Relaquine - is my vet ripping me off (again, lol)

JanetGeorge

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Needed to pick up some Relaquine the other day (for a weanling tavelling the first time.) Ages since I bought any - as I buy it 10 tubes at a time, usually - and can't find the latest bill.) But - one tube of Relaquine - £33!! Online I found it between £13 and £22 - but of course need a prescription - and that has to be balanced. How do others do it? What do vets charge for prescriptions - and coud I get a prescription for - say - 10 tubes?
 

dixie

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I’ve just got a prescription from my vet for Danilon and it lasts 6 months. The prescription is £12 or so I’m told as not yet had the bill, yet the Danilon is about £20 cheaper online, so it will save me quite a bit over the next 6m
They do need to have seen the horse recently tho before they’ll give the prescription.
 

meleeka

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Vets put huge markups on meds. I didn’t realise this until my dog needed a few life long medications. From the vet it would have cost me in the region of £250 per month! I got a prescription which was £16 for a 6 months supply and ordered online. I was very lucky that my vet prescribed human co-codomol as well (there wasn’t a dog version, only cat) and it ended up costing just short of £50 per month all together. I dread to think of how many people are having animals pts because they can’t afford medications. The worst one was Onsior which was 80p online (1 a day) and my vet was charging. £1.84 per tablet!

My dog recently needed eyedrops. They were £13 online and £28 from the vets. It was a one off so not worth paying £16 for a prescription. My horses prascend is only around £5 per box cheaper with the prescription charge so I still get that from the vets for convenience. I do always check online though.
 

HashRouge

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I feel like my vet is constantly ripping me off for meds, so I never buy from them anymore. Even so, they find ways to wring as much money out of me as possible. Before I moved down here, my old vet would happily issue me a 1 year prescription for prascend and renew every year without the need for a check up appointment (on the grounds they saw her every 12 months for her jabs anyway). My current vet won't issue me more than 6 months worth and insist on a check up appointment every time they do a new prescription. Fortunately my two have their jabs 6 months apart, so I make sure her check ups coincide with this.

About 6 months ago I decided to start giving regular danilon to my old mare as she had been looking a bit stiff. She was seen by the vet who agreed on this and I rang the surgery to order a prescription. Only to be told that they would only give me a prescription for 6 months, but if I bought the meds from them I could have 12 months in one go! Bearing in mind they charge almost twice the price for danilon as places like Animed! I was not best pleased, especially as I realised this was almost certainly why they were only giving me 6 months worth of prascend at once. The ridiculous thing is, given that I have twice yearly visits for jabs anyway, that it STILL works out cheaper for me to buy online. The receptionist did her best to persuade me otherwise, but frankly I was so annoyed that I almost changed vets on principle and I certainly will never be buying any of my meds from them.

I mean, fair enough, put a mark up on meds. That is to be expected. But I don't understand why the mark ups are so ridiculously high? Prascend for example should not be over 50p per tablet more expensive.
 

planete

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One vet told me they could not buy meds as cheaply as the online suppliers? No idea whether or not this accounts for the discrepancy.
 

Pearlsasinger

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My vet charges £20 for a prescription but I did a deal with them for Prascend and another deal when we found that a 2nd horse needed it too. I did buy human ranitidine when it was prescribed for a dog, years ago. The mark-up on that was horrendous!
 

Britestar

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No vets can't buy as cheap as online. Plus they have a lot more overheads than a warehouse.
You also want them to be there 24/7. They could charge less but then your calls and service charges would go up.
They have restrictions on how much you can have at a time, imposed by RCVS.
Mine charges £18 per prescription, and will give up to 6 months, dependant on drug.
Some illnesses need regular monitoring, so 6 months would be inappropriate.
 

HashRouge

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Some illnesses need regular monitoring, so 6 months would be inappropriate.
That's fair enough, but doesn't explain why they were happy to give me 12 months worth if I had bought the drug from them.

I have no issue with them marking up meds, but I dislike the way my current vet tries to make it as expensive as possible for me to buy elsewhere. My old one was fab. Sadly I moved to the other end of the country!
 

