Spays and Neuters went up in price

The prices just keep going up. Is there any reason why they have gone sky high in the past couple of years?

Seen as though nothing has changed, why should they charge more??

Sometimes I wonder if some vets are there to help animals or to profit from them...

well no doubt they do it for profit and they won't argue that. But what is the excuse behind the raise in prices?

I wish I could find someplace that does it that cheaply. Lily is going in for a spay in two weeks. They just quoted $210.00!!

Hi All...

I was quoted 2 prices for a spay:
Cat up to 6 months old - $160
Cat older than 6 months - $170

Then $45 for the pre-anesthesia blood work...

I'm not sure why it would be more for an older cat

WOW!!!! I just had Murphy done dec 16th and the grand total was 60 buck I hate that they have to inflate the prices soo much in some places. There is no reason that it should be over 100 bucks IMO as long as the kitty is in good health. I could'nt imagine having to pay 200 and up, WOW! But, it's necessary

I was quoted about $400 for my cat since she's older (about 5) so they say she is higher risk and will need more medications and a longer stay.

If that's true...how much of an increased risk is she facing? Is it still safe to go through with the procedure?

IMO, raising the already unreasonable costs to spay or neuter a pet companion is just patently wrong! You know, I might be opening up a whole new can of worms by saying this, but the vet community as well as the rescue/shelter community has been spreading the very valuable word of spay/neuter for years ... why in the world would they make it all that much more unattainable for the people who have the hardest time affording it - the lower income folks?

I feel pretty lucky the rescues I had witch was 16 cats 4 males 12 females cost a total of $220.00 for just the spay and neuter, I had help though from actors and animals for others and personal donations, I paid for shots and testing...

Trent was done 6 years ago at $180. Ophelia more recently ( ) and her bill came to almost $300. Honestly I had a hard time affording that, and I'm certainly not considered low income.

Well, any GOOD rescue does S/N on every animal BEFORE it ever leaves the shelter and GREAT rescues have services that they offer to people on fixed incomes, welfare or who reside in certain neighborhoods.

But as far as vets go, I'd have to agree with you. It seems totally ludicrous that someone would say "This is something you NEED to have", mean it, have th efacts to back it up, and THEN make it cost-prohibitive. I mean, sure, it IS surgery, but you could make up for it in other ways, say, making declawing cost-prohibitive. ANd I don't really understand why some of this costs so much. I KNOW for a fact that legal liability for vets is nowhere even CLOSE to liability for people. I'm sure they have to have insurance, but it can't be anything like what people doctors pay, can it?

I can't believe the prices you are paying.

When Buddy was neutered in Oct, I paid $65.55. This included a pain shot and elizabethan collar. When Sissy was spayed in Dec, I paid $85.00. This was with the shot and an overnight stay. (I took her in before work, but since I don't get of work until 9pm, I picked her up the next morning).

This was at the low cost spay clinic we have but they are a full service vet too. I didn't realize some people charge soooo much!

I must admit that the prices in the US always sound high. When we got molly neutered she cost 40 pounds which is about $70 which is about an average price over here.

thats so great of them..make it even harder for people to afford it..oh yeah that will help.

Here's a link to an article where a vet explains in his own words, why these surgeries cost so much. http://www.thepetcenter.com/sur/costspay.html

But I think tonight I will call my dad (who is a dentist) to see if he thinks this is absolutely necessary and why, on a pretty much mandatory surgery, doctors, medical suppliers and others aren't willing to budge with costs. I understand the need for a profit, but there are certain places that you can give a little. Dad has been doing dentistry in the loop for almost 20 years and he has people from the Gold Coast and homeless people who live in condemned buildings around Comiskey Park. He also has women come in from shelters and nuns, priests, the elderly, even people who just don't make enough money to not be able to afford anything but day-to-day necessities...and I KNOW he's developed programs in the interest of people's health wherin he can work with patients and develop individualized plans for them. And you know what? My family lives in a 5,000 square foot house in an extremely wealthy suburb, with 3 cars, regular vacations and pretty much whatever else we need, and my mom doesn't work. So, it's possible to put food on the table even when you're generous.

But what I also know is that the vast majority of people on this earth do not work as hard as my father and are not willing to do the extra work to make sure that things are done not just well, but RIGHT. Perhaps were looking at a problem in which the answer is that the vast majority of people are simply unwilling to go the extra mile.

Thank you for this link. I haven't had time to do more than scan it, but I think it will be illuminating.

I think you've hit the nail on the head with this. Where I come from, it's called greed.

I really resent most of the posts so far in this thread. I think Dr. Dunn really hit the nail on the head with that letter. Besically it comes down to pet owning people not thinking through the purchase of their pet.

