Unhappy with vet's service - Do I have a leg to stand on?

chessy

chessy

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Hi all, I have a bit of a problem and I hope you guys can advise me.

I brought Rosie out of the stable last Monday to discover she was badly lame on the left hind. As it was bank holiday I could not get hold of my usual vet, the phone went straight to voicemail (me being an idiot and never having to call the emergency vet, didn't realise the voicemail went to an emergency line.... d'oh! :() so someone at my yard suggested another vet. I was in a hurry and worrying like mad, so I phoned another vet.

When he arrived, he asked me to walk Rosie up. He then said he would feel her leg - I said that she was unlikely to allow him near it as she's very distrustful of strangers, so he sedated her. When she was all doped up, the vet ran his hand lightly along her leg. He said he couldn't feel any warmth or swelling, but thought that it was a ligament problem. He gave me a couple of sachets of bute and insisted that I phone to book an x-ray the next day. He did not check her foot or hoof at all and I was so anxious that I didn't even question him - I just assumed he knew what he was doing. His whole visit must've lasted about 5 minutes and most of that was filling out paperwork so that they knew where to send the bill.
I was panicking like mad, thoughts of damaged tendons and ligaments and all the worst things that could happen were rushing through my mind.

Later on that evening, I calmed down a bit and had some time to think. I also posted on this forum asking for advice. As you can see by that thread, the most suggested thing was a hoof abscess. The more I read about this, the more convinced I became. I wanted a second opinion. People on the yard ridiculed this, but I had to trust my instinct.

The next day I managed to get hold of my usual vet. I booked the farrier too as Rosie was overdue for a trim. And as soon as the left hind leg was lifted, guess what was found in the hoof.......

Yes, that's right. An abscess. A very simple, but painful, abscess. It was drained, and Rosie is now right as rain.

However, I now find myself in a bit of a situation. I am extremely unhappy with the service of the first vet. I really cannot believe he did not even check her hoof. I just received the bill for his visit, and it comes to almost £200. Two hundered smackers for basically doing jack s***. My OH is absolutely adamant that it's not being paid, and I must admit I am seriously considering it myself.

My question is - Where do I stand on this? A kind H&H member is helping me draft a letter to the vet surgery, but I'm wondering if I actually have any ground to make a complaint and dispute the fees, and whether it's likely to get me anywhere?

Any advice from someone who's been in a similar predicament, or any advice frm ANYONE would be much appreciated!

Thank you for reading. Huge glass of brandy if you got through it all.
 
Not quite the same as you but, a few years ago, I had a yearling filly with a bacterial infection in her gut from which toxins were released, causing laminitis. She was referred to the large animal hospital at a renowned vet school. They treated her for the gut infection but not for the laminitis which they said was fine but became life threatening. Fortunately, I had the presence of mind to remove her and seek a second opinion. She nearly died but the second vets saved her from the brink. I complained to the vet school and said not to bother sending me a bill because I wasn't going to pay it. It would easily have been nearly £2k. No bill was ever sent. The filly eventually made a full recovery which took ten months. I was more than happy to pay the second vet.
 
Only £200 count yourself lucky.And pay as you dont want to get a bad reputation as a bad payer, soon it will get back to your vet if you don't pay and you may go on their non payer list
 
Well I was always taught that 90% lameness is due to the foot. 1st rule is start at the bottom and work uo, that's why when vets nerve block they alway move up the leg to ascertain where the lameness is.

I would certainly question this diagnosis. Maybe phone and speak to the senior partner of the vets.
 
Honey08 said:
Why were the charges so high? Was it bank holiday charges?
Click to expand...

Here is the breakdown on the invoice:

Visit: £31.90
Consultation: £34.60
Emergency call out: £64.88
Equimidine injection: 15.43
Torbugesic injection: £7.60
Equipalazone (bute): £3.81

+ VAT

Total = £189.87


pintoarabian - I'm glad your filly was OK, thanks to the second opinion!

Echo Bravo - It's not the amount, it's the principle. If I had taken this vet's advice, it would have come to a hell of a lot more than £200 and all for nothing. As for putting me down as a "bad payer" - I honestly couldn't care less as I will not be using them again!
Also, I always pay my usual vet.

Thistle - Thank you. I will phone but put it in writing also.
 
has he not effectively charged you twice for the callout? :confused:

I would have thought that the emergency callout fee would have included a visit fee?

*wanders off to check old vets bill for emergency callout charges*
 
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Never going to live near you, stupid bill. Don't get the emergency bit? My vets put a bit extra on top but £64? Really
 
Get a letter from your farrier saying it was a foot abcess and something in writing from a witness saying that the vet didn't even check the foot!
Then I would make an angry all to their partners and forward them your letters. Kick up a fuss! He gave you a bad service and you should get a discount or at the very least an apology and the satisfaction of knowing the vet will get a slapped wrist.
The practice needs to know that their vets aren't doing the most basic thing of checking the foot first.
Vets have a licence to print money IMO, mine charged £12 for filling out an insurance form with two words... 'cut pastern', in front of me! I also got charged £65 for my horses teeth to be checked, they didn't do anything but put their hand in the mouth and said 'it's fine'. I hate vets.
 
