Vets bill

The majority of vets now are only in it for the money & this has been evolving since Covid - no idea why except that many people bought pets for company during lockdown. PDSA suddenly had a shortage of vets and appointments became emergency cases only. I'm not sure if that's still the case. PDSA funding must have been stopped and redirected somewhere else. All you paid for was medication.

We've got 10 pets, 8 cats on Vax for Life (free annual vaccinations for life) which our vet introduced when they opened in 2019 and 2 big dogs (which we bought in 2020 & 2021) and we pay for their vaccinations & treatment.

In the last few years our vet has doubled the size of the building, doubled the cost of medication, introduced a £60 consultation fee for vet appointments and £55 for a follow up appointment. They had 4 consult rooms, now they have 8 but now only 2 vets on a shift instead of 4. All the foreign student vets & nurses have disappeared - just like the PDSA vets. I wonder if the vets at our practice are now self employed - all the familiar faces have gone, all the receptionists and their desk which sat 3 have gone and there's never anyone in anymore.

I've lost count of the many tricks they've tried to pull to get us to spend more money - even saying our cat needs £950 on dental work but the latest visit last week by a different vet says he only has a bit of tartare.
He gave me a price of £650 first off then when I pulled a face he said he could do it for £450.

We took the dog for her annual vaccination & the nurse said there was a problem with her heart - she went into the back for advice then said we'd have to book her in for a heart scan as no-one was available. I asked her to listen to her heart again as she'd been all giddy with one of the staff beforehand - she refused saying it wouldn't be any different - she wouldn't entertain it. Every time we go I have complaints about their tactics but I say nothing cos they'll start being awkward.

Pharmacists will refuse to sell eye drops for dogs and for people over a certain age. I send my husband down to say they are for me and that I'm under 60 if I need them for my dog. I once went to the pharmacist for me having spoken to the GP about my eyes and they told me to buy them from the chemist. They refused to sell them to me and said I had to have a prescription. To say I was unimpressed is an understatement.

Iam64

In answer to the suggestion I’m making up the story of the dog with conjunctivitis. The vet gave me a prescription. The pharmacist said I don’t need that. She sold me the standard Optrex for infected eye drops. I have bought it for myself in the past.

I once mentioned to a pharmacist that I wanted some pepto bismol for my dog. He said sorry I can’t sell it to you now you’ve told me that so I had to buy it from a chemist a few shops down. We did manage to get some infected eye drops from a chemist but they had to be kept in a fridge and somebody that was staying at my partners house took them out of the fridge. For some reason my partner has been able to buy chloramphenicol at times but I can never get any ( I look guilty even if I’m not actually doing anything wrong). I carry the one box I managed to get around with me and protect it with my life…

The OP corrected the amount to £1,500.

I would regard the £2,500 you paid to the Vet as a gift.
Your son has no pet insurance; and no savings. He’ll be very upset about the loss of his cat. I would not suspend the £1,000 on his birthday each year. Perhaps he needs to put some money aside for emergencies.

It might be that the price included cremation and return of the ashes too? When you're in that situation you might yes to anything. The pet insurance doesn't cover this cost.

I would get him to find another vet - that is a rip off.

Get an itemised bill and ask for pensioner rates, not insurance rates.

My dear doggie got a seed in her ear (common with Spaniels) £60; a neighbour's cost £400. Someone local on fb paid £1,200. Seems they can charge what they like.

Mattsmum2

Thank you everyone for your words kind or otherwise. The final bill was around £1500, he’s already paid me £500, taken out pet insurance and asked for me to not give his birthday money, his choice. He said to me that he felt very stupid and embarrassed, that he thought pet insurance was ridiculously expensive, but it isn’t. Not compared to costs at vets. A huge lesson learned.

Excellent result.

Calandergirl Totally agree many people forget that governments have no money they just spend ours. Applies to many things people just seem to think the government should just fork out

SporeRB01

If it were me, I foot the bill but stop the £1000 birthday gift for 2 years and encourage your son and his husband to take out a pet insurance for the remaining two cats.

Right now, even the rescue centres are struggling to pay their vet bills. More pet owners are surrendering their pets because they can no longer afford to keep them. To make matters worse, cat owners do not have their cats neutered, so the rescue centres are overwhelm with unwanted litters of kittens.

I would love to adopt a cat or two but have second thoughts due to our age.

If you are unable to adopt but would love to give a cat a safe loving environment, please consider fostering. I volunteer for a cat rescue and we are all desperate for loving foster carers.

eddiecat78

Am I the only person who is very cross that this couple decided to have THREE cats without being able to afford to take care of them properly? Although, apparently they can afford to go on holiday.
I would have told the vet to bill them directly and leave them to sort out a payment plan with the vet

I absolutely agree with you. If you own pets you have to accept they can be a financial burden. If they can't afford vet treatment or to pay insurance they should not have so many animals. I hope the remaining cats are neutered and properly cared for.