Let's think about it for a second. You get a kitten at 8 weeks old. There will be two vaccination visits and a spay or neuter in the near future of this cat. At my clinic this will cost you around $300-$350. The vaccine visits would be around $75 per visit on average (including rabies...) and the spay would be around $150-$200. If you get your cat fixed at 6 months that means that you have 4 months to save up the money!!!

It also comes down to people not valuing their pets. If you were going to get major abdominal surgery would you look for the best price??? I have people say to me all the time: "but the cat was FREE??!!" Does that mean that because you got a free cat that my vet and I should work for free? Do you realise how many people own free cats??? If we spayed and neutered all pets for free, how would we feed ourselves? Buy clothes? Pay our bills? Do YOU work for free???

I work at one of the "expensive" clinics in my area. We offer the best service possible and pride ourselves on offering the most current and best medicine that we can. Our staff are highly trained and well paid (well no tech is really paid what they are worth but nonetheless our wages are competitive ). Our veterinarians, technicians, and support staff all complete continuing education credits every year which our boss pays for. We have a fully stocked pharmacy so that we always have the best medicine available to our patients. We have expensive monitoring equipment that a lot of clinics refuse to have because they feel it is too expensive and they don't know how to use it properly. We have a huge selection of medical diets available so that if a patient is diagnosed with a disease we can provide the correct diet immediately. All of this means that the clinic has huge overhead.

We also pride ourselves on thinking about the patient first. As a result we have over $100 000 in accounts recievable. This is because of all the treatment we have provided for people that we allowed payment plans that burned us. That is lost revenue for the clinic.

As far as being in it for the money! We are in it for the animals!!! There is no way any sane grown-up person would endure 8 years of school (or 2 -4 years for a tech) just to be peed on, pooped on, and work 12 hour days plus night and weekends for the money we make. We all do this because we love animals and want to care for them.

We regularly take in animals whose owners can no longer afford them, or can't be bothered to treat them. We currently have a clinic dog that has been neglected for the past 6-7 years. She was infested with fleas and suffering from hypothyroidism. She had a skin infection, eye infection and ear infection. She has almost no hair left on her body. All of this could have been prevented with flea meds and a simple blood test. My boss decided to treat her at his own cost when her owners refused to treat her- they wanted us to put her to sleep.

We offer a generous discount to the SPCA and Humane Society to help spay and neuter homeless animals and find them homes. We have a cage in our reception area that we use for homeless animals (SPCA, HS or stray) to help them get exposure and find homes. We make sure that these animals are dewormed, vaccinated, spayed, neutered... at our own cost. The staff volunteer one day per month to help spay and neuter feral cats at no cost to the HS. The staff purchase bags and cans of food for the shelters (with their own money) and get food reps to match the donations resulting in very generous food supplies for homeless cats and dogs. I volunteer my weekends at the SPCA and look at sick animals, I take samples back to the clinic and run them on my own time so that the doctors can write scripts- this means that I save the shelter the cost of office visits and testing.

Yes, vet clinics need to make a profit- is that a crime? You get paid for providing hair cuts, delivering pizza, and fixing cars- are you going to fix my car for free when I am poor because I am neutering cats all day for free? Are you going to provide me with free pizza and hair cuts? Buy me toilet paper or pay my electric bill? No, you're not- so that means that my clinic must charge for the services that it provides.

Well put, Dr. Doolittle. I often wonder what people are thinking when they get pets they know they cannot provide for. Yes, there are many greedy people out there that just want to squeeze every dime they can out of the paying public, but there are just as many caring professionals just trying to make a good living, which they deserve after all the education and investments they were willing to go through so they could have a decent standard of living. Many people just do not understand the concept of overhead costs.
My s/o is a tattoo artist, and I am a massage therapist. We have to buy his supplies which include a lot of disposables, plus he pays the shop 50% of what he brings in. He has worked 20 years to get better at his occupation. I had to buy a massage table, massage chair, sheets, oils, stones, books, CDs, player, scrubs and a large number of accessories for different types of massage. We have to pay for licenses, and I have to pay for 25 units of continuing education per year. People actually get mad at having to give either one of us more that a paltry sum for our services, yet they still want them. They think because our services are not necessities, we should not get paid well for them. Oh, yeah, and did I mention the thousands of dollars I have to pay in student loans?
I certainly have a new appreciation for people like vets, dentists and doctors since I finished school. My education is nowhere near that of any of them, and I learned so much in my course. I cannot imagine doing that for years and having to absorb it all. Then go out into the world and get jerked around by irresponsible people.
I hope everyone here realizes I am not saying any of the people here are irresponsible. WE all love our furry babies (or non-furry as the case may be), and would pick up cans by the side of the road or sell a pint of blood if we had to for a vet bill!