I've rung my vet on a Bank holiday and they warned me to leave it until the next day unless it was life or death as the charges would be much higher.

I can see why you may want to complain, but at the end of the day, the bute and injections will have helped the abcess anyway.... If you had had the x rays etc then you would have more cause for complaint. I do see your point, and you should definately think about a letter of complaint, but I'm not sure that you'd have much case for anything else. Also the vets came out to you when you weren't on their books...

I would discuss it with your regular vet, who you trust, and see what they think that you should do.
 
Echo Bravo, I'm not complaining about the out of hours fee. I'm complaining about the cr*p advice he gave me. I'm the customer here, vets exist to serve us and our animals not the other way around.

Also, I would pay for the bute.

My OH actually mentioned it to my regular vet when he came down, without disclosing the name of the other practice. My regular vet said it was incompetent of him not to check the hoof first and that he was suprised.

I will see where the letter gets me and go from there. Thanks all for your advice so far!
 
My mare had a wierd injury last yr she kicked her coronet band, was tiny and nothing happens till I dropped her off to my instructors yard for livery while I was on a work training course, I got a call saying her leg was huge and she couldn't weight bare. Told them to get the vet asap, told the people looking after her and called the vet practice to say she had a tiny cut so that was probably the problem. Well young vet came and thought she had done a tendon, I was miles away going nuts as he hadn't looked at the cut and somehow I knew she had an infection, I spoke to him and sent him back the next day to check again, he phone apologising as the first thing u learn at vet school is hoof up!!! It was all sorted and nO harm done thankfully!

I would complain and send the letter!!!
 
I would rarely say this because a veterinary diagnosis is a tough call to make, but really the first thing you check is the hoof, so in this case it does sound like the vet was rubbish. All the vets I have ever had out in similar situations started with the hoof, hoof testers, etc. and I have often been told that 90% of all lamenesses are in the hoof.

Write the letter to the practice explaining why you are not willing to pay and see what happens. They may well back down.
 
I'd be inclined to call first and the follow up with a letter if appropriate. You can achieve much more with the spoken word than with the written. I'd be polite and courteous to start with and not go in all guns blazing as sometimes that puts people's backs up straight away. I think you are right to query it and at least ask for a reduction in fee.

My story with an unhappy vet services - I wanted a 5 star vetting on a horse I was going to buy (it was the sellers vet but was the only practice in the area and was discussed fully with the vet prior to instruction) and right at the beginning of the vetting the horse had a problem with it's eye. The vet stopped the vetting, called me straight away and told me what happened and said he wouldn't charge me as today the horse would fail but when the eye cleared up he'd re-vet and for today just charge his client a normal call out fee. Vet treated horse over the next couple of weeks but the eye wasn't responsive to treatment. The horse was diagnosed with equine recurrent uveitis. I asked him to discuss the condition with my vet and we decided not to go ahead with the purchase and therefore not have the vetting.

I was then sent a statement (not an invoice) for £80. I ignored the first one thinking it was a mistake. The second one came and I phoned to ask what it was for and was told it was for a partial vetting. I told the accounts lady that I wasn't got to pay it as the vet had told me that he wasn't going to charge me and would charge the owners a normal call out fee. I then had a long letter from the vet stating he never said that and given the amount of time he'd spent on the phone to me and my vet discussing the horse he was quite upset that I wasn't going to pay and went on to say they trust their clients and don't ask money up front blah blah blah. I did pay in the end but wrote a letter with my cheque saying I wasn't paying for a "partial" vetting as I understood he wasn't going to charge me but I would pay it for his time talking to me and my vet. £80 wasn't worth the hassle although I doubt he'd have a leg to stand on taking me to court when I live in the Channel Islands!
 
I had almost the exact same thing - horse very lame on a weekend (never known her lame before) - couldn't get hold of my vet so a different vet but from the same practise came out to see her. He started telling me it was laminitis - she's a 16.2hh IDx and it was January... I know it's not impossible but it was highly unlikely. I could smell infection in the foot - he told me it was just a 'foot smell' (he has horses himself!!) and gave me bute and started talking x rays etc. Like you I was in a panic and took his word as gospel because after all, he;s the vet! Next day farrier came out, within 30secs he'd popped the abscess, I dressed it for 10 days, turned her out sound and never looked back - apart from the bill for £100. Like you my OH objected to me paying it but I really wanted to maintain a good relationship with my normal vet (and manager) at the same practise. He's due out to me in a week or so for routine stuff and I will mention the episode just so he knows what his employees are up to - I think it's important to give feedback. You never know, he might give me a free call out one day soon in recognition...
 
