My vet's new policy. Is this right?

to your point, it would be like getting the diagnostic work done and then asking the shop to order the parts so you can take them home and do it yourself.

Pete S wrote:

to your point, it would be like getting the diagnostic work done and then asking the shop to order the parts so you can take them home and do it yourself.

Hell ya. Why not? Offer a reasonable price for labor then?

Clearly a gray area. The Vet has every right to be compensated for time/services spent. HOWEVER, this should have been made clear and discussed prior to the bill.

Randy Wieland wrote:

Clearly a gray area. The Vet has every right to be compensated for time/services spent. HOWEVER, this should have been made clear and discussed prior to the bill.

It also should be discussed with the vet prior to ordering. If they get calls out of the blue to verify a prescription they never wrote I can see why they would want to charge for that. If you talk to your vet about how you want to bring your dog there but use a prescription product that they don’t carry it would prevent surprises on both sides.

Did you ask why they do not carry the product?

Vets are starting to get like mechanics where it is hard to trust them and they try and nickle and dime you. I have had two vets where I loved them at first, but then got jaded.

The first was a lady when I was younger who would work with you and let you make payments on procedures and what not. I thought of her when our cat got an abscess. We brought our cat there specifically because of how she treated me in the past (we had since started using a vet closer to us for the dogs). She was very excited about the abscess because some vet who was an intern or something was moving on and would “get to do another oral surgery before he left”. I have no idea if the excitement was because he’d get a nice check or get experience. We left pretty disgusted. Of course the surgery could not be done before the infection was taken care of so we were sent home with antibiotic. Well that knocked out the infection, we never scheduled the surgery and she lived 3-4 years more without ever getting another infection.

The second is our current vet. The location was real close to us while their new building was being built. No long waits. No bull.

We still like them, but in the new building the wait times have grown. I’ve waited 45 minutes for the techs to take Tuffy back for a 5 minute nail trim. I’ve also had them suggest a teeth cleaning for Tuffy at 12-13 years old.

Outside of that though they are really good. They will give itemized estimates of work that may need to be done and options. They helped with managing Tuffy’s chronic cough he’s had since last fall. She said next steps would be ultrasound and other things, but hasn’t pushed it.

I highly recommend the book
“How to Afford Veterinary Care Without Mortgaging the Kids”

If you have an ounce of old-school common sense and a little DIY in you, the advice in this book can save you literally thousands of dollars over a pets life. IMO, the veterinary industry in this day and age is geared towards people with disposable income that feel guilty about saving a nickle when caring for sweet little fluffy.

You can take his advice or leave it, but he definately raised questions and issues that i agreed with, and it has saved me a lot of coin. It was well worth the $20.

https://www.amazon.com/Afford-Veterinary-Care-Without-Mortgaging/dp/0977702707

I did talk to the vet at the beginning of summer and they said they’d write the prescription. At that time I mentioned that I wanted to go to a pill for flea/tick control and they didn’t offer Nexgard or Bravecto. That was all understood, and there was to be no charge for the prescription. When I finally decided to use their prescription the lady at the desk called me and told me that so many people were now doing this they just recently this $15 charge for the prescription. My gut didn’t like it, and she was sort of apologetic, but I went ahead with it and didn’t make a big stink about it. I posted about it here just to see if this was now standard practice.

The SCRATCHER wrote:

get this for outrageous!! I use a vet near marion mn.

Out of a house just off Highway 52 and his name starts with a “P” and ends in “E”. Good vet….a little hinky, but a good vet.

Late to the game. What worked for me was to tell my vet they would get the business for a prescription if they matched the online price. Otherwise I would take a paper prescription and fill it where I chose. They matched, got my business and I keep going back.

One word answer, with no explanation, providing a service should be free?

Can’t say for sure about other states. Here in Ohio I have never met a poor pet vet. In fact their prices just about eliminates even the thought of owning a pet.
If you are going to provide said pets with health care.

Personally , I think no one should provide any service for free. You can shop vets here until you are blue in the face. Reasonable fees are a thing of the past. When my old vet died, I got educated in a hurry.

We used to own as many as 4 pets. For the longest while we went without any. Last year my wife rescued a tiny kitten. That someone had tossed out in our banks parking lot. As they say no good deed goes unpunished. The local vet seen to that.

basseyes wrote:

One word answer, with no explanation, providing a service should be free?

Yes.

Now the explanation. We routinely sacrifice cheap services to keep customers coming back when they spend a heck of a lot more then $15…If we charged to send a fax, we’d have no customers.

What about a non regular customer, should that be free too?

basseyes wrote:

What about a non regular customer, should that be free too?

Sure, if your the only offering the free service, maybe some will become regular customers??

Well over 100k to get a veterinarian license and you expect them to be free. Get your own license and right your own prescription. Since when is anything about a pet free.

Mike W wrote:

Well over 100k to get a veterinarian license and you expect them to be free. Get your own license and right your own prescription. Since when is anything about a pet free.

Yes…we expect free service from the vet

To the OP, no vet I’ve been to or heard from our family and friends charges for the fax/phone call.

It’s about 240,000 get the 8 years of education to get a vet degree if you go to in state schools. When u started out my first year being a vet I made more money bar tending the year I took off vet school. No one practices veterinary medicine for the money. Not saying vets are poor but they could have made more money doing many other things. Lawyer, dentist, doctor, etc.

The clinic I work for does not charge a prescription fee for drugs. It’s not worth the frustration to customers and in a whole vets do not make much of flea and tick meds. Our prices are competitive if not better then most online pharmacies.

Wait as veterinary corporations take over which the are. Then you will see veterinary practices become businesses and prices go up.

Find a vet you trust, like a good mechanic and you will save money in the long hall.

It’s about 240,000 get the 8 years of education to get a vet

My daughters friend just finished vet school, just over $400,000 in student loans. Vet shes looking to buy into to become a partner wants $700,000 for what would be her share of business. That’s based on actual value of building, surgery equipment and supplies on hand.

You guys are still grinding on this 2 year old thread? Get over it. I did.

KwickStick wrote:

You guys are still grinding on this 2 year old thread? Get over it. I did.

threads do not die here. Someone will bring this back up 5 years from now, you’ll get the notification and just shake your head.

Brad Dimond wrote:

Late to the game. What worked for me was to tell my vet they would get the business for a prescription if they matched the online price. Otherwise I would take a paper prescription and fill it where I chose. They matched, got my business and I keep going back.

Interesting. In my experience that paper scrip does no good. The online places like Chewy.com won’t let you send the scrip in, it has to come directly from the Vet.

pass0047 wrote:

Wait as veterinary corporations take over which the are. Then you will see veterinary practices become businesses and prices go up.

So true. Ma and pa vet shops are a dying breed. My buddy’s wife works for a corporation that does nothing but buy up practices from retiring vets. It’s huge business.