My Vet bill

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Mary Poppins

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My big daft ginger horsey came in with a couple of open wounds last Friday which required a Vet. He duly came and stitched and stapled him up (one stitch and 5 staples) and said the bill would be about £200. Imagine my surprise when I got a bill for £330 :eek: I know it's not alot but I was rather surprised!

The breakdown is as follows:

£96.00 Emergency Visit
£96.00 Clinical Exam/Clean/Suture/Staple Wound
£20.20 Intra-Epicane per ml
£47.60 Norodine Sachet (10)
£18.50 Neopen Per ml
£43.64 Stapler
£8.16 Suture Material - Vicryl 3.0m.

My Vet has also said that he will only issue my boys prescription for Danilon if I set up a standing order - is that being reasonable?
 
That seems very high I would call round other vets and find out what they would have charged and I think I would be changing vets. Last year one of our lads had a massive abscess in his foot had to have a lot of work done on it and drugs the bill came to £95. we also had to have the vet on a Sunday evening to a horse with colic sadly he had to be PTS that bill was £88.
 
Thats quite expensive but my boy had a bute check last week and tetanus, during normal working hours. The bill was just over £150, all they did was jab him, i trotted him up, and he has 90 sachets of bute.
Also the standing order thing sounds ridiculous to me. You order the danillon when you want it surely so its not like they just send it out every week. To me seems odd definately look at other vets!
 
I've just decided to stick with the local farm/large animal vets rather than large equine practice, simply a vast difference in attitude & cost.

I am able to call & pick up Danilon whenever I want it so would be horrified at your vets attitude, I get half a box at a go.
 
Did you have to buy the stapler for 5 staples!!!!, also 3 meters of suture stuff for 1 stitch!!!, surely you could have swapped the staples for stitches with 3 meters of stuff.
Vets seem to charge whatever they want and nothing surprises me. I know they have trained hard and have to make a living but their mark up is ridiclous. They always seem to think 'money no object' and carry on without warning you of the cost or other options.
My last vets bill was £1200 and I ended up with a dead pony, I was never advised of any treatment costs and asked if it was ok to rack up this kind of bill for a poorly 25 year old pony, which I think should have been PTS on the first day, but I trusted their judgement.

Sorry rant over!!!
 
That does seem excessive and as others have said I would be querying some of the charges on the bill.
I have to say I was pleasantly surprised when I got the bill for my lads endoscopy. He was done at home and I was expecting a couple of hundred. It was 95 . Of course there were other bits and pieces on there but still much cheaper than I feared!!
 
I had a vet insist he came out to change a bandage once. He did, rebandaged, and charged £23 for looking at the wound and wiping it (not extensive flushing, just a wipe) and saying 'looking good'

The bandage slipped about, oooh, 30 seconds after he left :mad:

That is mad! I would definitely complain!

J&C
 
Sounds a bit like my practice.
Had 18 month old castrated and had umbilical hernia done at the same time so had to go in. Asked how much it was going to cost and told £800. The bill came through 6 weeks later and I was charged £1347, when I queried it was told to always double what the vet tells you!!!
Baby pony then had to have wolf teeth out (he's almost 3). Asked vets to come and just sedate, took a while and 4 injections (about 1hr & 1/2), then decided to come back the following week to finish off, as couple of the teeth had been a bit tight to get out. Total bill from vets £303 and they did nothing other than inject, edt did all the work.
Decided to move from this well known, equine hospital practice. Wanted to tell my vet personally as she had been fabulous when we had a critically ill mare and she was not the one who came to do the teeth - only problem was she was so lovely I couldn't bring myself to tell her.
Oh well still adament I am going to move.
So after the rant - sorry, nothing surprises me.
 
Countrygirl said:
Sounds a bit like my practice.
Had 18 month old castrated and had umbilical hernia done at the same time so had to go in. Asked how much it was going to cost and told £800. The bill came through 6 weeks later and I was charged £1347, when I queried it was told to always double what the vet tells you!!!
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FFS! I had my 6 year old stallion castrated last month - a BIG boy so lots of expensive dope! He also had cryosurgery on 3 sarcoids while he was down. Total bill was under £400!

What did they DO to the hernia for that sort of money??
 
I would ask them and see if there's any chance it can be reduced, you might be surprised what they'll do when you challenge them!
 
Thankyou for all the replies.

Aimsymc - The Vet practice is about 20 miles away but he came from another call out which was about 10 miles away.

Dawng & Dotty1 - Yes, they are charging me for the bl***y stapler! I am sure a few more stitches would have been ok but he insisted on stapling - sure it was just another way to get more money!

As for the Danilon - I normally just phone up and ask for a prescription which they normally send and I buy online. But now they want to set up a standing order or they won't send the prescription, even though my boy is on 3 a day for arthritis and without it really struggles. Am I right in thinking this is blackmail???
 
to be fair you will be used for the stapler because they arent re-usable. I dont think its wrong for them to ask you to set up a standing order, because surely you will be paying for it anyway? The norodine seems expensive though.
 
Your vets bill looks ridiculous, did they ask you if you were insured ? if the answer was yes, a licence to over charge in my opinion. I dont understand why they would need a standing order for a prescription for danilon, surely you just pay the £10.00 or so for the prescription and then get drugs on line ? for what its worth they cannot take money from your account that would be a direct debit, a standing order has to be inishiated by yourself.
 
They can't make you buy Danilon from them I don't think? If they agree he needs it they are obliged to write you a prescription you can use anywhere you like I think?

I would expect to pay about that much in honesty. But I'm with an equine specialist referral clinic so pay extra for most things. Is worth it though for peace of mind when things aren't straight forward!
 
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