A problem with a vet practise.

[Velcrobum]

Long story but I will give short account. This is not the practice I have used for 25 + years but another practice I had to use for very specific reasons. I have paid every invoice presented to me by said practice so I was shocked to receive a statement claiming I owed £200+. All emails (4 so far) requesting an explanation have been ignored so I phoned and was asked to send an email! I really do not know how to resolve this apart from sending a signed for letter to all the directors of the practice.
Any one any ideas??

 

[eggs]

Sounds like a good idea.

 

[AmyMay]

Long story but I will give short account. This is not the practice I have used for 25 + years but another practice I had to use for very specific reasons. I have paid every invoice presented to me by said practice so I was shocked to receive a statement claiming I owed £200+. All emails (4 so far) requesting an explanation have been ignored so I phoned and was asked to send an email! I really do not know how to resolve this apart from sending a signed for letter to all the directors of the practice.
Any one any ideas??

Go in and wait for them to print off your bills and explain to you what exactly you owe.

 

[Velcrobum]

Go in and wait for them to print off your bills and explain to you what exactly you owe.

The practice is not very near otherwise I would do so. Basically I have already requested all this information via email.

 

[blitznbobs]

I would dispute the bill. Saying that they will Not be paid until they explain in full what the money is for.

then forget about it til they contact you

 

[Ample Prosecco]

I would dispute the bill. Saying that they will Not be paid until they explain in full what the money is for.

then forget about it til they contact you

yes this. Email saying you believe you are up to date with all payments so can they please re-issue any invoices that they believe are still outstanding so you can check them against your records.

Then ignore them.

 

[Cortez]

Sounds like an accounting cockup; wait for proof.

 

[dorsetladette]

email sending a list of payments you have made and the invoices the payments relate too. And ask them to explain why there is a balance on your account. Or ask for an all item statement so you can see what transactions are on the account. It sounds like an admin error, I've had a few from my vets recently.

 

[Velcrobum]

email sending a list of payments you have made and the invoices the payments relate too. And ask them to explain why there is a balance on your account. Or ask for an all item statement so you can see what transactions are on the account. It sounds like an admin error, I've had a few from my vets recently.

Already done but they are ignoring all my emails and I am getting fairly peed off by them. It is plain rude not to confirm that they have received my emails. I have triple checked the address and it is correct.

 

[Annagain]

email sending a list of payments you have made and the invoices the payments relate too. And ask them to explain why there is a balance on your account. Or ask for an all item statement so you can see what transactions are on the account. It sounds like an admin error, I've had a few from my vets recently.

I would do this but include that as you believe you have already paid the amount owed in full, you will not be paying any more unless they provide proof that you still owe something. That way the ball's in their court and it's up to them to contact you if there's a problem.

 

[Rowreach]

If it's not your regular vet I wouldn't be too bothered about not paying them something I don't believe I owe them, if they cba to communicate with you.

 

[southerncomfort]

This happened to me once. It turned out that when I called to pay a bill over the phone, they'd lost the wi fi connection. Apparently it initially looked like it had gone through but it hadn't.

Why they decided to send out another invoice rather than just phone me and take payment again, I really don't know!


Can you check your bills against you bank statements to see if everything went through OK?

 

[blitznbobs]

email sending a list of payments you have made and the invoices the payments relate too. And ask them to explain why there is a balance on your account. Or ask for an all item statement so you can see what transactions are on the account. It sounds like an admin error, I've had a few from my vets recently.

Thats a helluva lot of effort its their job to show you owe the cash - make them do the work

 

[sunnyone]

I take it you've checked your SPAM box in your emails for missing emails?

I'd send a track and trace snail mail letter. Politely listing the invoices received and the cheque numbers you used to pay them, I'd assure them that I believed my account to be fully paid up but if they can provide a copy invoice within 30 days I would pay it by return otherwise I would consider the matter closed. I'd also suggest they send any invoice by the tracked mail system because there seems to be an email problem.

The only problem I've ever had with vets accounts was when one I used just never sent me a bill!
I chased several times then gave up and moved practises because I felt so guilty. I just couldn't keep taking from her but it worried me as she was by far the nearest large animal vet to use in an emergency. Turned out she had personal problems herself and went bankrupt about 1 year later.

 

[Bonnie Allie]

You have done everything you can do. Vet practices are rarely run as commercial businesses. There will be some poor soul, under paid with poor systems to work with that has to run operations with no tech and an abacus in the back end trying their best to work this out.

