Vet Bills.

[Raven]

Was pleased to see this in the News this morning. Vet bills are a damn disgrace. I was £500 about 18 months ago for Dageus to get 3 teeth out I felt quite faint when I was told how much it was, THEN, I was a further £200 as he took a bad reaction to one of the meds he was given, he came out in 2 big sores that stank and oozed. I know there's insurance but most won't insure dogs over 8/10 years old. I did find one that would take him but it was around £60 a month and would go up yearly. I point blank refused to pay it, it's just a racket. I felt it was pure robbery. I now put money away every week incase I should need to take him to the Vet.

BBC News - Vet prices review over fears pet owners are being overcharged
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-66733077

[Michael Rolls]

we stopped insuring Fleur when she was ten and the insurance premium rocketed (to be fair, so did my BUPA premium when I reached 60, so that was stopped as well!). Like you, we just made sure that money would be available if needed. Once we stopped the insurance there were a few bills from time to time, but nothing that we saw as unreasonable. Our vet was in Blairgowrie and there another practice in the town, which may have a bearing. I have looked back at the vet's bills for the five and a half years by which Fleur survived her tenth birthday but nothing ever came remotely close to £500 There were ten visits - an annual check-up, and some one-offs - I remember one was when she fell badly from a chair and had some anti-inflammatory tablets, and a couple of treatments for a UTI, The final, and saddest, was for her cremation. I had her individually cremated and have her ashes in a very attractive container with her name inscribed on a brass plate - and even all that was well short of £200.

[Michael Rolls]

Raven, the more I think about it, the more outrageous £500 for three teeth seems. I've just looked up what we spent on Fleur after we stopped the insurance. Excluding her cremation, ten visits, which included five 'MOTs', cost a total of £416.63. Fleur died in February 2019 so there has been inflation since, but surely nothing to explain £500! Perhaps they relate the size of the bill to the size of the dog - Dageus is much bigger than Fleur was (joke!)

[dextrous63]

What rules me even more Raven, is that they gave him meds (which you no doubt paid for) which made him ill and they asked for £200 to correct their mistake?!?

How does that work????

[Michael Rolls]

to their advantage! I do know that vet's bills are much higher in some areas. My late sister lived in Kingston-upon-Thames - SW London, expensive area, and she seemed to be forever paying a fortune in vets bills for her cat.

[dextrous63]

Apropos of nothing (sorry Raven for the brief detour), we used to go Kingston once a year from Chiswick to visit the big Bentalls and Evans Outsizes.  Lovely place🥹😊

[Diasi]

When one our cats became ill last year her treatment cost us around £2,500 in total as we didn't have her insured.

We've now insured our remaining three cats, on one policy, for around £32pm (I've just discovered that I can't find any of the electronic insurance documents so I'll have to phone Tesco so this thread has done me a big favour).

Our Yorkie's insurance is £48.54pm, up from £33.48pm last year.

[Raven]

What rules me even more Raven, is that they gave him meds (which you no doubt paid for) which made him ill and they asked for £200 to correct their mistake?!?

How does that work????

I had to pay for everything,   not their fault my dog reacted badly to their meds.   Our vet charges £50 just to look at your dog, before any treatment, I expect it's the same with cats.
The Clydes are even more, plus the call out charge, as they don't fit in the vets waiting room.
We are lucky that all 3 animals have had very little need of a vet in their lives.......So far.

[Michael Rolls]

£50 just to look? Bleedinellfire! Is he by chance the ony vet for miles around?

[klondike]

I expect his travel expenses are high. Those Rollers and Ferraris don't come cheap and use fuel like there's no tomorrow.

[Raven]

£50 just to look? Bleedinellfire! Is he by chance the ony vet for miles around?

Yes they have 2 practices, one here and the other in Wick. You may have seen them on the TV, they are the Vets who are in the the programme Highland Vets.
My son is with Fair Ciry Vets in Perth and it's £50 there to see your pet as well. Daylight robbery.

https://www.johnogroat-journal.co.uk/news/thurso-vets-take-starring-roles-in-third-tv-series-237581/

https://youtu.be/Exj8WU6YBzk?si=b3JPEcJKeeSvUekp

[Scrumpy]

Nice littler earner being a Vet... It always has been..
The insurance companies are making a bomb.. To cope with costs of treatment most people choose to use insurance cover.. 
My dentist insurance is around 35 pm.. I used to have Bupa but they shot themselves in the foot when their premiums went sky high..

[Alex]

So many people are having to give up their pets, many are abandoned simply because of the cost of keeping them fed and healthy.  Vets are rich people in the main, wouldn't it be a good idea if they had lower charges for people on lower incomes ? 

[Raven]

 That's where the PDSA used to come in, but, they pulled the rug out from so many people when they stopped working with private vets. You will now only get help from them if your able to go to one of their own vet surgeries. BUT, you have to live in the catchment area.

[Michael Rolls]

As I mentioned, Fleur had five paid for 'MOTs' after we ended her insurance - they increased slightly over the five years, average £35 which included checking vital signs, checking the chip was still in the right position, usually a scrape of the teeth, a blood sample (not sure if that was always taken, but certainly at least on a couple of occasions, because I entered in my diary 'so much blood from so little a dog!' and there may have been other things that I have forgotten - oh, nails clipped if needed , and she was weighed of course, whereupon we would be congratulated on not letting her get overweight, something to which if over-indulged CKCs are very prone - we saw some real fatties over the years