Not quite the same thing but I took my elderly terrier to the vet stating that I thought her liver was failing. He told me she had been poisoned, I told him that she hadn't as there was no poison around so he changed it to a viral infection. He gave her a jab to stop her being sick but when he tried to draw blood for testing he couldn't find a vein in her leg and finally took it from the jugular. It was more a rust brown colour and I pointed out this was a sure sign of liver problems. I was told that venal blood was always darker. My comment was that I knew that but at least it was still red.
Result was the bloods showed liver failure so I took her back in and had her euthanised. Bill broke down to Medications £5, blood test £35, euthanasia £35 diagnosis £67
I immediately, in front of a full surgery, told the receptionist that I was not paying for the diagnosis as the vet had been totally wrong. Luckily a senior partner walked by with the nurse who had been in with the original vet. I asked her what I had said was wrong and pointed this out to the senior vet and told him about not paying and he immediately knocked it off the bill.
 
Honey08 said:
I can see why you may want to complain, but at the end of the day, the bute and injections will have helped the abcess anyway.... .
Click to expand...

Bute is actually contraindicated for an abscess which is not open and draining. It can cause them to "go to ground" and take MUCH longer to resolve. It was completely the wrong thing for this vet to have prescribed in the situation, which was that it was blindingly obvious to several of us who had not even seen the mare that she most likely had an abscess. The painkillers were pointless, the way to resolve the pain was to open the abscess, then painkillers would have been irrelevent. This vet did not do his job.
 
Echo Bravo said:
Only £200 count yourself lucky.And pay as you dont want to get a bad reputation as a bad payer, soon it will get back to your vet if you don't pay and you may go on their non payer list
Click to expand...

23 years ago I fell out with my then vets over VERY bad advice on early cycling which led to a number of my pedigree ewes having dangerously high numbers of lambs (one ewe had sextuplets!!) I sacked them and told them to feel free to sue me for nearly £2,000 I owed them - and that I would defend the case on the basis of their negligence! (They didn't!)

I approached another local practice, told them why I had sacked the previous vets and that I had withheld payment based on the losses caused by their negligence. No doubt they knew how useless the previous vets were - they were happy to take me on as a client, and run an account - and are still my vets now! (And they look after me and my animals VERy well indeed!:D)

If a horse is lame and doesn't have a dangling leg, or VERY obvious swelling, ANY half-way decent vet starts at the hoof and puts the hoof testers on. NOT to do so when the lameness would clearly look like a foot abcess is just plain negligence and I'm afraid I'd be telling him where to put his bill!
 
Sudden severe lameness is often the way an abcess presents and the foot should always be examined first. Hoof testers would probably have been useful. Also the presence of a digital pulse. Not exactly rocket science and I thinbk you should question the bill. Maybe start with thanking them for seeing the horse as an emergency and as a client of another practice, but then explain why you feel unhappy. I think you might have to pay something, after vets are only human and make mistakes, but you have a chance of reducing it. It seems extortionate and the bute was all wrong.
 
If the horse had to be sedated just to have its leg felt I'm not suprised no proper diagnosis could be made.

I suspect that if you made a complaint then that is the response you'd get.
 
amymay said:
If the horse had to be sedated just to have its leg felt I'm not suprised no proper diagnosis could be made.

I suspect that if you made a complaint then that is the response you'd get.
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Er, what?

Are you saying that you can't diagnose a hoof abscess if the horse is under sedation???

Funny that the second vet didn't have this issue!
 
I would post the letter and see what response you get. I had a horrible experience with my usual vet several years ago (three call outs for the same mystery lameness, with always the same response - "she's 16, it's probably arthritis, ride her through it etc") until I got fed up and called a different practice for a second opinion. They referred her for x-rays (which my vets had said would be a waste of time because she "wasn't lame enough" to nerve block, so they wouldn't be able to work out exactly which bit of the leg to x-ray :rolleyes:) and we worked out exactly what was going on. If I had tried to ride her through it, she would be a cripple by now! I changed vets, but ended up paying the bills from the other vets because I didn't what the hassle. Now I kind of wish I'd taken it further, although at the time I was just so relieved that we finally knew what was wrong!
Good luck, I don't think you should have to pay :)
 
I had almost exactly the same experience, vet told me it was a sprained tendon, gave me bute and told me to box rest her. I called the farrier who came out the next day and opened up an abscess.
I sent back the vets bill with the bute and a letter saying I wasn't happy. They said I should have followed the vets advice!!! and reduced the bill by the cost of the bute.
Some vets are just plain hopeless - I always have farrier check sudden lameness for an abscess now before calling a vet.
 
Your gripe is with the incorrect diagnosis rather than the bill.

Presented with a lame horse, I would expect any vet to examine the foot first to eliminate pus in the foot.

If I were you I would write to the practice manager (if they have one) or the senior partner. Lay out the facts and await their response.

Good luck.
 
elderlycoupleindevon said:
Your gripe is with the incorrect diagnosis rather than the bill.

Presented with a lame horse, I would expect any vet to examine the foot first to eliminate pus in the foot.

If I were you I would write to the practice manager (if they have one) or the senior partner. Lay out the facts and await their response.

Good luck.
Click to expand...

^^^ Totally agree vet sounds incompetent :( if I cannot see anything obvious I always call my farrier first for sudden severe lameness.
 
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