The reason they haven’t contacted you is this error will be linked to another series of errors, that will impact other clients if they correct it and this poor soul is sitting at their desk, head in hands quietly muttering “f***, f***, f***” under their breath.

Give them some space - just see what they do with it and stop worrying.

 

[Velcrobum]

This happened to me once. It turned out that when I called to pay a bill over the phone, they'd lost the wi fi connection. Apparently it initially looked like it had gone through but it hadn't.

Why they decided to send out another invoice rather than just phone me and take payment again, I really don't know!


Can you check your bills against you bank statements to see if everything went through OK?

All payments have been via BACS and all have been shown in my bank statements.

 

[Velcrobum]

You have done everything you can do. Vet practices are rarely run as commercial businesses. There will be some poor soul, under paid with poor systems to work with that has to run operations with no tech and an abacus in the back end trying their best to work this out.

The reason they haven’t contacted you is this error will be linked to another series of errors, that will impact other clients if they correct it and this poor soul is sitting at their desk, head in hands quietly muttering “f***, f***, f***” under their breath.

Give them some space - just see what they do with it and stop worrying.

The practice employs an accounts manager.................!

 

[Birker2020]

Long story but I will give short account. This is not the practice I have used for 25 + years but another practice I had to use for very specific reasons. I have paid every invoice presented to me by said practice so I was shocked to receive a statement claiming I owed £200+. All emails (4 so far) requesting an explanation have been ignored so I phoned and was asked to send an email! I really do not know how to resolve this apart from sending a signed for letter to all the directors of the practice.
Any one any ideas??

I did the letter to the partners thing when one of my horses had to be shot twice by a vet when he was euthanised for a broken leg and when a subsequent horse was incorrectly diagnosed from the same practice and a bunch of unecessary tests with their cost implication was inflicted on the whole yard as a result. With the outcome being that the said horse suffered considerably before a correct diagnosis was made and he was PTS after a correct diagnosis was made by a third party. Made worse by the vet who made the initial incorrect diagnosis literally punching the air in front of me with a big grin on her face and saying "I hope he does have ******* as I will be the first vet in the Midlands to discover it and I can write my thesis". It was heartbreaking as the horse in question was my heart horse.

As predicted the partners just stood by their vets and nothing came of it.

I do hope you get to the bottom of it OP. I know my situation wasn't the same as yours but in terms of getting a satisfactory outcome, i.e an apology and ownership and agreement that mistakes had been made its the same.

 

[Gamebird]

Long story but I will give short account. This is not the practice I have used for 25 + years but another practice I had to use for very specific reasons. I have paid every invoice presented to me by said practice so I was shocked to receive a statement claiming I owed £200+. All emails (4 so far) requesting an explanation have been ignored so I phoned and was asked to send an email! I really do not know how to resolve this apart from sending a signed for letter to all the directors of the practice.
Any one any ideas??

Is the vet practice owned by a corporate? If so then this is a common problem. The account you pay BACS into is a central account, so for the money paid in to be allocated to the correct practice it needs to be submitted with the practice's code as a reference. Forgetting to add the code, or getting one wrong digit, means that whilst you have paid the money, your practice will not have received it. It is traceable and sortable, so not the end of the world. But only if they actually reply to you!

 

[Bonnie Allie]

The practice employs an accounts manager.................!

Oh they all do - but they are working without quality tools, ingesting information from vets who still use pen and paper and are appalling at recording information with any type of accuracy or timeliness. Add to this back office staff are very poorly paid so they can’t attract top talent.

I love my vets but get so triggered by their inability to run a practice or understand basic professional hygiene.

 

[Velcrobum]

Is the vet practice owned by a corporate? If so then this is a common problem. The account you pay BACS into is a central account, so for the money paid in to be allocated to the correct practice it needs to be submitted with the practice's code as a reference. Forgetting to add the code, or getting one wrong digit, means that whilst you have paid the money, your practice will not have received it. It is traceable and sortable, so not the end of the world. But only if they actually reply to you!

No not corporate owned, independent practice with 2 directors. The practice has been in receipt of an equine business award in the past!!

 

[paddy555]

The most problems I had have with billing have come from vet's. Their animal care was good, billing not quite so good.
I got an account from a specialist I called in. Paid on the day it arrived and a month later got a rather miserable reminder. Explained it was paid and finally got confirmation it had been but no sort of apology.

Got my normal monthly bill from my large normal practice with "account overdue" in red. (which was the colour I saw as I always pay within a day.)

rang to point out all the money outstanding should have come from the insurance company which they were being paid (by me) to deal with direct on a monthly basis and nothing was due from me. It was their own fault that they had failed to do anything for several months. They did apologise.

