Vets fees advice please...

Cliqmo

Cliqmo

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Took my horse to the vets last week for nerve blocks and xrays to identify and diagnose the cause of his lameness. My insurance doesn't cover his vets fees so I asked for a benchmark figure; the kind secretary looked into and confirmed that 'worst case it would cost £550" which meant having to nerve block his entire leg, sedation and a series of x rays etc.

He went lame in his foot so was sedated (the dirty fidget!) and then x rayed, we were all done in about 2.5hrs...

Didn't think anything more of it until I was speaking to the vet today and she advised the running total so far is £558
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Far more than I had imagined and more than the original quote!! I assumed because he didn't need all of the nerve blocks and obviously took less time because we didn't need to do all the extra waiting or trot ups etc it would be less money??

I wonder now whether I have been charged because the vet (clearly a junior to the main chap who was looking at him) fluffed up one of the nerve block injections (he still reacted to the prod test so she gave another injection) and then she didn't give him enough sedative so readministed, and THEN fluffed up some of the exposure on the xrays and had to take more
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Is it normal to charge the client for these sorts of errors? Should I highlight my concerns to the Practise?
 
Assumption is a dangerous thing to do.

You need to pick up the phone and speak to vet and query why the cost is more than you expected. To be honest, it sounds reasonable to me.
 
It sounds as if you have had an accurate estimate of potential costs. As far as the "fluffing" goes it is relatively commonplace to need to top up a nerve block, taking several exposures to get the right one is completely reasonable and as for sedation goes it is extremely common to top up. I would be surprised if you were charged for a non diagnostic film or topping up a nerve block but as both of these are recognized complications rather than errors the practice may choose to levy a fee. The bottom line is they told you it would be about £550 and in fact it came to £558. I suppose you could write an angry complaint letter and get £8 back but if someone winged about that to me I know what kind of service they would get next time!
 
It wouldnt do any harm to politely phone the practice just to run through the costs in case a mistake has been made.
However, it is a standard fee for the nerve blocks and is sometimes necessary to top up if the nerve is not 100 % blocked. You do not pay extra if needed. As to the xrays you will only be charged for 'diagnostic' plates / xrays, those slightly blurred or incorrect exposure which occurs due to differences in bone diameter, will be effectively money lost by the practice.
 
I am sorry to hear your experience with the vet.

I can sympathize, my horse had an undiagnosed lamness for 3 months vets want to do nerve blocks and xrays etc.

I did not want it done for various reasons, most predominately that my horse was going to suffer very badly emotionally if she went in.

They wouldn't even offer a potential diagnosis so after alot of research on my part and a bit of trial and error I believed she had laminitis (extremely mildly and not a classic case at all). Over the last 10 days I have treated her for lami and voila she is now sound.

I am certainly no vet....why couldn't my supposedly expert equine vet have spotted it or even suggested it!!! well annoyed!!!

So in my experience vets are still a business here to make money....they will squeeze as much out of you as possible.
synical I know but that is my experience.

Incidentally after all this work and money did they find the cause of the lamness?
 
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I am sorry to hear your experience with the vet... Incidentally after all this work and money did they find the cause of the lamness?

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Hiya, thanks for your post and I'm sorry (but interested!) to read of your situation! Fingers crossed your mare remains sound
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Nope the vets said he has no disease showing on the xrays and no fractures or signs of damage to the bones (hence the guess that it was a twist injury) and they wanted to MRI scan him (£2000 quoted price) to establish whether he had soft tissue damage. I told the vet I wasn't willing to pay for the MRI at this stage so we are box resting him and put him on a supplement high in glucosamine, chondroitin and MSM to help any damage to heal.
 
Ouch thats alot of money!

I know its time consuming but I hit the internet for hours searching for the answer, and against all advice on my yard I followed my instincts, dug a bit deeper with the info once I thought it might be lami and decided it wouldn't do her any harm to treat her for it anyway.

If i were you I would have a good root around the internet and see what turns up...

sounds like the vets haven't got a clue and you've nothing to loose.

incidentally what syptoms has he got. is he more lame if you do certain things turn a certain way?
 
Thanks for all your help jay_d!!

He is lame on the left fore which only shows in trot (big head nod) and when he turns on a small circle on the left rein- where he occasionally has a real 'ouch' limp a bit like he's stood on a stone
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(

He has no reaction to flexion tests or to the farrier/vet pinching the sole of the foot with pincers, however he did come sound with a nerve block.

Interestingly the xrays showed he has slightly long toes relative to his confirmation and I have noticed him stumble a few times when grazing- this might be related? I will look it up!
 
It's really funny but I have to say that it does sound an awful lot like my horses symptoms.

My mare was only lame on front fore only and giving big nods on left rein circle trot only.

But not lame on right circle at all and would give a slight nod on trotting a straight line.

And totally sound in walk.

She still cantered and trotted aroung the field on her own quite happily.

She would stumble a bit on stoney or uneven ground and turning a very tight left circle. (fine turning tight right)

other than that she was fine...ie not the classic lami signs you would look for. Vet did all the pinch hoof tests and flexsion tests same as yours but still unable to properly diagnose.

and if it is v mild laminitis then of course it will not show up on xrays.

It is not common but I found that lami can be only one leg and that difficulty in turning a tight circle and trouble with stoney uneven ground is typical lami.

I don't want to get your hopes up or jump the gun here...you need to look at some info yourself to satisfy your own question marks.....but I have to say it sounds damn close...

I chose to treat as laminitis as it wouldn't do her any harm.

I can't stable my mare as she is really a nightmare (no pun intended) so I have put her in a starvation paddock...really really short grass, and I give her 1 1/2 scoops happy hoof to keep her gut moving every day with a joint suppliment (just in case covering all bases) and all the have she can eat while i am grooming (15 mins) and after 10 days of this she has no trouble turning circles and is striding out on stones like they are not there.

I can really see the difference and today I trotted her up on hard ground for the first time and no nodding.

If you want to chat about it you can PM me anytime.
 
it was £8 over the estimate??? and you want to moan about it? an "estimate" is simply that - we dont have to stick to it - it's just a guideline as to about what we think it will cost and £8 over is pretty close! You should receive an itemised bill which will lay out what you have been charged for, but sedative do wear off after a short length of time and need topping up - if you gave enough at the start to last for the length of time xrays etc can take the horse would probably fall over. it's also common to need to top nerve blocks up and personally we never charge for a non-diagnostic xray plate.

contrary to popular opinion, vets are not out there to leach every last cent out of you and i get really fed up of that implication. we want to do what's best for the animal, but TBH we're damned if we do and damned if we dont. If we work out what's wrong we spent too much and if we dont then we're just useless! No wonder vets have the highest suicide rate of all professions in the country - the ungratefulness of clients never ceases to amaze me!
 
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it was £8 over the estimate??? and you want to moan about it?

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I should have made it more clear that the quote was £400 with a £550 'worst case' maximum. As he came sound on a nerve block in his foot- which I assumed (perhaps naively/wrongly) is really 'best case' in terms of the number of injections and amount of time required, I was somewhat surprised that the bill was so high. Obviously I wouldn't react to an £8 discrepency but I was hoping someone on here might be able to explain why it was £158 more than I anticipated.
 
Vets bill just arrived in the post (I haven't spoken to the vets about it yet as wanted the bill first)... all itemised and coming in at £419??!!!?? The vets was obvsiouly mistaken in the running costs to date
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I'm a happy girlie
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