Vet requesting payment in advance?!

Landcruiser said:
We've been charging procedures in advance for some time. (Small animal practice). Some clients have kicked off (been with us for years, always paid on time, yada yada) and give us a really hard time on reception, which still happens now and again. We have reduced our debt levels by tens of thousands by doing it though, and we really can't make exceptions for some people, because that opens us up to accusations of favouritism. Vet teams are cut to the bone and that includes admin staff. It takes a lot of time and money to chase debt, never mind when it's regularly not paid. Refusing to pay or being difficult about it is really not helpful to anyone. We get enough hate chucked at us as it is.
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Its been the same in my area for years now. I genuinely assumed everyone did it.
 
Had similar problem, been with the same practice for over 20 years, (badly healed cut leaves a... and hills in the country, all one word) NEVER EVER had they needed to chase me for money, normally cash immediately, needed a vet for ponies very poorly eye, phoned at 5.10pm, got told it was out of hours, demanded payment up front like I was a bad payer, the attitude was shite, got charged a ridiculous amount due to "out of hours", vet came at 5.40pm, was about 20 minutes, gone by 6.pm, then they sent two invoices for different amounts demanding more money, one for about £15.00 and another about £21.00, attitude like I was likely to leave the country, questioned it, they forgot to put eye ointment on and cocked up amounts, so I changed vet, same as 6 others on our yard, then months later, old vets says jabs due, I phoned up and asked, didn't the fact my new vet asked for Polos history give you a clue, and that you lost 6 other horses on our yard give you a clue your attitude isn't right, or the pricing, 5.10pm to me isn't out of fekking hours, and said byeeeeeee
 
Cash flow is needed to pay everyone etc

I used to pay on the day years ago

Then things got modern and billing changed

If its retro there's always gonna be bad payers
 
nutjob said:
I'd be annoyed if either of the 2 incidents above happened to me but I can see why this is happening now. My vets give a discount if you pay within 24 hours so the onus is on you to call in time with your card details or wait for the bill in full. I've saved £1000's by being a prompt payer in the many years I've been with the practice.

The problem is, there are now so many people who feel entitled and don't want to pay for things. They get a horse, don't want to pay for insurance then, when a large vet bill is incoming they start a beg-on-line. If this doesn't raise enough they resort to slagging off the vets for not providing them with free treatment. Vet practices like all other businesses can't survive too many none payers and one way or another it is the good clients who finish up with at least part of the cost.

I had more than I could stomach of none payers when I was a landlord.
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^^^ OMG yes I've been a residential landlord and among the requisite bad-payers I also had squatters using my place as a drug-den & latrine.

But I digress.

As a self-employed person & YO, I can understand ANY professional service asking for something in advance just in case the client defaults on their payment. And it feels like a lot of the group vet practices now are tending to steer their clients quite firmly towards signing up for a "worming & vaccination plan" (both large & small animal practices seem to be doing this now), and where the client would obviously then be required to do a DD either every month or as a yearly one-off, for this plan. I can see this being the general way forward for equine vet practices futuristically tbh.
 
We relocated and the new equine vets insisted I paid upfront for the first 10visits. I’d never heard of this before but with seven horses it didn’t take them long to realise I was a good client. As I remember they stopped getting me to pay upfront after only about 5 visits
 
Pedantic said:
Had similar problem, been with the same practice for over 20 years, (badly healed cut leaves a... and hills in the country, all one word) NEVER EVER had they needed to chase me for money, normally cash immediately, needed a vet for ponies very poorly eye, phoned at 5.10pm, got told it was out of hours, demanded payment up front like I was a bad payer, the attitude was shite, got charged a ridiculous amount due to "out of hours", vet came at 5.40pm, was about 20 minutes, gone by 6.pm, then they sent two invoices for different amounts demanding more money, one for about £15.00 and another about £21.00, attitude like I was likely to leave the country, questioned it, they forgot to put eye ointment on and cocked up amounts, so I changed vet, same as 6 others on our yard, then months later, old vets says jabs due, I phoned up and asked, didn't the fact my new vet asked for Polos history give you a clue, and that you lost 6 other horses on our yard give you a clue your attitude isn't right, or the pricing, 5.10pm to me isn't out of fekking hours, and said byeeeeeee
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If I was that vet I wouldn't be sorry to see the back of you!

