Do you pay for vets mistakes? (semi rant!)

Cliqmo

Cliqmo

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Took my horse to the vets last week for nerve blocks and xrays to identify and diagnose the cause of the lameness in his left fore. My insurance doesn't cover his vets fees so I asked for a benchmark figure; the kind secretary looked into and confirmed that 'worst case it would cost £550" which meant having to nerve block his entire leg, sedation and a series of x rays etc.

He went lame in his foot so was sedated (the dirty fidget!) and then x rayed, we were all done in about 2hrs...

Didn't think anything more of it until I was speaking to the vet today and she advised the running total so far is £558
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Far more than I had imagined and more than the original quote!! I assumed because he didn't need all of the nerve blocks and obviously took less time because we didn't need to do all the extra waiting or trot ups etc it would be less money??

I wonder now whether I have been charged because the vet (clearly a junior to the main chap who was looking at him) fluffed up one of the nerve block injections (he still reacted to the prod test so she gave another injection) and then she didn't give him enough sedative so readministed, and THEN fluffed up some of the exposure on the xrays and had to take more
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Is it normal to charge the client for these sorts of errors? Should I highlight my concerns to the Practise?
 
Well, there is no harm in giving the vets a ring and just querying the bill - ask them why it is more than quoted.
 
Yes I suppose you're right, invariably I'm sure they will say that the Receptionist miscalculated or something equally as evasive
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I just wanted to know whether this is the likely cause of my inflated bill? and whether it was normal to have to pay for these mistakes?
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Unfortunately, it seems you will have to. My horse was misdiagnosed twice for her condition... those two misdiagnosed instances cost something like £500 and £800 respectively.

I think vets should refund if someone in their practice got it wrong... but they don't, I'm afraid.

They keep on talking about pushing up ethical standards in the money-making industry Finance... but to be honest, too many vets these days are just as bad.
 
A friend of mine has a horse who went lame about a year ago, he saw the vet so many times, quite a few times they said it was an absess in the foot, the farrier was not convinced as I wasn't, they xrayed and did all sorts of investigation and couldn't decide, she eventually went to another vet and they saw him once, xrayed, MRI etc and told her it was the worse case of navicualar they had seen, how the original vet had missed that i have no idea. The horse was pts this week.
I know they were insured for vets fees but despite that I would be kicking off as they should have discovered the navicular a long time ago.
Despite the fact the horse suffered for longer than it should have, they should have noticed the navicular but still managed to charge about £2000!
 
[ QUOTE ]
Not sure I follow?

You were expecting £500 if your horse needed treatment and it came to £558. That's only over by £8. Don't understand?????

[/ QUOTE ]

It's because £550 was the worst case scenario (full leg would have to be nerve-blocked) but they actually didn't have to nerve-block the full leg, so it should have been cheaper...
 
Thanks Tasel, yup that is why! I wondered if the repeated injections she had to do (because she did it wrong the first time) had bumped up my bill and whether it was right for them to charge me?
 
I asked the vet to come out and see my horse with his scanner as she was lame again. He started nerve blocking and it was indicating that she had broken her fetlock, he couldn't then nerve block the fetlock joint because of the other NBs he had already done. So he came back the next day with the x-ray machine, NB the fetlock joint it wasn't broken, NB the suspensory and she came sound. So he came back a third day with the scanner.

I only got charged for one visit as he said I was right the first time when I asked for him to bring the scanner.

This all only cost me about £200 - £500 does seem a bit pricey, but it does depend on your vet. My vet charges about £50 a scan, whereas the specialists equine vets charged me £125 for the same thing - just to confirm my original vets diagonosis before they operated. But they were really nice to me as they quoted me £1,500 for the operation and it came to over £2,000 and they knocked £500 of as they knew I didn't have insurance.
 
Can you ask for an itemised bill so far? You should be able to see how many injections etc and then you can query re the fluffs on the part of the junior. I don't think you should have to pay for 'training' a less experienced vet. You say you asked for a benchmark figure and were told by the receptionist a worst case scenario, which you were banking on as procedure is not being covered by insurance. I would definitely take it up with them, if the itemised bill shows obvious stuff (number of injections, x rays etc) or any strange fudging type items.
 
I asked for a quote for my vet to travel quite a long way to vet a pony for me. He did and when the bill came it was much bigger. I wrote them a (polite) letter and they knocked the price down to what I had been quoted (which apparently was wrong).


A polite letter won't do any harm.
 
Whenever I've had a vet bill, it's been itemised. Check it thoroughly, because the last vet I used made so many cok-ups on Henry's bill, I ended up sending them a seething email. All sorts of wild extras added on, corrected, new bill...and they STILL sent me a random bill months later (which resulted in the seething email). Worth checking, as even though the vets are normally fine, sometimes the admin staff are on another planet.
 
I would be talking to the vets & asking why it's cost just over the full quoted price. Vets get away with far to much at times & we should take them to task about prices more.

As a rule of thumb in my business Quotes are a price we stick to as they are fully worked out for all costings. Estimates can change so if Vets are quoting they should stick to prices.

In OP's case i would be asking for a full itemised invoice for the work done. If it is all ok i know there wont be much you can do, but you can question & write letters however i doubt it will get you very far.
 
In my past usually when they do the nerve block they do inject one joint twice or so so it both sides or at least they did with my horse and with the sedation it isn't an error not giving him enough they can only make an estimate and having to give him another lot just depends on how your horse takes to it as with my horse the vet says they don't like to give too much as so take really badly to it and end up on the floor which is liek my other horse who has to be propped up against a horse which is when he has less than he should.
The only thing you could do is complain as they gave you a quote which was wrong but i don't think you will get very far
 
Only thing I would say is that you asked for a benchmark figure. This isn;t really a quote, more of a guestimate, so allows some leeway either side.
 
QR

not exactly a mistake but....

friend called vet to sedate horse for clipping. Same practice had done him the year before, bill approx £50.

Different vet didn't want to over-sedate him so just gave him a little bit. Started to clip and he was still dancing everywhere - cue more sedation..

Anyway, ended up with 3 injections - 1 full dose but in bits. Total vet bill £95!!!!!!
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Queried it but were told 3xinjections = 3xinjection fee.

Voted with their feet!
 
This was an estimate of costs, not an exact figure, so can easily be under or over. It is only over by £8. if you are not happy, ask for an explanantion.
 
Hi guys thanks for all your replies.

I will wait for the bill to come through and see if it is itemised or not.

Just to clarify, the ££550 she quoted for (OH has just reminded me the original quote was £400 but "worst case" £550) was for
nerve block of the entire leg (I think that is 3 x 2 injections?)
a series of xrays
sedation
'labour' time it all takes

- as we only required
nerve blocks of the foot (should have been 2 but needed 3)
sedation (topped up after about 5mins)
xrays (about 7 or 8 taken of which 3 are useful)
less time than 'quoted' as we didn't need to do extra trot ups and waiting on additional nerve blocks

Hence I don't understand how this figure has been calculated, except we have been charged for the mistakes, or rather the rectifications
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