Tiddlypom

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My vets now require a 6 monthly blood pull for my two PPID mares to check ACTH levels in order to continue getting their Prascend. This is due to the practice now being regularly independently audited, and questions are asked if repeat prescriptions are dolled out without the animal being seen by a vet at suitable intervals. My usual vet is most apologetic about this, but her hands are tied. A 6 monthly ACTH assay for a PPID horse is good practice anyway, though.

I do expect meds and wormers to be more expensive from the vets than the online retailers, as they have significantly higher overheads. I buy my Prascend from the vets a month at a time, as with the extra cost of the prescriptions (per horse) the saving by going online is not great.

I don't know anything about Relaquine, as mentioned in the OP.
 

ester

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I think the 6 month check is a legal thing though yes should be consistent wherever you are getting it from.

And they definitely don't have the buying power of the big internet sites, who are often cheaper than the price they get it in at.
 

Umbongo

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Think about the overheads a veterinary practice will have. All the qualified staff, equipment costing thousands, insurance, electricity etc etc and especially if they are staying open late, open all weekend, or even 24/7 to accommodate sick animals.

Whilst an online supplier may need less staff with no qualifications, mon-fri short opening hours, less equipment etc etc.
Manufacturers of medication will offer deals the more you buy. So whilst a veterinary practice may only have the space to stock say 10 tubs of a specific pill, an online supplier with a warehouse may be able to stock thousands...thus passing the saving on to you and under-cutting vets.

I think pretty much all vets will charge for a written prescription. Most written prescriptions I have seen tend to be between 8-15 pounds. The amount that you are allowed to buy on the prescription will depend on however many the vet is happy to give you until they wish to examine your animal again under law. For some diseases this may be every 1/3/6/12 month.

Also if there is an animal version of a drug available, then legally this must be prescribed over its human equivalent, and unfortunately animal specific drugs tend to cost more than human due to less competition amongst manufacturers.

I remember doing the stock ordering at a practice once, The cost of most medications the practice could buy them in at (with no mark-up) was more expensive than what an online pharmacy was selling them at! Buying my dogs medications from the practice at cost (+ VAT) was still more expensive than buying online with a written prescription. Staff at the vets would probably love to be able to sell you drugs at a cheaper cost, but unfortunately they are unable to.
 
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chaps89

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I'm not sure for this particular drug but I have similar with my cat.
His monthly medication would be £180 from the vet or I can pay £12 for a prescription and get the medication online for under £60.
I use a small independent practice. It's not that they are ripping me off by charging £180 but that they simply don't buy the volume that the larger practices (who have the online websites) do and so just don't get the bulk discount to be able to pass on.
Luckily they understand this, I'd rather support them if I can but can't justify the difference. If it was only a few pounds though I'd rather they had my money than one of the corporates, but that's absolutely personal choice!
 

hopscotch bandit

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I do the same with bute. But my vet price matches whatever you find on the net. So i ended up paying 64p a sachet of bute instead of £1.15! However i didnt find out about that for 8 years! The prescription was £18 so still saving 33p per sachet or £33 on a hundred.
 

_HP_

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Those of you getting prascend....how much are you paying from your vet please? I've just been charged £65 for 30 tablets!
 

Keith_Beef

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Think about the overheads a veterinary practice will have. All the qualified staff, equipment costing thousands, insurance, electricity etc etc and especially if they are staying open late, open all weekend, or even 24/7 to accommodate sick animals.

Yes, all that is true, but then the vet should charge realistic costs for coming out, looking at an animal and giving a diagnosis, and not under-charge all that and then expect to make up for it by over-charging for medication.

When I go to the doctor over here in France, the doctor charges for the consultation, writes a prescription if one is necessary, and I go to a pharmacy for the medication. Separating the diagnosis and prescription from the delivery of medication is, in my mind, necessary to avoid abusive charging.
 

paddy555

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our prescription charge is £15. I think it depends on your relationship with the vet. I have known mine for many years and he showed me how to get prascend online at the cheapest price. He is not a partner and very cost conscious. I suspect that if I had a stud and explained I needed half a dozen tubes over the next few months for weanlings he would let me have a prescription. I would ask for one dose on it and six repeats which is what he normally gives me. That way I wouldn't have to buy it all if not needed.
 

