OMG IS IT JUST ME OR are vets getting more and more expensive?? - Page 4

If anyone lives in Wisconsin, you can come to my clinic! I can almost guarantee you'll be paying WAY less than any prices I've seen on here!!!! PM me if you want to know where it is!!!

I think my vets fees are about average for where I live, but the most important thing for me is that I like the practice I use and feel confident in the care my cats receive. Thats worth paying a bit more for, imo. It's a referral and postgraduate centre so I feel that the vets there are all keen on learning and keeping abreast of what's new. They also provide their own emergency cover so if I need to see them out of hours (only happened once) I dont need to go to a different place.

I too woudl have more cats if it weren't for the high vets bills I have (I do take on oldies) but that isn't really the vets concern - I am lucky that my vet will do what she can to reduce the bill for me, I dont always pay a consultation fee - but have only been using them for 4 years and have spent over £1k there (min £250 per cat, and have had 6)

So since we're talking about vets trying to get as much money as possible out of their clients...is there anyone here who wants to talk to us about how much s/he is overpaid in his/her own line of work? Do any of you feel like your boss pays you too much?

Amen to the ridiculous costs I say!
Funny how my FORMER vets cost skyrocketed after the addition of their state of the art ultra sound machines etc and a building addition were added.
I was really offended that they would attempt to take it out of my hide.

Also about the shots, I too have read many articles now about how it is not only unneccesary but harmful to innoculate your pets every single year. So I will be checking into this deeply.

I think it is costly everywhere because everything is expensive here in Alaska but vert fees are beyond believable, like someone said, it costs more for my cats than it does for me.

As for the vet tech saying that it's because these medicines are expensive I say HOOIE!
I've fostered pets for our local animal rescue that gives their puppies and kittens their intial shots and THEIR cost for those shots? 5 BUCKS!

I don't even want to tell you what they charged me just to flush my cats eye when I could have done it myself at home.

And the insurances are a scam because they end up covering nothing unless your cat happens to get a gumball stuck up it's butt during a full moon on the 4th of July.

Bur presumably they are a non profit making organisation? If I was a vet I would expect to make a decent salary. I know how hard it is to get into vet school over here and how demanding the course is. Then when you qualify it's long hours, being on call at night and the expectation to continue to study and keep up with the latest research. I would not do that for what I currently earn and I don't expect anyone else to do it. My vets aren't running a charity and I'm happy with their fees. If I become unhappy with them I'll vote with my feet and find a new vet.

Nope, at my job, we are overworked and underpaid.

That is all. Just .

Sure, let's talk about how teachers are UNDER paid.
When a Vet makes more than a man or woman who is guiding your childs mind than I'm sorry that is just sad.
And wow someone that is happy with their vet fees ROFL

Charity Schmarity, there is no need to make 50 bucks off of a 5 dollar shot.
I suppose you're fine with your human Dr. bills too? How about your prescription prices? I'm not buying it sorry.

Well I don't have human doctor bills as health care is free here.

The harsh fact is that training to be a vet is harder than training to be a teacher. There is more study involved and more knowledge to acquire. A poor teacher may affect a child's whole life but there is always the opportunity to go back to school for anyone sufficiently motivated. A poor vet may kill my cat. I also have pet insurance so large bills are covered. I think I get a fair deal from knowledgeable and caring vets. When my Magpie died last year the vet didnt' leave his side from when I took him in at 7.30pm to when he died 5 hours later. 3 vets including the senior partner saw him and they were going to give him some new shots to disperse his blood clot that only a handful of practices in this country had access to at that time. Unfortunately he deteriorated too rapidly to have them in the end. After he died the vets were great with me (rang me next day to check I was ok) and with filling out the insurance claim. Yes I am prepared to pay for that. If vet fees were much lower I would worry whether the quality of care my cats receive was the best, and I think it would become hard to attract people to the job which would reduce the quality of care available. Of course we'd all like to pay less for most things, but I don't expect subsidised health care for my cats.

Teachers are definitely not paid what they're worth. But teachers are notoriously underpaid. There are many, many professions that pay more than teaching. Ironically, vet medicine isn't really one of them. A teacher makes about as much as a vet who is a general practitioner and does not own a practice.

