Vet Bills…..Panorama….BBC 1

Oof, bills have gone up 60+% between 2006 and 2023. It does seem to be pricing your average pet owner out of the market. The guy with the little button eyes black curly dog broke my heart, but at the same time, I can understand him getting extremely cross with the industry given the ‘negotiation’ on prices. Back in the day (almost 20 years?), we had a very thorough bill for a TPLO. I was taken aback to see £12 charged for one pair of gloves. 🤣

The hospital where Mitch was (beautiful countryside, state of the art reception) is owned by Mars. I’d be very interested to see how much it would have cost at a different hospital in a very different area (possibly private equity, in a social housing type area). We had to take my bil’s puppy there when he stayed with us, so we have experience of two very different places/pricing. Absolutely no complaints about treatment at either place.
 
Panorama is a rubbish program they skew facts to suit their own narrative, even so they made a point, (even if it was in a rather annoying way).

The most important point was made at the end and wasn’t really addressed either by this program or the Competition authorities, that a vet corporate floods an area, so you don’t have a choice. All the vets around us have been taken over by CVS, so there is no competition
 
Peglo said:
I agree. Every time my lovely girlies (equines) whack me with another vet bill it isn’t as much as I expected. I think I’m very fortunate with my vets pricing.
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In our experience , we’ve found that our bills for the cats and dogs are much higher than for the horses. Perhaps the VC’s are more interested in small animal practices as more people own domestic cats and dogs compared to horses. Out of hours for small animals in astronomical. One vet was telling us how she was having to put down animals she could easily save if the prices of the drugs weren’t so ridiculously high.
 
Hmm its a difficult one as I work in medical insurance and see how provider costs tip the inflationary rises. I am very happy with my vets, but I do find myself taken aback by the breakdown of the bill, routine call out to check £50, mileage for visit £60, eye drops to check eyes £13 it is easy to see why some people do leave stuff and dont call the vets in the hope that minor issues clear up.
 
I'm Dun said:
I've not watched it, but the same problems are effecting America which they blame firmly on vets being taken over by corporates
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Often venture capitalist backed, who have a 5 year timetable for getting out, having maximised profit, and used the purchased organisations' assets to borrow against. And sometimes it goes HORRIBLY wrong. As it is it's just making local, and potential monopolies, something this country used to really guard against. I mean Adam Smith would be spinning...
 
I fell out with my small animal vets who maintain they are independent and employee owned but started buying up other practices. VC funded of course although majority ownership remains with the staff they have a massive loan plus significant interest ro pay back and are under pressure to increase revenue.
It's not a corporate but may as well be as working on same premise.

My equine vet is 100% independent and I hope he never retires!
Quite a few of the vets from local big CVS owned equine hospital have left and set up on their own.
 
myheartinahoofbeat said:
In our experience , we’ve found that our bills for the cats and dogs are much higher than for the horses. Perhaps the VC’s are more interested in small animal practices as more people own domestic cats and dogs compared to horses. Out of hours for small animals in astronomical. One vet was telling us how she was having to put down animals she could easily save if the prices of the drugs weren’t so ridiculously high.
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I'm still fairly new to horses, and being a dog owner I was really surprised that it's actually cheaper to sedate and stitch up a bloody great big horse than a small, chilled out dog!
Plus the vet comes out to you!
 
sbloom said:
Often venture capitalist backed, who have a 5 year timetable for getting out, having maximised profit, and used the purchased organisations' assets to borrow against. And sometimes it goes HORRIBLY wrong. As it is it's just making local, and potential monopolies, something this country used to really guard against. I mean Adam Smith would be spinning...
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thank you, venture capitalist was what I was thinking of but couldnt remember the word! They buy out all the vets in one area and then artificially increase prices.
 
AmyMay Again said:
Thankfully, and I repeat, that's not my experience (I now only have a dog).
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I agree, our medivet practice is considerably cheaper than 2 local private practices (£45 vs £75 for a consultation) so I don't think all the blame lies in the corporate ones. I must admit I'm more suspicious of the pet food owned chains than the others, to me that's a conflict of interest.

It's the drug prices compared to online that really gets my goat though, I don't object (as much) to paying for people's time and expertise but when I can get £60 of vet drugs for £20 online then I'm not happy with that.
 
My recent experience was with a CVS vet, they are the only ooh option locally - well 15 miles away.
I would not let an animal suffer a prolonged, horrible death, hence no choice.
 
I think equine vet bills are entirely reasonable, especially as they have to spend so much non productive time travelling, I've always wondered if it's because they also deal with farmers and equine businesses who will not pay inflated prices. I'm fortunate that my dog vet is still an independent practice so bills there for now are o.k.
 
I'm Dun said:
thank you, venture capitalist was what I was thinking of but couldnt remember the word! They buy out all the vets in one area and then artificially increase prices.
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The competition commission doesn’t let them do that which is why some areas then end up without a vet as all the corporates own one too close
 
Having fortunately avoided small animal vets for quite a while I was pretty shocked at the £1500 bill to take our cat in recently for a fairly small procedure under GA and spent a long time moaning to OH about how it would have cost about a third of that to have the same thing done on a 600kg horse with much larger quantities of drugs required!
 
KikiDee said:
Having fortunately avoided small animal vets for quite a while I was pretty shocked at the £1500 bill to take our cat in recently for a fairly small procedure under GA and spent a long time moaning to OH about how it would have cost about a third of that to have the same thing done on a 600kg horse with much larger quantities of drugs required!
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I had practically the same procedure done on a horse and a cat about 3 months apart. Ultrasound on the cat about £1100, ultrasound on the horse, £340 inc call out. These are from the itemised bill. I think the only thing cheaper for the cat was the 'initial examination' which was about £15 difference.
 
The equine vet I use is owned by cvs. They have been good so far, and reasonably priced. Having said that I haven’t had anything major done.
 
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