-30 on a Saturday night and we’re heading to the 24hr vets .
Now I appreciate it costs a packet to keep a surgery open 24/7 and it’s fair to charge a premium for people’s stupidity but I thought it was a little excessive.
£240 just to get him through the door .
£900 to treat him and keep him in overnight.
He was given charcoal to absorb toxins before his system, a drug to induce more vomiting and another to keep his heart rate down .
Most importantly I received a call at 7am to say he was bright and well and ‘eating like a little horse’
I’m collecting him this afternoon with a minimum bill of £1140 .
Or may be more !
Does this seem excessive to others ? , I guess they charge it because they can .
Any way it’s a lesson learned .
A happy ending apart from my bank balance .
Dave
I've always thought the costs are excessive. Our vet uses Vets Now for the out of hours service. Given Vets Now is geared up to operate an out of hours service, why is the Out Of Hours fee £184.50, and then the Consult fee another £56 on top of that?
If my vet was getting out of bed for me, then fair enough, but if Vets Now is open anyway, because they operate an out of hours service, it's pretty indefensible, IMO.
Hope your dog recovers, BTW.
If my vet was getting out of bed for me, then fair enough, but if Vets Now is open anyway, because they operate an out of hours service, it's pretty indefensible, IMO.
Hope your dog recovers, BTW.
My cat had to be taken to a 24 hour vets a few years ago when she started throwing up blood.
It was the weekend so there was no other option.
It cost in the region of £1k for treatment, x rays etc and in the end it was decided she had cancer and had to be put down anyway.
Unfortunately that seems to be the going rate.
If we didn't have the NHS and had to pay for medical emergencies you would not be commenting about the size of this bill!
It is a lot but the facility was open to receive your dog, fully staffed and possibly saved your dogs life.
The people and the premises need to be paid for, by the consumer.
It is a lot but the facility was open to receive your dog, fully staffed and possibly saved your dogs life.
The people and the premises need to be paid for, by the consumer.
ConnectionError said:
If we didn't have the NHS and had to pay for medical emergencies you would not be commenting about the size of this bill!
It is a lot but the facility was open to receive your dog, fully staffed and possibly saved your dogs life.
The people and the premises need to be paid for, by the consumer.
But the cost of the same thing during a weekday is significantly lower.It is a lot but the facility was open to receive your dog, fully staffed and possibly saved your dogs life.
The people and the premises need to be paid for, by the consumer.
My wife is a vet, so I have a slightly different view on this.
The Vet that you saw is a person who pretty much had to ace everything at school. Then compete to get in to one of the top universities. Once in to that Uni, he/she had to study and do free work placements pretty much full time for six years. I studies a humanities subject so spent most of my time drinking or sleeping – vets didn’t get time for any of that. So from deciding to be a vet though to qualification, it’s a minimum of 10 years solid work (from picking GCSEs to graduation).
Added to that when you called them at 10:30 on a Saturday night, depending upon the practice, the vet was either at home tucked up in bed, or sat ready and waiting in the practice. They treated your dog with expensive equipment at an antisocial hour and with the assistance of qualified nurses. When you look at it that way, I don’t think £1,140 sounds all that bad.
The Vet that you saw is a person who pretty much had to ace everything at school. Then compete to get in to one of the top universities. Once in to that Uni, he/she had to study and do free work placements pretty much full time for six years. I studies a humanities subject so spent most of my time drinking or sleeping – vets didn’t get time for any of that. So from deciding to be a vet though to qualification, it’s a minimum of 10 years solid work (from picking GCSEs to graduation).
Added to that when you called them at 10:30 on a Saturday night, depending upon the practice, the vet was either at home tucked up in bed, or sat ready and waiting in the practice. They treated your dog with expensive equipment at an antisocial hour and with the assistance of qualified nurses. When you look at it that way, I don’t think £1,140 sounds all that bad.
There absolutely is a correlation between insurance and vets bills going absolutely loopy.
As soon as there is a problem they just want to know insurance details.
Not related but my Lurcher was doing its best attempt at snuffing it some years ago, lost all its muscles on its front legs and oddly half her tongue.