You called out of hours for an emergency appointment. Therefore you were billed for an emergency out of hours appointment. A simple mistake of forgetting to bill for eye ointment is hardly worth going scorched earth for.

No wonder so many vets are leaving the industry. Us animal owners are going to find ourselves in quite the pickle if this pattern keeps up.

I pay all bills on receipt. When I was given a referral to a specialist I had to pay £300 upfront as a deposit. I pay my hairdresser after I sit in her chair, why wouldn't I pay a vet immediately after their service has been provided?
 
I'm happy to pay my bills on receipt.
I do think it's a bit unreasonable expect payment up to a week in as advance and wouldn't be happy if my practice did this, especially if they are then slow to refund any overpayment. We have a non-equestrian related business. The only time we would expect payment before the service is provided is if it's not our customer and we don't know anything about them. We would then ask for a deposit. Other than that, if it's someone without an account they pay after the job is done. I'm more than happy to start small claims proceedings if someone doesn't pay, but it rarely comes to that.
 
This is another downside of corporations owning vets. I have my insurance registered with the vets and I have a credit of my insurance fee on my account so that they can just get to treating my horse and not have me ripping peoples heads off about money when they know I’ve got insurance and I’m good for it.
 
NR88 said:
If I was that vet I wouldn't be sorry to see the back of you!

You called out of hours for an emergency appointment. Therefore you were billed for an emergency out of hours appointment. A simple mistake of forgetting to bill for eye ointment is hardly worth going scorched earth for.

No wonder so many vets are leaving the industry. Us animal owners are going to find ourselves in quite the pickle if this pattern keeps up.

I pay all bills on receipt. When I was given a referral to a specialist I had to pay £300 upfront as a deposit. I pay my hairdresser after I sit in her chair, why wouldn't I pay a vet immediately after their service has been provided?
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Has your computer screen got a few blank areas, as looks like you couldn't have read most of my post,
Obviously missed the bit about me paying cash "straight away" for over twenty years, or the bit about the bad attitude towards me, I suppose they were happy to see the back of the other six horse owners as well, the attitude towards me as a paying customer of over 20 years stunk, treated on the phone like I was a bad payer from the word go isn't going to wash with me, plus that in a hurry to get a very small balance immediately, which isn't exactly," going to scorch the earth" , yes rather pathetic on their part, also didn't have the decency to send my pony's history to the new practice, how professional.
I have been self employed for about 40 years, if after a customer has paid me for a job, and I had forgotten a part, I would have sucked it up and put it down to my own incompetence, not sent another invoice "twice" with two "different" figures, with an attitude like they were going to leave the country and not pay.
 
My equine vets policies are (still) billing on a Friday morning to all clients who have been with the practice in excess of x year(s) or x visits. Payment strictly 7 days. a % is added for non payment after day 7 and up to day 10. Then a higher % on top from day 11.
Routine appts booked in advance as std - travel, consult plus vat
OOH, 3 x std call out.
Emergency same day visit 2 x std call out
New clients to pay in advance of vet visits, a £ sum is requested on registration which will be used against 1st invoice.
I paid bills promptly, as soon as the email arrived. They still are doing the same as I have a few friends who use them.
 