Set up a monthly payment plan for them to repay you. I'm sure you will end up giving it back to them,

Thank you everyone for your words kind or otherwise. The final bill was around £1500, he’s already paid me £500, taken out pet insurance and asked for me to not give his birthday money, his choice. He said to me that he felt very stupid and embarrassed, that he thought pet insurance was ridiculously expensive, but it isn’t. Not compared to costs at vets. A huge lesson learned.

Absolutely! What vet in gods good name has invoiced you 2.5k for euthanising a cat?

That charge was not just for euthenasia.

The OP has already stated the cat required emergency treatment.

It no doubt required some professional investigation to decide what emergency treatment to try.

Bloods? Perhaps scans or xray, which entail anaesthesia in order to perform them. Pain relief, antibiotics?

An out-of-hours call-out is always more expensive than a daytime consult ; a period of in-house care and observation (to see if the emergency treatment was going to work) is also charged for .

Seems the emergency care could not save the cat so it was PTS.

All charges are no doubt itemised on the final bill, which OP hadn't yet received.

Absolutely! What vet in gods good name has invoiced you 2.5k for euthanising a cat?

Once you have challenged the Vetenarian finance department, ash for a payment plan and your son and in law must pay these instalments. Also remind him that they are not to get a ‘replacement’ puss cat

I would certainly insist on repayment. You and your son need to work out how much he can afford to pay you monthly until the debt is cleared.

Personally, I would feel very mean if I stopped giving presents to clear the debt that way, but I might well ask, when his birthday approaches ,if he would like you to take out a pet insurance for him - if you feel you can afford to do so. I have no idea what these insurance schemes cost, as I have always just paid vet's bills our of my current account.

In my younger days, I considered taking out insurance for a newc at, but as the charges were twice what I had paid during all sixteen years of my previous cat's life, I decided against it.

Sometimes paying bills as they come in is possible, other times it meant doing without something I wanted, but the cat came first.

Maybe gift him the money as part of his inheritance and then buy him cat insurance for his other two cats as his Birthday present. Unless you have savings, not having sufficient funds to pay for vet treatment seems to be a bit irresponsible to me.

I would first of all wait for the vet's bill as £2500 sounds way too much for a cat to be euthanised unless maybe it had weeks of treatment beforehand?
I also think if your son can afford to have 3 cats and go on holiday he should be expected to pay his own vet's bill one way or another.

In view of others' comments about expecting governments to pay for pets, it was an off-the-cuff remark. I don't expect this to happen, but it would be nice if the pet in question belonged to say, an elderly person devoted to the animal who struggled to pay for the pet's care.

Some owners choose to have an animal euthanised as they can't afford the vet's bills of thousands of pounds to treat the animal.

Insurance can help but it does depend on the insurance company. So many of them try to get out of paying up, there are many exclusions, and it is also becoming prohibitively expensive.

It's just sad that we've become a country where owning a pet is becoming just too expensive. Vet bills aren't so extortionate in other countries. I've even heard of people taking their pets abroad to be treated at much less cost. It's a ridiculous situation.

Casdon

David49

£2000+ is about average a vet will charge for investigation and advising a pet needs to be euthanized, it happened to my neighbour when his 15 yr old terrier was ill, there should be a law against it.

There will be.
www.google.com/goto?url=CAESsAEB6zswFeHeqHWrwiTBNPG2uXpwzsdO_f_hkH7SFbt35rb4zebq29WE3eBHHtzqIcXUf4JjEonnbC5kIcxSydof6tS7d9GVktTq3M_LMwjVwM4akQ31iVCd2rnoFfkefl-ByxtMtwPlmGpPv5z_8pCFvGhSNWXI5O05eXtSE7rcP5EZ3M2PdE7Xdc5vvGFiAsC0gHMa1fwhSIwKPPCcObgP6iopFEnCOJqS8xig03cRgg

Thank you Casdon. I knew I’d read about it somewhere. About time too.

In answer to the suggestion I’m making up the story of the dog with conjunctivitis. The vet gave me a prescription. The pharmacist said I don’t need that. She sold me the standard Optrex for infected eye drops. I have bought it for myself in the past.

Exorbitant vet bills is the one thing that has meant I will never have a pet again.

Sorry dog or cat

If you're considering pet insurance, you could choose one like ours which has a 24 hour help line. You get to speak to a proper vet who asks lots of questions and looks at the dog on video, (breathing, eyes, colour of gums etc). Sometimes they phone back to re-assess after an hour. They advise whether to see your own vet face to face.
By agreeing to do this every time, you can get a reduced monthly premium.

MayBee70

Iam64

MayBee, the dog had conjunctivitis as confirmed by the expensive dye used to ensure her eye problems weren’t caused by more serious eye conditions. I bought human eye drops for conjunctivitis/ dog well, £60 saved thanks vet

How did you get a pharmacist to sell you some? I tried to get some when I thought I needed it for myself but they wouldn’t sell me any.

I was the same maybe pharmacies wouldn’t sell to me !!!

Cabowich

Not a pet lover then, Calendargirl?

If you have pets, I assume you class yourself as a ‘pet lover’?

Should be prepared to pay whatever is needed to keep them healthy and happy then, not expecting others to do so.