Ref to a specialist and they made sure they absolutely had every penny out of my insurance, around 7 grand.
The figures for simple things was eye watering. Things that would cost at a vets cost treble.
In the end they didn't ever seem too bothered about finding the true cause of the issue and never gave a diagnosis.
Simple steroids' costing peanuts eventually sorted it though she never got her muscles back.
/rant
As soon as there is a problem they just want to know insurance details.
Not related but my Lurcher was doing its best attempt at snuffing it some years ago, lost all its muscles on its front legs and oddly half her tongue.
Ref to a specialist and they made sure they absolutely had every penny out of my insurance, around 7 grand.
The figures for simple things was eye watering. Things that would cost at a vets cost treble.
In the end they didn't ever seem too bothered about finding the true cause of the issue and never gave a diagnosis.
Simple steroids' costing peanuts eventually sorted it though she never got her muscles back.
/rant
Our local vets did the following after being taken over….
You could never get the same vet, I got sick of telling them my dog wasn’t overweight. The good vet we always saw at the same practice left as he didn’t like the new owners.
Used Vets Now for the out of hours vets, was terrible service where they gave us some medication I told them made my dog I’ll, then shrugged their shoulders and said no idea what’s up. If a Vet was in the building (I genuinely have my doubts) they were a s
t one who was scared of asking questions. That cost me £300 for the privilege.
Told to stay home during Covid, then told that as we hadn’t come in to claim our flea and working etc we wouldn’t get it, despite paying for it.
Lost appointments twice, telling me I must be mistaken despite having it written on a card by them.
Prices of monthly flea and working subscription goes up 25%
6 months later say as the practice is so busy, we are putting prices up by 25%. But for their established members we are not putting up the monthly flea and worming plan. Yes as you already did that.
Bad service and blatant profiteering.
Finding a reasonable level of service is very difficult near Market Deeping.
Dave!
You could never get the same vet, I got sick of telling them my dog wasn’t overweight. The good vet we always saw at the same practice left as he didn’t like the new owners.
Used Vets Now for the out of hours vets, was terrible service where they gave us some medication I told them made my dog I’ll, then shrugged their shoulders and said no idea what’s up. If a Vet was in the building (I genuinely have my doubts) they were a s
t one who was scared of asking questions. That cost me £300 for the privilege. Told to stay home during Covid, then told that as we hadn’t come in to claim our flea and working etc we wouldn’t get it, despite paying for it.
Lost appointments twice, telling me I must be mistaken despite having it written on a card by them.
Prices of monthly flea and working subscription goes up 25%
6 months later say as the practice is so busy, we are putting prices up by 25%. But for their established members we are not putting up the monthly flea and worming plan. Yes as you already did that.
Bad service and blatant profiteering.
Finding a reasonable level of service is very difficult near Market Deeping.
Dave!
I did some checking with other local vet practises who cover their own out of hours .
I explained what had happened and they estimated for similar treatment it would’ve cost about £400 with them so less than half .
Total bill from VetsNow was actually £1000 so thankfully less than their estimate and most importantly Kobe is just fine
I explained what had happened and they estimated for similar treatment it would’ve cost about £400 with them so less than half .
Total bill from VetsNow was actually £1000 so thankfully less than their estimate and most importantly Kobe is just fine
I like our local vets practice, convenient, the vets all are good and they can do everything either at the local practice or the main practice building.
However…and it’s a big however they have no out of hours treatment and if you’re unfortunate enough to have to need this it’s a 30 mile trip to the e-vet.
There’s another vet nearby who have their own out of hours so it’s a really difficult choice.
Interesting costs, a few years ago Daisy our Frenchie ate a paracetamol tablet, she went to the out of hours vet, vomiting was induced, she was then fed liquid charcoal, I guess we were there just under an hour, the bill was circa £350.
Out of hours vets are generally run by a company who specialises in providing this service, it won't be the actual vet you go to who offers this, the vet premises you go to will allow their premises to be used by the out of hours provider.
Out of hours vets are generally run by a company who specialises in providing this service, it won't be the actual vet you go to who offers this, the vet premises you go to will allow their premises to be used by the out of hours provider.
Edited by HTP99 on Sunday 7th November 15:06
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