<p>We have an 11-year-old Lab who is a beloved member of the family. A few weeks ago she was having some (gross, I know) bloody discharge. She is not spayed but it was not time for her “heat”. We took her to the vet who said she had a Urinary Tract Infection. She also said that because she’s not spayed we should be aware of Pyometra, or a Uterine Infection, which can be fatal. Didn’t think that’s what it was, but just to be aware. </p>
<p>We went through two rounds of antibiotics and she seemed to be doing better. Then, earlier this week (when the antibiotics were done), she got worse. Very lethargic, not eating, wouldn’t even respond to someone calling her name (VERY unusual for her, usually a high-energy dog). Took her back to the vet who finally said yes, let’s do some x-rays. Lo and behold, Pyometra. Said that she needed immediate surgery which would cost $800-$2000 dollars(!!!). Since they only are open until 4PM on Saturdays, we had to take her to another branch of theirs (they are a national veterinary chain). Took her to the other center, of course after paying $500(!) for blood work and a urine sample pre-surgery.</p>
<p>The vet at the sister branch told us on an estimate that it would cost, for everything, from $2800-$3600. My dad was with me and told her that that was VERY much over what we had been told and asked if there was any way to lower the price. She told us that the surgery (with anesthesia) only costs about $1,100, meaning the rest would be for IV fluids and someone monitoring her overnight. (I told my dad I would sit with her for two days for $2,500…why not??) She said she would check with her manager to see if they could bring down the cost. (I was somewhat reminded of being at a car dealership.)</p>
<p>She came back in after about 2 minutes and said they could “cap” the cost at $2,000. (Itemized as a “courtesy discount” on the invoice.)</p>
<p>Of course we are willing to do it since the dog is very healthy for her age, and could realistically live another 4-5 years once this is taken care of. It just seemed a little ridiculous to us how much they spiked the price and then “generously” (yeah right) brought it down when we objected. I wonder how many people who are emotional/not thinking clearly over the state of their pets pay the very much inflated price.</p>
<p>It also would have been nice if someone suggested an x-ray or preventative spay several weeks ago before it got to this point, but of course hindsight is 20/20.</p>
<p>Sorry your poor doggie had to go through this and that it is so expensive, but I can’t imagine why your 11 year old dog wasn’t spayed years ago.</p>
<p>^When we first got her we got her from a breeder who breeds famous showdogs. He asked us not to spay her so that he could continue her bloodline, but circumstances never allowed for this to happen. Of course, after that happened, my parents meant to spay her, but with one thing after another it simply never ended up happening.</p>
<p>I’m going to guess that in the course of the 11 years, spaying has been mentioned by the vet if your dog is getting regular visits for shots and checkups. I think you are a college student or just out, correct? So you probably have not been to all the visits. Most vets do mention this as an option regularly to pet owners (can’t tell you how many times the various vets we saw mentioned fixing our male dog for his long term health before my ex-H agreed to it, but that is another storey. I would guess that spaying has come up numerous times in the last 11 years, not just over this issue.</p>
<p>It is stressful to have a sick pet, and difficult to make the decision of whether to spend a lot for surgery or treatment, especially for an older pet. Were you looking at immediate emergency surgery over the weekend? It sounds like that is possible, given the 4 pm Saturday comment. That could have contributed to the increased cost; I know when my pets have needed emergency care (same dog, raspberry cane stuck between his puppy teeth, $250 charge at emergency vet on a Saturday night, sigh…), the cost is always higher than during the week. The first person may have quoted a pre-scheduled surgery cost vs. an emergency surgery cost.</p>
<p>I actually feel bad for vets most of the time. People often do not want to pay for care (or pay much for it). Vets have overhead just like a doctor does (and probably school loans on top of that!). Imagine what that surgery would cost for a person. Thousands (maybe 10s of thousands) more. But the patient still needs to be diagnosed, anesthesized, operated on in a sterile environment with instruments and probably an assistant, medicated for infection and pain, monitored post-surgically, follow up visits, etc.</p>
<p>I have a close friend who is a vet, and it is no racket… he has struggled to build his practice, and his wife often assists in the clinic. I also know that our vet (different guy) makes a pretty decent living as a vet, but he runs several clinics and employs several other vets. He is a supurb surgeon, and did a great job on removing a cancerous growth from my dog a couple of years ago that has not returned.</p>
<p>Just like medical clinics and hospitals, pricing does vary for different patients. It is no secret in the human medical community. And I think many vets would rather see an animal survive (treat them at or even below cost sometimes if necessary) if the owner is too cheap to pay the standard fee.</p>