Pedantic said:
Has your computer screen got a few blank areas, as looks like you couldn't have read most of my post,
Obviously missed the bit about me paying cash "straight away" for over twenty years, or the bit about the bad attitude towards me, I suppose they were happy to see the back of the other six horse owners as well, the attitude towards me as a paying customer of over 20 years stunk, treated on the phone like I was a bad payer from the word go isn't going to wash with me, plus that in a hurry to get a very small balance immediately, which isn't exactly," going to scorch the earth" , yes rather pathetic on their part, also didn't have the decency to send my pony's history to the new practice, how professional.
I have been self employed for about 40 years, if after a customer has paid me for a job, and I had forgotten a part, I would have sucked it up and put it down to my own incompetence, not sent another invoice "twice" with two "different" figures, with an attitude like they were going to leave the country and not pay.
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And we wonder why vets have the highest suicide rate of any profession.
 
In the very old days my vet would charge £18, for a booked call out and the first half hour, paid on the day. I think charging for the visit and at least 30mins paid up front is fair. If you have any other service you pay before you leave.
My usual vet practice is actually rubbish at sending out bills, I pay online and they insist on sending everything in the post. The practice I use for small animals the invoice is usually less than the estimate, and you pay before you leave and I always take the breakdown for reference.
Some small animal practices have plans for small pets and you pay a monthly fee, it covers wormers, health check and a discount on fees, I would rather pay for that than insurance if I only had one.
 
Paying up front is fine with me. Called a plumber out lately? The first thing you are told is the call out fee and you have to pay over the phone just to get them there. Then all work delivered is paid onsite at completion of the job. Out comes the tap tap machine (or cash of course for plumbers!)

Despite being medivacced to my home country in a pretty serious state post a ski-ing accident both surgeon and anaesthetist needing paying upfront before we went into surgery. It was my job to sort it with health fund post surgery.

With vets however, if we are doing everything right as a client - paying upfront, showing respect and kindness, I expect you to turn up on time, everytime with the knowledge, skills, communication, appropriate support to do your best work.

If I’m waiting for you and have to call the practice and speak to your vile receptionist, then move all my work calls because the practice couldn’t let me know you were running late I’m not going to present as my best self.

Vets practices need to up their game in business professionalism and the angst they get from clients will reduce considerably. We respect the technical skill but the practice management and support crew is where it falls apart and the vet gets the stick for it.

As a client be as professional as you expect the vet to be with you.

I wouldn’t dare treat my plumber badly………..or consider that I didn’t have to pay upfront or be ready with an envelope of cash or my card. And I love my vet more than I love my plumber………….
 
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Gamebird said:
I have worked for corporate and independent practices. Both have done this. This is not a purely corporate thing (to be honest cash flow matters much more for the little guys!).

We have been taking payment in advance for vaccines for roughly 10 years now. We charge the same for both flu and flu/tet, so it doesn't matter which you have. After an audit of our bills which took longest for payment surprisingly the longest payment intervals were for routine work (vaccs, dentals, castrations, vettings) so we get all of these paid up front. It actually surprised me as I was expecting the colics, wounds and lamenesses to be worst. New clients would be asked to pay up front for everything for the first visit. This has been the same for 3 different practices I have worked for and several others I have knowledge of.
We were regularly waiting 6 weeks for payment for vaccs, and there are huge associated admin and time costs. The idea of having a naughty/nice list for people who do/don't need to pay in advance is very impractical. And there are a fair proportion who cry 'but I always pay immediately' who really don't!

The only exceptions would be commercial clients eg racing yards or studs as often the people you are dealing with day to day have no access to the financials. Plus they tend to operate on a monthly invojce basis for everything.
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Out of interest were the routine activities paid late as an absolute number or as a proportion of the total number of routine activities performed?
By which I mean I would expect you to have more late paid routine activities because they are….routine. I would expect that you perform far more vaccinations than you attend colics, so by extrapolation of course you will have more late paid vaccinations (as an absolute number)
 
Bonnie Allie said:
Paying up front is fine with me. Called a plumber out lately? The first thing you are told is the call out fee and you have to pay over the phone just to get them there. Then all work delivered is paid onsite at completion of the job. Out comes the tap tap machine (or cash of course for plumbers!)