But teachers also do not have as much, or as expensive, an education as a vet is required to have. And we don't directly pay for the services we get from teachers because we have public schools paid for by our tax dollars. But the bills for an independent private school, either grade school or college or anything in between, makes veterinary medicine look like a comparative bargain! I pay $25,000 per *year* for my schooling, and that's just for tuition, not even counting things like fees, books, etc.

Vets are doctors. Doctors, just the same as the one you go to. The only difference is that they treat more than one species. That means a minimum of 8 years of education past high school, and at least the last 4 of those years are extremely, extremely expensive. In contrast, education to become a teacher takes only 4 years past high school and can be done at a relatively inexpensive public university, followed by a master's degree that is almost always subsidized by the school system.

It's fine to say that it's crazy that a sports or movie star makes more than a teacher. But I have to take serious issue with your saying that it's crazy for a vet to make more than a teacher.

That's not all it's causing. When my kitten was sick a few weeks ago I described the symptoms to someone I knew had had kittens and asked what they did in situations like that. He is not a cruel person but he said "Get a new one."

The kitten that wandered into our yard in April is the first pet my husband and I have had since childhood and the vet bills have shocked us. So far it's been $45 for medication, $188 for the kitten package which includes initial exam, deworming and the first three vaccines, $30 for blood tests, $14 for a stool sample, $147 for a visit to the emergency clinic and I think that's it. My husband finally asked how much the cat had cost us when we were on vacation last week and his eyes popped out of his head...and my family looked at us like we were total fools because when they make a run into the vet for a quick check it's more like $15 for the simple stuff.

I would love to get a second kitten as a companion for this one but we can't afford any more bills like this.

I have wondered this as well. If your cat NEVER goes outside, why do you have to continue the yearly vaccinations after they are not a kitten anymore? If there is a good reason, please tell me.

I will probably do it because I may have a need to board my kitten when we go on vacation when he is older.

I do it for 2 reasons.

1. I put my cats in a cattery each year and they need to have annual vaccinations for that. Even if I didn't use a cattery on a regular basis you never know when you might need to. For example, I had a blocked drain that flooded my flat a few months ago. As the flat was flooded with sewage water I obviously needed to get Jaffa (and myself) out of there asap. He went to his regular cattery at short notice but he couldn't have done so if he hadn't been up to date with his vaccinations. As long as catteries require annual boosters I will continue to get them.

2. I'm not certain without checking but I think it may invalidate my insurance policy if they arent vaccinated annually. I certainly wouldn't be covered if they got cat flu, or something else they are vaccinated against, if I hadn't given them boosters once a year.

I don't believe they need annual boosters but I have no choice. My cats have never had an adverse reaction though, and they don't have the leukaemia vaccination, so I'm not too concerned about them having them annually. I just think they're unnecessary and look forward to it becoming accepted practice for them to have boosters every 3 years instead of every year.

Abby goes to a higher priced feline only practice, and I wouldn't change a thing about it. I had one experience with a lower cost place, and I will NEVER do that again. Don't get me wrong, I am sure some of them are fine. Yes, my vet charges more. In doing so, she has more staff, and better equipment than many other vets in the area. She is very up to date in the latest research, etc. When my Molly was dying a few years back, it was a huge comfort to me that she had all of the necessary equipment right there to run the tests, and care for her. Yes, it did cost me a few thousand, and poor Molly had to be put to sleep a week later. I don't regret a single penny I paid to her, and would do it all over again in a heartbeat. The level of care and compassion we experienced was above and beyond. For me, that alone far outweighs the cost. It is a personal decision on what type of vet you frequent. If you feel your vet is charging too much, try somewhere else. Just don't necessarily expect the same level of care, that won't always be the case.

But the cost of schooling just was too much.



As you can see from the quotes above from frawri - she couldn't afford vet school but thinks what the vets charge is insane. Folks you can't have it both ways. As I've said before, most vets have a business to run - including rent for the clinic, staff to pay for, cost of medical insurance, drugs to stock, food for overnight animals, STUDENT LOANS to pay back - then, if that isn't enough, they may be married with a mortgage, children, auto expenses and all the other expenses we all have like food and clothing.