<p>intparent–she has not gone to the vet frequently as she has been very healthy for most of her life. Only for shots and such, and I actually have been to most of the visits with my dad. It was very rare that they mentioned spaying, except to ask whether or not she was spayed.</p>
<p>She is in surgery now, and I understand that emergency surgeries are more expensive. But $2,500+ for someone to sit in a room and watch her seems ridiculous.</p>
<p>And it’s not that we are “too cheap” to pay the standard fee…it’s that we honestly couldn’t afford to pay $3k+ with my sister still in undergrad and my parents getting ready to help me move out to Indiana to start grad school in two weeks. We love our dog very much and do want her to be healthy and try to do what is best for her.</p>
<p>I think vets get a bum rap from many pet owners. Just like a physician, they often have student loans for their many years of school on top of the overhead of operating a clinic. As pet owners, we expect them to be available whenever we (or our pets) need them. In a way I feel they have a more difficult job than a physician since they deal with different types of animals from dogs to cows and lots in between and their patients cannot tell them how they feel or what is bothering them. Our vet made a house call to diagnose one of our labs after hours at no charge. He ended up taking her home with him to stay for the night to get a better idea of her problem. Many pet owners want their pets treated like family, but are not willing to pay for it. I witnessed a pet owner launch a verbal assault on a vet once because the owner didn’t come to claim his animal after treatment due to cost. What is the vet supposed to do when that happens? I felt badly for both the vet and the pet.</p>
<p>my dogs have cost me much, much more than my 2 kids. I find the bloodwork to be a joke…$130 to check for this, $100 for that…not sure what the mark up is, but it’s too costly IMO.</p>
<p>Sorry your dog is sick. As someone who has spent more than $10,000 in the past six months on one of our furry friends, I understand your concern. But I have to disagree with you about veterinary care being a racket. I admire the vets we came in contact with who did the initial emergency care and then the critical care and ICU for our dog. The techs that look after animals following surgery do a lot more than just “sit in a room and watch”, trust me. They are trained professionals who monitor the pet’s vitals, keep them hydrated, check their IVs, administer meds, etc. </p>
<p>Not spaying a dog can result in various and assorted health issues as the dog ages. If your dog has been vaccinated regularly, then your vet has assessed her health at least annually. It would be the only vet I’d ever heard of if he/she did not raise this issue at each annual wellness check. </p>
<p>I hope your dog does well in surgery and recovers smoothly. The vets I know work incredibly hard, and longer hours than most doctors I know. They are to be admired.</p>
<p>I think our frustration is more with the fact that we were told such a large range of numbers…at first we were told $800, then all of a sudden the number jumped to $1800-$2k, then at the hospital it jumped to $2800-$3600. Every person told us a different number that was substantially higher than the last.</p>
<p>As for loans/overhead…I understand that they’re trying to run a business, but to be fair, don’t they understand that loans will be a part of their future when they decide to be a vet? For example, I won’t get to ask my future job for more money to cover my student loans, or charge the students I’ll be helping more money because I need to pay off loans.</p>
<p>And we really were never told about the possible Pyometra/other issues until about three weeks ago. We keep her up to date on vaccinations and I can’t recall ever hearing that not spaying her could be potentially fatal.</p>
<p>Not to be blunt, but your dog is 11 years old… that is pretty old for a large breed dog. I have owned several dogs (also used to belong to a local breed club for a previous dog), and have also not heard of this disease. But I can’t say that I have heard of hardly any diseases my dog gets, nor am I aware of all the diseases I could get as a human being. Or even all the risk factors for those diseases.</p>
<p>It may be in your dog’s medical record at the clinic that your family has specifically said they will not spay her, so maybe that is why they don’t bring up the health benefits. I think many vets do.</p>
<p>From what I can read, no one actually told you $800 – even the initial estimate was a range with that as the bottom number, and the number your family is actually being asked to pay is the top number that the original person gave you (even though your pet is getting emergency weekend surgery, which DOES cost more than a scheduled surgery, and it is being done in a different location/different clinic than the one that gave the original estimate). </p>
<p>Regarding “too cheap”… it is often an issue with expensive care for a pet, especially an older pet, that families find that they have to really make some tough decisions. Alwaysamom gives an example that I would consider out of my price range… and I admit that I would be given pause to pay $2,500 for my lab (who is about to turn 11). But I might do it. It is one of the most difficult decisions to make as a pet owner, I think. I suspect you might be feeling a little guilty about this (your grad school expenses might be playing into your parent’s difficulty in paying for this?), but it seems like you are venting your anger at the clinic and vets. This is a reality for humans and pets…health care that can be lifesaving costs a lot more than some people can pay. And if vets CAN’T charge enough to cover their student loan payments in addition to a living wage, then maybe we just won’t have any vets any more… because pretty much all of them take out loans for vet school. As a society, we want what we want… a well trained vet, perfect information on what might happen to our animals (even if we don’t take them for regular checkups or ever research pet care/diseases ourselves), and cheap care when the pet is sick. We probably can’t have all of those things.</p>
