Does this seem expensive to you?

I think it was over the top to have done xrays, if the pony was still lame after the wound had healed then maybe, thats a bit naughty of the vet really but at least you know for next time, I always use my own dressings and bandage my vet even lets me put them on to save money, find another vet me thinks.
 
I had xrays done in December they came to me to do it cost is

Digital mobile fee £130
Xray plates and view x10 £150
Assistant charge £33
Domosedam. £9.48
Torbugesic. £9.48
Injection fee £8
With visit charge whole bill was £375.23

Thats all including the vat so the charge is not that far off I would think its just I would not think the xrays were necessary at the time.
 
It all comes back to having confidence in your vet and their knowledge and dedication to doing what is best for the horse, my vets are amazing-I am not however looking forward to the bill that will accompany this weeks 5 visits since monday - each one requiring injections both intramuscular and iv , one visit to do an ecg, 4 lots of bloods, another visit for injections tomorrow and possibly sat and sun and into next week too, also had to have a different local vet out one evening this week as my own vet was stuck with a colic when I needed them for one myself.

I know the bill will be massive but they have gone above and beyond what I would expect calling in favours from experts in various areas-we still don't know what is going on but are hoping it is starting to subside.

I always look at an itemised bill as sometimes there will be errors I don't begrudge what they charge (I may need to sit down when these bills arrive though), my vets are bl**dy good they listen, are great with the horses (even this morning when horse was feeling a bit better and tried to swipe his head of with hers when he gave her her iv jab), they have amazing knowledge and knowledge resources, facilities are brilliant (3 other vets use their op theatre/knock down room and stables for clients) the practice is owned by the older vet who does 6 nights out of 7 on call himself (the younger vet does one) so continuity is great as is communication.
 
Buddy'sMum said:
Any X-rays seems a bit OTT to me, for what sounds like a fairly minor wound, especially as the pony was sound the following day!!

OP - my vets are not the cheapest (but only a few minutes away so handy in an emergency) so I'm used to whopping bills but wow! £645 for two in-hours visits is shocking! And the vetwrap thing is nonsense. Does the vet really need to re-dress tomorrow? Can't you tell him you'll do it?

Wine definitely helps. And/or cake.
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4 X-rays are standard approach, any less could be considered negligible as you need different angles to highlight different areas (dorsopalmar, lateromedial and 2 obliques).

X-rays are indicated in any kick to a limb, often they aren't very lame with a hairline fracture. I'd imagine most people would be rather upset if the horses leg blew when they got up/ turned/ put pressure on that point because the vet hadn't xrayed the limb.

Once you've seen an American hospital bill where there's no NHS absorbing the cost you realise that vets are actually very reasonable!
 
Aru said:
So it was two separate call out....one to assess,clean the wound out staple and bandage and the second for xrays and a bandage change and recheck the next day or have I read that wrong?
What time was the first call at? out of hours calls are extremely expensive. Could be the guts of 100 there alone.
The second call out and milage for xrays the next day will likely also be added on as well....
was he sedated both times?sedation is another serious expense.
How many xrays were taken? 3 to 4 views are normal to look for bone chips properly,miss an angle on the bone surface and you can miss the chip unfortunately....but xrays are usually a hugh expense.
two wound redress' as well...Im guessing he got pain meds and antibiotics as well...It adds up.
yes thats a seriously expensive bill but Id say broken down the biggest expenses will be xrays, the outofhour's call out and the sedations...

Honestly I would faint at the thought of that bill coming through my door! Vets in the UK have quite a different level of pricing to what I am used to!But you would still be getting the guts of 400/500 euro for that here...if you could find a vet with a digital xray.

Could you bring the pony to the clinic for the redress/recheck and redress yourself at home or is he very lame?that should drop the callout and milage part of the bill down.
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Neither call was out of hours, he was given pain meds and antib's and I can understand him sedating to staple but to X-ray?? He had put the needle in before I even realised what he was doing and I am confident this pony would have stood stock still no problem without it. I have 5 horse/ ponies so a well used to vet bills, however, I have never ever been so utterly shocked at how much one has cost before. I really just feel some of the things he carried out were not entirely necessary?
 