Despite being medivacced to my home country in a pretty serious state post a ski-ing accident both surgeon and anaesthetist needing paying upfront before we went into surgery. It was my job to sort it with health fund post surgery.

With vets however, if we are doing everything right as a client - paying upfront, showing respect and kindness, I expect you to turn up on time, everytime with the knowledge, skills, communication, appropriate support to do your best work.

If I’m waiting for you and have to call the practice and speak to your vile receptionist, then move all my work calls because the practice couldn’t let me know you were running late I’m not going to present as my best self.

Vets practices need to up their game in business professionalism and the angst they get from clients will reduce considerably. We respect the technical skill but the practice management and support crew is where it falls apart and the vet gets the stick for it.

As a client be as professional as you expect the vet to be with you.

I wouldn’t dare treat my plumber badly………..or consider that I didn’t have to pay upfront or be ready with an envelope of cash or my card. And I love my vet more than I love my plumber………….
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Woah! That "vile" receptionist is on minimum wage. She may not KNOW the vet is running late. The vet may not be in a position to call in. You have absolutely no idea of the stresses and difficulties involved in keeping to schedule in any medical setting. Some things take much longer than expected, some animals are much sicker than the owner thought, some owners need more support/explanation/TIME than others. It's just the way it is and we (speaking as an extremely experienced, professional vet receptionist, and yes, I'm still on minimum wage after over a decade), WE do our very best but sometimes it's fire fighting and sometimes we've had a really bad day and dealt with distraught owners or people angry at having to pay or having to wait, or we just don't know what's going on because nobody has had time to tell us, or just maybe we have our own issues and difficulties to deal with.
You having to "move your work calls" because someone else's animal needs emergency care and then complaining about it is not a good look, The vet isn't late on purpose, there will be a very valid reason, and one day it might be your horse that's holding everyone up. Blaming the reception staff (or indeed the vets) for your vet not "turning up on time, every time." That vet might have just euthanised a child's best friend or told an owner that their beloved horse has a life limiting condition, or attended an RTA. You have no idea.

Edited to add...it's a well known phenomenon that some of the clients who love their favourite vet and are all sweetness and light to them, hanging off their every word, are the most vile to us receptionists. Be aware though - the vets and the receptionists share intel. Your vet will be aware.
 
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little_critter said:
Out of interest were the routine activities paid late as an absolute number or as a proportion of the total number of routine activities performed?
By which I mean I would expect you to have more late paid routine activities because they are….routine. I would expect that you perform far more vaccinations than you attend colics, so by extrapolation of course you will have more late paid vaccinations (as an absolute number)
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Ah, yes, I see your point, but I'm pretty used to running figures and analysis, so of course took this into account. It's something I do most days. Being a vet, especially a director, involves a lot more skills than people would imagine! This was as a proportion, not as an absolute, otherwise as you point out, my conclusions would be completely invalid.
 
Petalpoos said:
I can see why the vets have to do this and also see that they would have to require that everybody pays up front, otherwise the well-known non/late payers would claim discrimination. Still a sad reflection though.
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Being a late payer isn't a protected characteristic, so discrimination against them isn't a thing!

I am pleased to say that my independent vet hasn't started asking for payment upfront. I remember the days when they sent out an invoice for small animal treatment but they ask for payment as you leave the surgery now. Although they are happy to send out an invoice for pts though.
 
My vets used to send invoices within a week , and there was a discount if you paid within 3 days. I would have happily paid up front for the brilliant service I had from them, including one of the vets coming on her day off to pts our old pony as she had been treating her for a while and pony trusted her. I never had a problem if vets were late , emergencies happen, or calls can take longer than anticipated. I would happily pay any amount to still have horses for a vet to visit :(.

People who complain about vets being late, or wanting payment up front, will have more to complain about when more and more vets leave the profession because they have had enough of the abuse.
 
