Do you think they over charge?

Question

I understand that vets need paid, but what if you don't have the money? I love my pets dearly but I don't have the money to take them to the vet everytime something is wrong.

Answer 1

I do believe some vets do over charge. Then there's vets who would drop the world to help one more sick pet, often at no charge. I've heard of many excellent vets who will take in injured strays and patch them up for free, minus the cost of medication. That's like... $25-$50 bux?

Then there's some idiots who charge folks $50 just to walk in the door and are completely incompetent. One local vet I know of routinely starves her budgie patients to death. UGH. What's worse is that there's only three bird vets here in the city! >.< .

Regarding the comment 'if you can't afford owning a pet you shouldn't have one'- that ideal doesn't work for everyone. If it wasn't for my pets I would have died a loooong time ago. I have numerous medical conditions that make life a living hell and my pets - as expensive as they can be - are worth every penny. No human, plant of fish gives me the same satisfaction that my birds and rats do. :-) . I'm finding my guys get better care than many pets who live with people who can afford the $100 bux to bring a sick $10 rat to the vet.

Answer 2

I am a tech at a very busy hospital in Los Angeles. I have worked at many hospitals over the years. I can tell you for absolute certain that vets discount something (if not a lot of things) on almost every bill for almost every client. People have an idea of a dollar amount they feel is reasonable to spend on pet medical care. We have to work within the perameters of what they percieve to be the value of the services rendered. Our facilities, equipment, and supplies cost the same as human medical products. But people generally have health insurance. They don't see the "real bill," so they don't know how much health care actually costs. Pet insurance is meager compared to human health insurance. There is just no way that vets can charge to a client what is a comparable rate without insurance. I recently went to my doctor, not knowing my insurance had lapsed. I had a doctors exam, and some very minor bloodwork done. The bill was $587. At the "high priced" animal hospital where I work, an exam is $58 and a full blood panel with a urinalysis is $188. A c-section for a human is typically over $15,000. For a dog, it is around $1500...and dogs generally have far more than 1 puppy that we have to get breathing and nursing right away!
I hope that enlightens you a bit. Hopefully, pet insurance will step up and help out. And if we can charge full price for what we do, then maybe someday vet techs like myself can get paid a comparable wage to human nurses. An maybe then, there will be more vet techs who seek to get licensed in the state where they live, as it will be thought of more as a career rather than a temporary job while you figure out what you really want to do with your life. (And then, maybe people will stop asking me if I'm studying to be a vet. I wonder how many nurses get asked every day if they are studying to be doctors. Probably not many.)
Check out Petcare pet insurance. It is more afforable, and has better coverage than VPI, IMHO.

Answer 3

Please remember that depending on where you live, the cost of operating a veterinary clinic can be very expensive. Suppose the lot your local clinic sits on cost a 500k. Not taking into account interest, utilites or even the cost of the building itself, ,your vet would have to collect almost $3000 a month just to pay for the land!!!! Say the building and kennels cost another $500k. Now you are looking at almost 6k a month and he still hasn't paid the utilities, insurance, his employees or himself.

Most veterinarians also have loads of student loans that have to be repaid.

Another thing to remember is often, after you visit the doctor, THEN you visit the pharmacy. Most veterinary clinics have to have an in-house pharmacy.

If you can't afford the care of your animals, you should probably consider not replacing them.

If you develop a good relationship with your vet and pay promptly if you have to charge something, then you are more likely to be able to charge should the need arise.

Answer 4

Yes I belive vets ask for too much money, they make it even harder when they don't do accounts, Some vets are hopeless at working with animals and some are just doing it for the money. When you take your animal to the vets it's important you make sure they love there job and all animals or they could end up doing more harm than good, I have had that happen to me many times, some try to make your beloved animal more sick so you go to the vets more often If you have a vet that dosen't do the job well I suggest finding another Vet.

