I know vets train long and hard to qualify, and Finn will get whatever care he needs, that's my commitment to him. He needs some blood tests and xrays as he has become reluctant to walk very far, but has to be anaesthetised as he is so scared of the vet. My estimate is £500-800, I am lucky to be able to afford this, but I wonder how less well off people would cope. Seems having a dog will be beyond my reach after this one. (Older rescue dog equals less insurance available). Who needs a holiday anyway!
Argh. That's a lot. Will your insurance cover it? I know bigger dogs are more expensive as cost of anaesthetic goes up with size/weight of dog
The insurance will cover some. Just wondered if every vet charges the same or whether I have picked a expensive one!
Stanley the other week had an infection. I was in there 2 minutes and they gave me some antibiotics and charged me £85. I was like Vets are very expensive! But then he had a full health check and vaccination last week and we were in there about half an hour.. £28. The mind boggles
Mine is pretty reasonable , well it was but our lovely Vet friend who we have known for over 30 years, has retired and sold the practice . Whilst they aren't expensive at the side of many others , costs have risen . Nells spay was , I thought, given the size of her ( I know that amount of anaesthetic makes a difference ) a tad on the steep side at £225 .
Casper who arrived with us at 5/5 yo, had no known medical history. We have quite an expensive petplan insurance policy for him, however it has covered everything so far, and boy he has been expensive! My point being, as a rescue I had no trouble finding good lifetime insurance cover for him
Nell is insured as we had previous Vets records, its very reasonable as they added it to Sams policy which is horrendously high since the C word was mentioned ! I really cant grumble at our Vets though , his cancer surgery was covered by insurance less the £60 excess, but it was a surprising £600 , I had expected it to be a lot more than that ! The extra tests recommended to determine the type of cancer were not covered , as they were requested by us and not run of the mill , so we forked out to the tune of £350 .
I have the same issue as Kate @Beanwood with our rescue boy Charlie, no medical history but he was only 9 months old when he arrived with us. He is an accident on legs, always damaging himself the latest being a freak accident which nearly cost him his life and a £2000 bill which Pet Plan paid immediately on his lifetime insurance cover, no questions asked. I think vets have had to study for a long time but I'm not too sure the prices charged are altogether fair. xx
Finn was 8 when we got him, insurance choices were limited because of age. In spite of this, claims are outweighed premiums so far, but the excesses are quite high. Still, we all do whatever is needed cos we love 'em, don't we!
I pay for insurance for Harley, but also pay a plan direct with my vets (£15 a month) which covers consultant fees for emergency appointments, 15% off any medication and free yearly checks. This has been so worthwhile and saved me probably hundreds, if not a thousand, over the past 3.5 years. We paid for X-rays earlier this year and she had to be sedated as scared of the vets (even though this is getting better) and paid around £600.
Vets have to run a business, pay other staff, buy and pay off expensive diagnostic and surgical equipment, maintain a big pharmacy of drugs in appropriate conditions, attend conferences and subscribe to journals and professional societies to keep up their professional development, pay their own hefty insurance....the list goes on. That's what we pay for
Brogan had no insurance and (for various reasons not worth mentioning here) wasn't eligible. Traveling with him meant that I got to experience the wildly fluctuating prices of vet treatment. He also often had what I call "dodgy tummy syndrome" so got the same treatment in a lot of different places. Most reasonably priced: Spain, with Germany as a runner up. Horribly priced: France and Italy Somewhere in the middle: rural Ireland (Kerry) A couple examples of the big differences: Blood work, exam and treatment for dodgy tummy (jab and take-home meds) Spain: approx. 100 EUR (that was the first time, subsequent times for an exam + jab was 30 EUR) Italy: precisely 450 EUR ("precisely" as I remember that bill so well that forever after I called his digestive issues his "450 Tummy") Pre-flight travel health check France: 80 EURO Germany: 25 EURO Spain: free
We do @Lin , I tend to think that we rarely go out , I don't buy expensive clothes , we only have a glass ( or three ) of wine at weekends , so if we spend every spare penny on the dogs , I don't care ! Millie cost us a small fortune over the three years we had her, but when I added it up, it was only the same as the ridiculously high premium we were quoted as a stray with no history x
I do feel sorry for vets - so often we complain about how much they cost and that they are too expensive. Disregarding the enormous cost of their training before they pay themselves any salary they have to pay for their premises either in rent or mortgage, finance the purchase and replacement of equipment, and we expect them to have access to all the latest technologies, then there are the staff costs, utility bills, business taxes, insurance, professional fees, training - and that's just off the top of my head. That all adds up to alot of patients needing to pass through the doors. One of my cats was recently unwell and the bill in total for blood and urine tests, an ultrasound scan plus medication and professional fees was in excess of £500 and we have another set of tests to pay for in a couple of months. I don't have pet insurance we just have a rainy day fund we put money in to cover these sort of events but I actually thought the bill was very reasonable taking in the time and care shown to both the cat and it's owner .
@Oberon I agree but when we took Charlie in when he had that awful accident and he was in a terrible state the VERY FIRST question we were asked before a hand was laid on him was "is this going to be an insurance claim" yes it was. When I got the bill breakdown Charlie had 3 CT scans on his throat at £400 each Sometimes I do wonder whether the costs seem to go up just because your pet is insured which isn't fair as my premium will undoubtedly go up next year. I also wonder what our bill would have been if we had said no it wasn't on insurance and would he have needed 3 CT scans.
@charlie I think there may well be an element of vets perhaps doing more because you have insurance. Perhaps if you had not been insured they may not have taken 3 CT scans but one or perhaps not taken one at all . It may sound awful as well but I can understand why you were asked if you had jnsurance. If you speak to any vet it is not uncommon for them to be chasing owners for hundreds and even thousands of pounds of treatment following accidents on animals where owners have authorised treatments to save their pet which they can not finance.
@Jojo83 I am in no doubt Charlie would have needed one CT scan to determine his injury just not sure about 3. I can imagine that vets find themselves chasing owners for unpaid bills so maybe as a matter of course owners should be asked to bring their insurance certificates with them to help prevent this. Also some owners can't afford premium pet cover so in return vets might not do 'unecessary' procedures which we pay for through our ever increasing premiums. x
I'm not having a pop at vets in General, just think the prices have rocketed since insurance became the norm. A long time ago I had a lab, was on minimum wage and always could afford anything he needed. Don't think that would be the case today.
I agree, I feel insurance is to blame but when those big bills come in it's pretty useful. You can't win! x