Not something I’ve come across! For the practice I use, on the small animal side of it it’s pay on the day. The equine vet on the large animal side of the practice writes everything he done down in his notebook and is supposed to hand it into the office at the end of the month for the office to send out the invoices. I didn’t know any of this so the day after a visit I duly went out to the practice to pay only to be told by the receptionist that they’ll bill me when Tom remembers to give them the book which was about 6 weeks later.
 
Landcruiser said:
Woah! That "vile" receptionist is on minimum wage. She may not KNOW the vet is running late. The vet may not be in a position to call in. You have absolutely no idea of the stresses and difficulties involved in keeping to schedule in any medical setting. Some things take much longer than expected, some animals are much sicker than the owner thought, some owners need more support/explanation/TIME than others. It's just the way it is and we (speaking as an extremely experienced, professional vet receptionist, and yes, I'm still on minimum wage after over a decade), WE do our very best but sometimes it's fire fighting and sometimes we've had a really bad day and dealt with distraught owners or people angry at having to pay or having to wait, or we just don't know what's going on because nobody has had time to tell us, or just maybe we have our own issues and difficulties to deal with.
You having to "move your work calls" because someone else's animal needs emergency care and then complaining about it is not a good look, The vet isn't late on purpose, there will be a very valid reason, and one day it might be your horse that's holding everyone up. Blaming the reception staff (or indeed the vets) for your vet not "turning up on time, every time." That vet might have just euthanised a child's best friend or told an owner that their beloved horse has a life limiting condition, or attended an RTA. You have no idea.

Edited to add...it's a well known phenomenon that some of the clients who love their favourite vet and are all sweetness and light to them, hanging off their every word, are the most vile to us receptionists. Be aware though - the vets and the receptionists share intel. Your vet will be aware.
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I largely agree with you, although I do think in a lot of cases communication could be improved. This is largely vets at fault, not office staff who probably only see the vets once a day or so, and are juggling the locations of several vets out on the road, many of whom are probably not where the office think they are! (I know you get this, but explaining for the benefit of others).

I do think vets could probably communicate better. Even if you're with a client, it's rarely impossible to ring or message the office and say 'this is taking a lot longer than expected - please could you contact my next couple of clients and let them know I'll be X minutes late, but that may change'.

The things that have made me late this week are rarely dramatic. I struggle to get out on the road on time in the mornings at the moment.
The reasons for this are:
  • If you've been on call, early morning calls (happen very frequently when people check their horses before they go to work), so for example the 6.30am colic which runs into the working day
  • If you've not been on call but another vet has had an early morning call which means that you need to take over their in-patient checks and meds before you go out
  • 'Could you just ring Mrs X before you leave'
  • Having to re-stock car kit/drugs after a late finish the previous day when you didn't get back to the clinic, or after emergencies
Then once on the road for the day the most common things which make me late are:
  • People who can't catch their horses, or haven't got them in ready so you wait whilst they trek to the furthest field for them. I have 2 or 3 of these every day. And every time the horse is supposedly good to catch and has 'never been a problem before'. I do generally believe this, but horses are horses and know fine well when you are trying to catch them out of their normal routine, or hen the vet is on the premises. Even the best horse can become uncatchable in these circumstances. This is definitely my biggest regular cause of lost time though
  • Horses which are difficult to handle or difficult with vets - these need time and patience, but it all adds unexpected time to appointments
  • 'Could you just....' - these are really difficult! As several people have said on this thread they expect great customer service, and saying 'no, you need to make another appointment for that' doesn't give a great impression, although it is what we are supposed to do in these scenarios. So I generally say yes, or have a quick look, but it all adds time onto the day
  • There are an almost unbelievable number of rural road closures for roadworks, most with no notice, and where we are these often necessitate really long detours to get to somewhere you can virtually see from where the closure is.
  • ANd sometimes things are a lot more complicated than expected and sometimes for example an appointment listed as 'quick check of melanoma' turns into a really long discussion about quality of life, and talking the client through euthanasia and timeframes and options, and you just can't say 'sorry, you've had your 10 minutes, I have to go to the next one'.
  • Calls that come in through the day that need to be seen same day. I can't remember the last time my diary of appointment stayed the same throughout the day. It almost always is flexible with extra people needing to be fitted in, calls moved between vets etc etc. I would regularly start the day with a 'full' schedule and end the day having fitted 4 more same-day appointments in.
I would also add to Landcruiser's post that recruitment is a MAJOR issue. I haven't worked in a practice that was fully staffed with vets for 9 or 10 years. We are currently trying to run a 5 vet practice with 3 vets, and when you take holidays etc into account that means most days there are only 2 vets in. We advertise and advertise, but experienced equine vets are like gold dust. And although we would love to have a new grad to train, as you can probably tell, we just don't have the time to train them. So although we start each day with appointment scheduled from 8.30-5, we rarely finish these appointments (for the reasons above) before 6 or 7, then get finished writing them up before 8. To be honest I can see why vets are leaving the profession, but every one that leaves just leaves more work for those of us who are left!