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putasocinit said:
Xrays would be £100 for the first one then a tenner for each thereof, so £140, then call out charges and mileage (guess £60 in total), the dormosedan and torbugesic to sedate would be about £30, then the stitching about £50, then bandage costs about £15, were there antiobiotics they would be about £25, plus vat, so i would say about £360 total cost 2 visits. Obviously i dont know how far your vets are away from you with the mileage. Definitely question the cost of xrays.
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10 minutes up the road! 4 X-rays max taken
 
guessing xrays to show several different directions-these wounds are sometimes the most lethal as if it's a kick wound you can quite often get a fracture behind it. So that's reaosnable.
No using your vet wrap, Naf vet wrap versus a good quality vet wrap might not be that good so can see that but woudl query what wass wrong with your vet wrap/compare it to his.
/Other than that with the xrays sounds about right.
 
When mine had an emergency call out on a Sunday out of hours! Exam, vet wrap, padding, anti-bs, injections etc only £170!!
 
Sedation for x ray is fairly standard. No vet with any common sense will take an owners word for it that their horse will be perfect for x raying without sedation - they make their own assessment by observation during the visit. X ray machines are seriously expensive, in fact even the cables are upwards of £10-15,000 so a horse does not need to get excited, merely take a step in the wrong direction to destroy them. Some insurance won't cover the machine if the horse is unsedated. A friend of mine wrote off a machine from a horse stepping on the cable which pulled the laptop and whole machine down under the horses feet at which point he then freaked out and kicked it to pieces. He contemplated not returning to the practice such was his fear!
 
Our pony had similar, treatment was antibiotics and the wound was cleaned etc and dressings supplied, also bute, and a second course of antibiotics, four visits and four x rays-was about £550

Yep def sedate for x rays no question.
 
Our vets never sedate the racehorses to take xrays, and our xray machine is mobile, so would have thought your vet would have a mobile one to without needing cabling for electricity. However the xrays would no doubt have been taken to confirm there was no fracture and also if the bone was knicked it could cause a sequestrum later whilst healing, which would have resulted in continuous lameness and possibly surgery to remove it. Thats horses for you.
 
i have changed vets quite recently simply because of excessive costs, seems to me more and more practices now are being run to be a profitable business (excessive profits) rather than animal care being one of the primary concerns. I get companies need to pay the bills but so many practices are being bought up by larger companies. My old practice started to x-ray as default part of initial call out no matter how large or small the injury, and always took at least 5 and at least one of these would be blurred so they needed to re-do at least one - and you get charged for all of them, always sedated for x-rays, copious charges for rubber gloves etc - madness. I genuinely believe they have financial targets to hit. i even heard one vet telling someone to GA and operate to 'have a look at something' which ended up being very minor and not needed at all... a couple of days off work would of fixed the gelding.

Sorry rambling, but personally i would question the bill and even say you aren't paying for some of it. Thats what i have done in the past and they often retract things, i think some of the larger places will throw a few things in because few people question their invoices, but if you do they remove them pretty quickly

Now very happy with a smaller vet practice and more realistic treatment options :)
 
WinkingWillow said:
10 minutes up the road! 4 X-rays max taken
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My equine vets are less then 10 minutes away, but a call out is still £30 odd quid.

It's because they go by the area, not if they were coming directly from the surgery, which mostly they don't.

X rays are very often needed and at least 4 is standard.
I think your bill is as I'd expect.
 
All x ray machines require electricity. It is not the electric cables that are expensive, it's the one attached to the plate. Only in the last 6 months has a machine been produced that does not require this cable. Racehorses are as a rule handled better than the average pleasure horse meaning it is often acceptable to x ray unsedated in these cases. The risk has to be weighed up.
 
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