I don't get any cheap/free visits at my own doctor so why should I expect less from my vet.

I have been a tech for almost 11 years, and am head technician and supervisor where I work. I get paid $12.25 an hour after all this time. Most of the money we make gets regenerated into the clinic to buy better machines, more staff and add ons to our clinic, not in our pockets.

Just been charged £21 for a 100ml flea spray

I am SO glad to hear this. I moved to TX two years ago, from Vermont. Before I transported Pixel in the car I got her some medication for the ride, to relax her for the long journey. She was up to date on her shots. About 4.5 or 5 years old.

When I get to TX I learn they want rabies shots EVERY YEAR. In VT it was once every four or five years. If you hear anything more on this lawsuit I would love to hear it.

We have a hard enough time getting people to adopt all the cats that need homes, this vet practice needs to get reasonable.

Interesting thread. I am hoping to adopt two kittens I have come to love very much but am going back and forth between letting them go and keeping them.

I live on a fixed income and am looking for information on Pet Insurance. Thus I found this thread and hopefully revived it because I believe the vet prices are out of hand.

Yes, vets take on more training than some physicians and then of course they need to hire vet techs, who, have to have gone through training. On the job training would probably work just as well but training institutions need to make money, right?

I hate to see vet care turning into what our human medical care system has become. It would be nice to see vets avoiding this, if possible. Charge a little extra for basic medical care and keep the costs down and responsible pet ownership up.

I just fight my tongue when I read how it's irresponsible to adopt cats when you don't have a wealth of disposable income. The aged, the mentally ill, the poor and sick, all need to be able to have pets.

The vet bills are ridiculous here. So essentially, people don't go for routine care, only when their pet is in trouble.

Now, off to look into pet insurance and I'm not finding anything easily in the forums here.

Have you tried running a search for "pet insurance"? there's a myriad of threads about/discussing it, some of which are very large.

I find it really interesting how this thread keeps getting bumped by new posts. Must be because it's a "hot button" topic with a lot of people.

I second that. It's gone for months, then bam! Back to the top with a post containing things which were covered extensively within it already.

It had been probably three or four years since I last had seen anything about his lawsuit but I just went into ask.com under pet vaccination lawsuits and it is still going. His name is Dr Bob Rogers and it is now being handled by a Chicago law firm. There were references to articles on a website called barknblog, they seem to be following it very closely. It is a website for dogs only but the lawsuit includes feline vaccinations. There were a few other references to him and this suit. He graduated from Texas A&M in 1975 and has been in practice since.

Thanks so much Denice! Good news.

Actually, that's what I'm doing. And I'm really sorry that I'm a new person and haven't participated in these discussions yet, I guess I'm just a chatty person.

If you think about it, the entire gamut of discussions about cats has already taken place. You don't want to stop discussions because something's been discussed already, do you? Not you specifically CommonOddity, just a general question to all.


So far, I've found links to TWO pet health insurance programs. So I am making headway. How this forum's users rate the different insurance programs is much more tricky to figure out by searching through page one of the search results, since I cannot even see page two. I get an error message and it won't allow me to go any further....

yep, i just got the reminder for my Pixel's shots...she gets so lethargic on the day she gets them - i wish it wasn't illegal to skip a year or two...
oh, & i did a search yesterday for pet insurance, & found 3 programs - sheltercare, VPI & ...the third name escapes me anyway, they're all very close to the same price. for 4 cats, i think i'd rather open a savings account instead

No, you never know what new information can pop up on an already well-covered topic. But sometimes if I have no new information to contribute it's easier and faster to just refer to an existing thread.

Sheltercare I missed. I'll look that one up.

I don't know, I think insurance is for emergencies that cost more than you have. I have no extra money so if Pixel got hurt I would be in trouble, desperate, selling things off. If I can get a reasonable price for insurance for her and the two kittens I want to keep, it may work, but it's not looking good at THIS point, from the comments I've been picking up.

Hmmm.

Here is my list of companies:

VPI: the url is too LONG...

Petplan: http://www.petplan.com/

Petcare: http://www.petcareinsurance.com/us/index.asp

and here is sheltercare:

http://www.sheltercare.com/