Apologies for the essay. I would dearly love to be bang on time for every client. I genuinely do my best. I thought it might help though if I explained where the lateness comes from! And I do think that vets could communicate better. But it is rarely, if ever, the fault of the office staff, so please try not to take your frustrations out on them!
 
For my cats payment is required straight after the appointment and they don't take direct payment from insurers. They are very clear and upfront about this when you register and from memory I'm sure they also have signs in the surgery to this effect too.
For my ponies any routine visit is paid for in advance and requests like prescriptions are paid for at the time. I can't remember how it worked when I had them for a lameness exam, I think maybe I paid a basic call out/exam fee in advance and then any adjustments were made after. When I had an emergency colic call out a couple of months ago, I was billed the next morning! Not sure what they do if you're insured as mine aren't, so it's not been relevant.

Both are small independent practices and I completely understand as a small business with high overheads why they operate this way tbh.
 
Landcruiser said:
Woah! That "vile" receptionist is on minimum wage. She may not KNOW the vet is running late. The vet may not be in a position to call in. You have absolutely no idea of the stresses and difficulties involved in keeping to schedule in any medical setting. Some things take much longer than expected, some animals are much sicker than the owner thought, some owners need more support/explanation/TIME than others. It's just the way it is and we (speaking as an extremely experienced, professional vet receptionist, and yes, I'm still on minimum wage after over a decade), WE do our very best but sometimes it's fire fighting and sometimes we've had a really bad day and dealt with distraught owners or people angry at having to pay or having to wait, or we just don't know what's going on because nobody has had time to tell us, or just maybe we have our own issues and difficulties to deal with.
You having to "move your work calls" because someone else's animal needs emergency care and then complaining about it is not a good look, The vet isn't late on purpose, there will be a very valid reason, and one day it might be your horse that's holding everyone up. Blaming the reception staff (or indeed the vets) for your vet not "turning up on time, every time." That vet might have just euthanised a child's best friend or told an owner that their beloved horse has a life limiting condition, or attended an RTA. You have no idea.

Edited to add...it's a well known phenomenon that some of the clients who love their favourite vet and are all sweetness and light to them, hanging off their every word, are the most vile to us receptionists. Be aware though - the vets and the receptionists share intel. Your vet will be aware.
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Whilst I totally agree that vets have a difficult job and so do reception staff, you have to also realise that moving work calls is not as simple as it seems. How do you think a client is going to react, if you move the call at short notice, particularly for an animal? I can tell you with some of my clients it wouldn't go down well and it wouldn't go down well with the company I work for either. They are paying us to do a job, and that involves not upsetting your clients so they take their business elsewhere. The calls may involve a large number of people and they may not be that easy to reschedule. You have to remember we all need the jobs to pay for the horses and the vet bills...

With my vets you only know a rough time for first and last call and after that you book a morning or afternoon call. I then block out my calendar so no meetings get put in. Maybe the vets in question should be taking this approach rather than giving appointment times that they are unlikely to make.
 
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