I can't believe the prices, in some of these places. I've always used a low-cost S/N service and for many years, it cost me $19 for a male cat and $21 for a female. These days, it is still under $30.

At the Humane Society, $85 gets one a cat, shots, microchipping, 3 months pet insurance AND S/N. During the summer, when the shelter gets full, they run 2 cats for the price of one specials. I'm not sure what the price is for dogs.

Three years ago, I had Pearl spayed, at the Humane Society clinic and that was only $60. If she had been a bigger dog (75 lbs+) it would have been a bit more.

Every business has lines that dont make money that are either there to get customers through the door or are just a benefit. Thats what buy one get one free is. Thats what S/N should be. For vets to say they need to make a profit on this one service. Yes thats a crime as they are perpetuating animal cruelty by doing so.

Vets make enough profit on there other services so why cant they do the one that helps animal welfare the most at cost price. Because thats what they came into Vetinary care for animal welfare wasnt it? It wasn't just the money was it?

I'm not begrudging vets' making a living. After all, veterinary school takes longer than med school and is very expensive. Remember, human doctors only have to know how to treat ONE species.

That being said, those prices DO seem a bit steep. I will continue to use the low-cost services in my area for shots and altering.

This is a tricky one ... I think I am going to come down on the side of the vet (who wrote the letter in Lionessrampant's post). He makes a valid point when he states that he is not going to compromise the health of his patients by buying cheap supplies. Also, there are the costs of running a vet hospital, which must be astronomical, let alone the costs of setting it up. I don't know what you have in US in the way of charitable organisations, but here in UK we have several charities which allow people on low incomes to access vet treatments at a reduced rate. I consider myself fortunate that I have never been so strapped for cash that I have had to use one - NOT because I think the level of care is less, but there really isn't any choice when you use a service like that. I have always preferred to choose the vet I use, have a look at their surgery etc. etc. and pick the one I think will care BEST for my pets.

I think that there has to be a middle ground somewhere. Especially when I hear how vastly different the cost for S/N is in various parts of the country. The rates that I paid for Trent and Ophelia are the average rates here. I did pay a little more for Ophelia (the $300) than I possibly should have because she was in heat (an extra $45) and we did get all the extras. But the base cost was right around $200. There are low-cost options in the area, but only if you live IN the City and County of Denver (I don't) or basically qualify for welfare (I certainly don't there - no kids! But that's another thread...). So the low-cost option just isn't available for the vast majority of the pet owners in the area.

Well, I think it's great that people can get low cost spays and neuters at the local HS, but it really pisses me off when people that could afford to use regular clinics use these services. The HS, SPCA, and other organizations use donations and donated services to keep their prices low. So basically when you use these services you are getting a handout. Handouts are fine for people that need them, but don't go out and get a kitten then use handouts to S/N just because you have to buy some new makeup that month.

Also, our $200 cat spay includes IV fluids, anaesthesia, pain meds, monitoring and an overnight stay. If we were to bill these services out as a regular surgery according to our associations guidelines (BCVMA), these services would amount to over $500! So you can see that we DO s/n at cost and perhaps a little less than cost. The guideline prices are set out to ensure that all costs are covered with room for profit.

I always take our cats to the same vet. I feel a lot more comfortable that my vet knows my cats. Who would take their kids to the health department if they could afford their own doctor?
I am glad that these services are available for those who need them.

There are fixed prices for veterinary services, including S/N, in Germany. For complicated cases, the fees can be doubled or tripled, but most of our area vets charge the basic prices for S/N (about €100/€60, including anesthesia, meds, and the spay follow-up). While I'm sure many of you will react with, "That's great!", there's a downside to it. Vets who'd like to do "discount spaying/neutering" for shelter or feral animals are threatened with reprisals by the veterinary association. The fees apply to all cats, etc.

I don't have a problem paying for my pets veterinary costs. Vets have to live, too, and of course they have to make a profit. It's a job, isn't it? They're not there to dole out welfare.

I agree that some hikes don't seem fair and some places charge much more than they should, but, for the most part, vets need to charge enough to cover their costs, pay for their labour and their vast skills, and make some money to live on, too. No probs with that.

When I had to spay my stray about 5 years ago it cost me under $30.00 at a regular vets office. The prices have gone up to almost $100.00 at that vet office and that's one of the cheapest ones.
Why could they do it for under $30.00 about 5 years ago, but now they can't? I know inflation hasen't gone up that much!