A nice Christmas present from the vet..!

but it wasn't 85 quid for ten minutes. the ten minutes was your consult. the driving time was more than ten minutes to get to you, during which the vetg cannot earn other money.
Also- you don't have your own transport, but the vet does so they are working to your convenience. It coss what, £100 to hire a box? so much cheaper to pay the vet...
(ps the one who paid 40 for their own urine dipstick - if that didn't included at least getting the urine some way then that was a rip off!)
 
I was p!ssed off recently when I got my vet bill in. (Pre planned may I add) £35 call out fee PLUS £25 additional mileage, used them for years and the miles between us and them haven't changed. I've since moved.
 
popsdosh- cattle vets can subsidise low call outs through less expensive equipment, less high tech solutions and through selling big quantities of other medicine that equine vets can't as they are treating 1-30 horses rather than 20-1000 at a time!
 
I don't understand why so many horse owners are defensive of the veterinary profession. They operate a closed shop monopoly and are always promoting increased regulation which will require horse owners to avail of their services more and more. They are frequently guilty of over treatment and over servicing and exploit owners' sentimentality in advocating treatments which have little chance of a successful outcome; as a result horses are often subject to surgery and prolonged box rest and similar arguably inhumane treatments prior to eventual euthanasia. The only winners from this "culture" are the vets and the insurance companies.
 
horsesense said:
I don't understand why so many horse owners are defensive of the veterinary profession. They operate a closed shop monopoly and are always promoting increased regulation which will require horse owners to avail of their services more and more. They are frequently guilty of over treatment and over servicing and exploit owners' sentimentality in advocating treatments which have little chance of a successful outcome; as a result horses are often subject to surgery and prolonged box rest and similar arguably inhumane treatments prior to eventual euthanasia. The only winners from this "culture" are the vets and the insurance companies.
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What do you suggest as an alternative?
 
My lad has cushings- the call out, blood test and lab fees don't leave me much change out of £110. And that's before I've paid for his medication.
 
Im going to defend my vets. They're not the cheapest but in 30 years I've not known one to one service like it. They make a real effort to have one vet-one client, and really get to know the horses. Their ethos is to charge a bit for for time but less for drugs, and they operate a largely mobile service. So no bronze statues, glass walls, etc for clients to pay for, unlike some practices round here.
Yes I've shelled out several grand to them in the last few months, but that's
largely the fault of my numpty TB, not the vet. And they never rack up treatment for the sake of it.
Recently my vet said the average UK vet earns 35k. In fact he might have said less - I remember thinking it was less than my lowly teacher's salary. Obviously some will earn much more. Not sure I believe it, but if its true then I shall defend them even more. Horses are our luxuries, so why anyone would expect an NHS style service is beyond me. If you don't want the bills, don't have horses!
 
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SusieT said:
but it wasn't 85 quid for ten minutes. the ten minutes was your consult. the driving time was more than ten minutes to get to you, during which the vetg cannot earn other money.
Also- you don't have your own transport, but the vet does so they are working to your convenience. It coss what, £100 to hire a box? so much cheaper to pay the vet...
(ps the one who paid 40 for their own urine dipstick - if that didn't included at least getting the urine some way then that was a rip off!)
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Well yes it was a rip-off, especially when it was only to double check my pee stick readings which I did weekly. My horse had the start of a urinary tract infection so the urine was dripping from him and it was just a matter of catching a drop as it fell. The ultimate pi55 take in every sense of the word. I think the antibiotics were the cheapest item on that bill. I was astounded as I'd expected the bill to have been less than £200.

Whilst I appreciate all professionals have overheads, there doesn't seem a lot of consistency with veterinary billing. I paid £400 for a routine visit and inexpensive meds for an ongoing health issue with my horse. Time taken was half an hour at a very leisurely pace and a further 10 minutes of vet writing stuff down and chatting about non-horsey stuff. I'm 15 mins drive from the surgery but as my visit was non-urgent, it was booked in to suit the vet and his round. Had I have taken a cat to the same surgery for spaying, the charge is/was £28.50 (probably plus VAT) and would have (I guess (when all things considered such as cleaning up afterwards)) taken a similar amount of time (less the travelling) to my routine visit.
 
Feeling Merry - It in no way makes a mockery of UK vets. Its like comparing apples with pears! The standards in Spain and Portugal (in particular) are very different from the UK though. Plus they seriously overproduce vets and this leads to lots of one man bands, poor standards and education and vets undercutting each other - and still only just making a living! Most of these will have very low overheads as they work from their car rather than running a practice or a hospital. I spent some time in Portugal and met a lot of vets so got the opportunity to ask them about their work/clinics and clients. The economy is poor there and unemployment is high even among educated people so this keeps costs down. So many new graduates set up on their own due to lack of jobs and this leads to poor clinical skill development and standards (and many come over here to get experience). I wanted to get a horse with a tooth root abscess treated and another have 2 teeth removed and was told they would need to travel to the nearest referral hospital 4 hours away and at a cost that far outstripped the UK! None of the 4 (independent) vets I asked where happy to do head x rays let alone treat these horses. Don't even ask about the lame ones!