 

[jhoward]

Already done but they are ignoring all my emails and I am getting fairly peed off by them. It is plain rude not to confirm that they have received my emails. I have triple checked the address and it is correct.

Have a look at getnotify.com you can put a read receipt on a email and it will tell u when it's been opened etc

 

[Chianti]

If they have a web site look at that and see if they have a complaints procedure. If they have, then submit a complaint. Then they'll have to find out what's happened.

 

[Landcruiser]

Can you not call and ask to speak to the practice manager?

 

[Velcrobum]

Can you not call and ask to speak to the practice manager?

See opening post

 

[Red-1]

I had a major animal hospital as my vets once, and got an insurance claim turned down as I had failed to inform them of the arthroscopy that the horse had, so the horse was not inured. I didn't know what an arthroscopy was, so Googled it and could confirm that the horse hadn't had one, only... the vet insisted I'd had one on the horse.

I was furious, and demanded to know how the bill was paid for it, as I had paid no such bill. It took ages to sort out as initially they quite obviously thought I was lying. I demanded the record for my horse was set straight, they said they had, until I got a vaccination... telling me ...

"Red-1, we are reminding you that your horse Not Her Horse is due his vaccination!"

Not really good enough, as I was still down as owning a horse that had experienced an arthroscopy!

My new (independent) practice has sent me a reminder for one I had paid (tend to pay them the day they are issued by BACS) but it hadn't shown on their records. They were great at sorting stuff out; it was done in a trice on the phone.

 

[HorsesRule2009]

Just double check that the money has bounced back to you.
I work at an equine vets practice and sometimes payments do bounce back to clients and aren't always picked up.
I also understand them requesting you email as that is out policy also where I work, although extremely frustrating as you have emailed and not had replies.

You could ask for a break down of your account from x date or ask for a break down from the last time the account was 0, this will show all money owed and all money paid off.

We had terrible trouble a few weeks back as all our phone and internet went down we were off for several weeks thanks to BT.
When we eventually came back on our system rebooted and declined/unallocated a number of payments with out any notification. This was only picked up the following month when invoices went out the following month as several customers called as had already paid bills, turns out we had a system error.
This did take a week or two to look into and investigate to find out what had happened.

Sorry I appear to have rambled but just trying to give a receptionist point of view, we work extremely hard and things sometimes happen beyond are control and it is as frustrating for us as it is for our clients. Hope things are resolved soon for you

 

[Bonnie Allie]

I had a major animal hospital as my vets once, and got an insurance claim turned down as I had failed to inform them of the arthroscopy that the horse had, so the horse was not inured. I didn't know what an arthroscopy was, so Googled it and could confirm that the horse hadn't had one, only... the vet insisted I'd had one on the horse.

I was furious, and demanded to know how the bill was paid for it, as I had paid no such bill. It took ages to sort out as initially they quite obviously thought I was lying. I demanded the record for my horse was set straight, they said they had, until I got a vaccination... telling me ...

"Red-1, we are reminding you that your horse Not Her Horse is due his vaccination!"

Not really good enough, as I was still down as owning a horse that had experienced an arthroscopy!

My new (independent) practice has sent me a reminder for one I had paid (tend to pay them the day they are issued by BACS) but it hadn't shown on their records. They were great at sorting stuff out; it was done in a trice on the phone.

Did you put a formal complaint into the governing body?

There is so much whining from the industry right now about the shortage of vets, vets mental health, blame sitting with clients, lack of grads taking up Equine veterinary, attrition rate at the 5 year mark, wages, profitability of practices but no understanding of the industry on how to be more effective and efficient or god forbid, be customer centric.

The governing body can effect change but they need to know clients are frustrated and vets have lost their role as trusted advisors

 

[Red-1]

Did you put a formal complaint into the governing body?

There is so much whining from the industry right now about the shortage of vets, vets mental health, blame sitting with clients, lack of grads taking up Equine veterinary, attrition rate at the 5 year mark, wages, profitability of practices but no understanding of the industry on how to be more effective and efficient or god forbid, be customer centric.

The governing body can effect change but they need to know clients are frustrated and vets have lost their role as trusted advisors

No I didn't, mistakes happen, it was only a billing error. I was only furious from the point of view that my insurance claim had been refused and then their fix wasn't to take the horse off my record, merely re-naming it Not Her Horse, so still essentially on my record so would still invalidate any policy where I had answered that I hadn't had any claims etc. for any horse owned (as many policies seem to ask now).