Answer 5

Vet visits are high but,Vets unlike Medical Doctors have to buy all of their own machines and supplies. They cant send your dog to the hospital for an x-ray.They have to pay their Techs, Staff,Buy Drugs,Tests...Pay rent on their offices.The Vet that works for us at the Animal Shelter gets Call after call from people with no money,Most do all they can and she tries to at least get her Cost out of a vist before she bills the rest but just like the rest of us,When they do a job they need to be paid. They have bills too.Vets are for the most part not wealthy people they are like all of us trying to stay afloat and do what they can..They are very overworked as well(The one's I know anyway)

Answer 6

Why is it the vets responsibility if you cannot pay for your animal? You may love your pet but ownership of a pet comes with the responsibility to pay for that animal if it needs medical treatment or surrender the animal if you cannot afford to pay. When I take my car in for service twice a year it cost me $300-$400 each time and I cannot pay later when I have the cash, so why is it that veterinarians get a bad rap for charging $40/consult plus price of meds on top. Try calling your doctor to see what a consult costs without insurance and compare this to your vets fees (vets go to school as long as general practioners).
There are many disease states that can be prevented (eg. speying a dog before it comes in heat decreases the likelihood of mammary tumours and prevents pyometra or getting puppies their parvo shots prevents the disease) instead of having to pay for cure doesn't it make sense to pay for prevention?
It continually amazes me that people can afford to drink, smoke, have a cell phone, operate gas guzzling vehicles but cannot pay for vet bills, even better are the ones who won't ask friends of family for loans but have no problems asking the vet for one. If you don't want to purchase pet insurance, most vets take credit cards, why not put one credit card aside in case of emergencies (animal or human)?
Vets need to exist as well, if every client was unable to pay the vet wouldn't be in business for very long. Think about what you do for a living and then think about not getting paid for it. As it is, many vets will reduce fees to almost cost for people who are on hard times.
Moral of the story, if you can't afford an animal don't have one, you are responsible for that animals well being, not the vet.

Answer 7

Let me tell you they do overcharge. We got our little snowball in november and the vet was charging us 20 dollar vet visit plus whatever I had done to him, for example rabies shot, parvo etc. One day I googled a condition I noticed in snowball and it said something to the effect that it is to be expected. I took snowball to the vet anyway and got charged not 20 but 40!!!! bucks. OH MAH GAH! It said dog consultation instead of puppy consultation, and snowball was only 8 months old. Guess since not a lot of people can afford taking their pets to the vet they over charge us dummies that do lol. But, unfortunately we need the vet to get his rabies parvo and distemper shots in the future.

Answer 8

I have over a 150 pets so I know that it is very expeniceve to pay the vet I spend about 15,000 a year to my vet so I know how much it cost but since I do have so many my vet gives me a discount on them so I dont have to pay that much any more know i am down to about 9,000 a year so that helps I do sum work for him at his clinic to help pay for the shots and things. He and his wife kinda treat me as one of there own kids know thy have shown me many ways to treat my own pets at home so know I dont have to go to them to get shots for all my babys know. thy also let me call meds in if I no what the prouble is so I dont have to pay a vet visit. So I guess Im pretty lucky to have such good vets. Thy are wornderful people. But my last vet took me for a run and I had to start geting reid of all of my pets so I switched to my vet know and thy are very cool. most of the time thy dont charge me to get my shots and things but I do have to pay for the meds just not the visit. But yes most vets do charge you to much I have learned soooo much from my vet and I also have learned how much thy spend and how much extra thy charge you thy double double the price so yes it is very true that vets to try to screw the little ppl becouse the big ppl can afford it so thy charge everyone the same so that way thy dont get confusid on how much to charge the next person. Of course the vet looks at everyone the same becouse it stands the reason if you can afford a pet then you can afford the bills that go with them.

Answer 9

In Iowa where I live we have low cost vet clinics. And maybe if you can't afford to take them to the vet, you should rethink having them. If you can't afford to take a child to the vet you shouldn't have them. It's not their fault and they shouldn't have to be sick and miserable just becuase you can't afford them.

Answer 10

if you have a Vet school in ur area it is very cheap to go there for whatever u need... we do it with our pets