<p>I’m sorry you felt your experience with your vet was so poor. Maybe it’s time to find a new one. I can’t imagine my vet not campaigning to spay or neuter our dogs, both for their own health and for the dog population. It does sound like you were warned the first time you took her for the problem, that if it is Pyometra, it could be fatal. The prices quoted for the surgery do not sound out of line to me. Surgery is expensive. If it were a human, it would be ten times that much for the same procedure. </p>
<p>I encourage all of my friends to buy pet insurance. Had this happened to my pet, our insurance would pay 80%. Granted we have been paying about $300 for the last four years, but it still would have been a net gain.</p>
<p>intparent–actually I’m covering about 95% of my grad school expenses myself, so that has very little to do with it. What is going to be pricey is moving me to Indiana from SoCal, but they would not have offered to help if they couldn’t afford it.</p>
<p>The environment at the clinic was very “skeezy” and after doing a little googling am finding quite a few people who have similar issues with this particular chain of vets. We will most likely be moving our dog’s care to another vet after this whole ordeal is over.</p>
<p>Yes, she is 11 years old, and I am aware that is old for a large breed (we have had 3 labs including this one in my lifetime). We discussed today the possibility that we may have to put her down, but because she is so healthy aside from this decided not to.</p>
<p>My family and I are usually fairly understanding of the fact that people have to make a living, meet their overhead, etc. This was far outside of that. She has been into the vet 3 times in the last month and no one ever said, “Hmmmm, maybe we should do an x-ray.” But as soon as she was in real trouble they were happy to keep jacking up the price with more services she needed.</p>
<p>Sorry to hear about your dog. Pyometra is a nasty thing. It can be kinda of tricky because you have to be careful not to spread the infection. I can understand why you are upset over the discrepancies of price. That would irk me too. I wonder if it is worth asking the first vet about the differences. Nothing probably will change but you might find out that he omitted something and at least feel like you were not cheated. Hope it all turns out ok.</p>
<p>Also, just because the vet was willing to lower their rate doesn’t mean that it’s a racket. They were doing you and your dog a favor.
My oncologist takes on some patients pro bono. I pay thousands of dollars a year for my treatments, but the fact that he is willing to treat some for free doesn’t make it a racket. It makes him a compassionate doctor who made a decision based on his desire to see a patient get treated who might not otherwise.</p>
<p>Onward–we asked at the hospital why the discrepancy in prices, as well as at the original vet. The answer both times was some hemming and hawing and “I don’t make the prices,” along with an explanation that emergency surgery is expensive. Yes, we understand, but shouldn’t there be more of an explanation?</p>
<p>Moonchild–what was more odd was that when she quoted the estimate at $2,800-$3,600, my father told her that was very much over what the original vet told us, and that she had told us maybe from $800-$2,000. The vet we were speaking with at that time latched on to that and said “so if we can cap it at $2k, that’s okay then?” I wonder if dad had said we got a quote at $1.5k if her answer would have been to cap it there. I am glad, don’t get me wrong, that they were able to do it…just wonder how much of it was really necessary cost and how much was just their markup.</p>
<p>It is too late for this now but my vet always gives me a written quote. In the future, you might want to find an independent vet. I didn’t even know there were chain clinics. All the vets by me have their own clinic. They take turns staffing the emergency clinic.</p>
<p>I’m sorry to hear that your dog is sick. I hope she has a complete recovery. </p>
<p>As for the spaying, over the course of all these years, surely your dog has had vet visits even if she’s healthy…rabies shots, etc. Pet parents don’t only take their pets to the vet when they’re sick. It sounds like your family made a decision not to have her spayed. </p>
<p>We have never felt that our vets charge too much. Two years ago, we agreed to have them do some extra things in a failed effort to try to save one of our cats, but the charges were reasonable.</p>
<p>Last January, our doxie had surgery on 3 different areas of his body for cancer tumors and the cost was quite low (in my opinion). The histology report was another bill, but not strangely high. </p>
<p>I’ve often wondered how our vets stay in business since they have a staff to pay for, an office building to pay for, etc. </p>
<p>When we decided to become pet parents we agreed to take care of them for life. We owe them that. If we didn’t want that responsibility then we wouldn’t have pets.</p>