Flyermc

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cant vets just buy there meds from the on-line suppliers and then just put a small mark-up on them? That way they dont need to 'stock' them as such. For repeat/popular meds, they could even have a 'deal' with the on-line suppliers and get them to post directly to clients.

This way, there would be very little admin time.
 

Landcruiser

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cant vets just buy there meds from the on-line suppliers and then just put a small mark-up on them? That way they dont need to 'stock' them as such. For repeat/popular meds, they could even have a 'deal' with the on-line suppliers and get them to post directly to clients.

This way, there would be very little admin time.
Nope. Vets have to use approved suppliers, where they can be confident of getting the correct drug quickly and not a far eastern counterfeit. Also, vets are ordering a huge number of different drugs and consumables all the time - it's MUCH less admin to get them from a central supplier or two than trawling different companies on the internet looking for everything they need.

Our vets use Centaur, who deliver reliably every day, and will collect returns for up to 30 days. We occasionally do a special order for odd things which Centaur don't keep - this is much more time consuming and subject to various regulations.
 

Umbongo

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Yes, all that is true, but then the vet should charge realistic costs for coming out, looking at an animal and giving a diagnosis, and not under-charge all that and then expect to make up for it by over-charging for medication.

Are vets quite cheap in France? I think most vets in the UK do charge realistic costs for their time and expertise. I see lots of posts complaining about the cost of vets in the UK, so I don't think increasing costs further would be of benefit. Practices don't "expect" to make up for shortfall with drug costs. In most cases (from my own experience) vets don't actually put as big a mark up on them as some people might think.
 

Keith_Beef

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Are vets quite cheap in France? I think most vets in the UK do charge realistic costs for their time and expertise. I see lots of posts complaining about the cost of vets in the UK, so I don't think increasing costs further would be of benefit. Practices don't "expect" to make up for shortfall with drug costs. In most cases (from my own experience) vets don't actually put as big a mark up on them as some people might think.

I don't know what vets' charges are like over here; I don't have my own animals. I know it was a far from perfect, to compare doctors and pharmacists with vets who do both the diagnosis and treatment part of the job and also supply the medication.

There are quite a few people on here who keep horses in France, so maybe they could chime in...
 

Tiddlypom

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Out of interest can a vet refuse to provide a prescription?
I'm not sure, but my vet said on her last visit that my usual practice are not sure whether it was something they ought to continue doing.

She has previously given me prescriptions for Cartrophen. I was able to upload it electronically to Viovet rather than send in the original. I think that there are justified concerns that a single script can be used multiple times with different on line pharmacies.
 

WandaMare

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I have always bought my meds from the vet, preferring to support them where possible. However with the last amount I was charged for Prascend, £258 for 160, I have gone the prescription route this time, the difference is just too much. It was also going up a bit, maybe £10 or so, every single time I ordered it which was a bit strange, well ahead of the rate of inflation.
 

meleeka

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Those of you getting prascend....how much are you paying from your vet please? I've just been charged £65 for 30 tablets!
They are around £1.04 online! Mine works out around £6 difference for a whole box after I’ve paid the £16 prescription charge so I’ve stuck with the vet for convenience.

At that price you’d definitely save if you got a 6 monthly prescription. You can still have it monthly, the online pharmacy store your prescription and you can buy it in smaller amounts for 6 months.
 
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meleeka

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She has previously given me prescriptions for Cartrophen. I was able to upload it electronically to Viovet rather than send in the original. I think that there are justified concerns that a single script can be used multiple times with different on line pharmacies.
Most online pharmacies now ask you to send the original so that doesn’t happen. Mine specifically states on the bottom that copies or scanned images aren’t valid only the original.
 

paddy555

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Oh quite a difference! Maybe I should look at a prescription when I next need them. I'm a bit of a novice with my horse only being diagnosed in November with cushings. Thanks for the info.


no problem. Sadly I am an expert!
animed seems to be the cheapest. Mine gives me a prescription with one month's dose and then 6 repeats.
 
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