Nudibranch - unfortunately your vet is right! Salaries do not reflect the hours, skill and emotional involvement most vets put into their job. I currently work a 1 in 2 rota and have had an after midnight (or 5 one night last week!) and 6 am call out every night I've been on call for the last 2 and a half weeks. For this I am being paid the average wage and am burning out. I have been qualified a similar length of time to Murphy.
 
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If it makes anyone feel better, I win the Xmas vet bill competition with £3k for the cat who needed screwing and plating back together. And I had to pay the whole thing before they would condescend to fill in the insurance forms...

T x
 
Well as my vet was still on the phone to me to update me on Magics progress at the AHT yesterday...while heading through the airport to catch his plane home...not going to quibble....(and said I could call him if worried).
 
teddypops said:
It's actually the law for vets to re-examine every 6 months for animals on long term medication
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It is an RVC guideline that animals are checked every 6 months, it is a bit of a grey area and if an animals condition is stable then it can be stretched a bit longer. basically a vet has a duty of care, if they are not seen to met this they can and are struck off, the RVC do not give a strict time limit but very few vets are willing to risk their license by going over 12 months and only in some cases are they confident enough that their license is not at risk if the push it over 6 months. Often older vets are happier to take more risks with their license but I don't think it is fair to push your vet to risk losing the livelyhood they have worked hard to earn and have accrued big debt for too
 
EllenJay said:
My boy is on Prascend for Cushings, but my vets only want to check him once a year. Maybe have a word with your vet about increasing the timescale for testing or change your vet.

Personally, I don't think that they are overcharging for a visit and that is the sort of price I would expect to pay.
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My old lady was never checked in 6 years, neither was my gelding who is now on it, but he has only been on it for 8 months. No-one has mentioned monitoring his heart, although I will have his ACTH levels checked in the new year.
 
never being checked in 6 years - and the client thinks they're getting a good deal - that is not actually safe for the horse though! regular checks are safer!
 
SusieT said:
never being checked in 6 years - and the client thinks they're getting a good deal - that is not actually safe for the horse though! regular checks are safer!
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LOL the mare was 36 when she came to the end of the road this year. Worrying about her health and longevity was a bit of a waste of time. Oh, and she was a rescue taken in on the death of her owner, at age 29, so budgets were extremely tight. Would you suggest we did spurious checks at the expense of other more viable treatments for other horses? It should be about the individual not blanket rules - don't we always say treat every horse as an individual???
 
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For my mares recent artery trauma Ive been charged 45£ for Elastoplast, this was used just around the hoof to keep the bandage in place, it's 6.60 per roll (retail) of 4.5m, needless to say despite being happy with her care, I've told them they are taking the pee! In total for1 week in clinic it was £135 in bandage material...I've purchased a months worth for 30£, some things you just feel robbed about. Care hats off but don't take us for mugs, imagine a farmer wearing this cost?
 
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Haven't read the full thread, but our lovely vets do a zone visit for £12, where they cover an area on a specific day - In practice they can appear at any time of that day, in reality one of the nurses gives you 45mins-1hrs warning of they're arrival, which is great if you have an understanding employer as you can escape when you get the phone call!

Sometimes I think we don't appreciate our vets enough!
 
The vets I use do zone days where the call out is cheaper and you still get a time for the visit. Otherwise if more than one person on the yard want their horses looked at during the same visit then you share the callout fee.
 
I would be interested in what people think about this situation.

I am going to need a small animal call out to the surgery today.

This particular vet has more than one surgery.

One surgery is 5 minutes from my house, so a round trip of 10 minutes for a sick cat. The other is 30 minutes away, giving a sick cat 1 hour round trip.

The surgery 30 minutes away is nearer for the vet on call.

Given that the call out alone, before any consultation or treatment, is going to cost me around £100 + VAT, which surgery would you expect your consultation to be at?

ETA, this is a small place, so it is extremely unlikely that there will be numerous requirements for the vet to leave the comfort of his sofa many times today.
 
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Cronkmooar - it depends which is the 'main' surgery, as that would be where I expect all emergencies would be asked to go. At my old practice, we had a main surgery and 3 branch practices, I lived above the furthest away one approx 30 minutes from the main surgery. As much as I would have loved to take emergencies in there, there's not much point seeing an emergency in a branch practice without full facilities and supplies, so I would make the hour round trip for every emergency and all the middle of the night in-patient checks.
 
Our local vet has 'zone' visit days, so that all their routine visits are in a locality. This means that you don't pay for the call out with will reduce the cost. My vet is also good in that if there are multiple horses at the same yard or the same horse for different reasons then the rate for 'examining' the horse is also reduced.
 
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