£12.50 Charge For Perscription From Vet

snowman2_2

missbargain wrote: »

Yes, they are rip off, because, like with the children stuff, they play on the fact that we are emotionally attached to our pets, so that we will spend on them even if we can ill afford it.!!

So we should give our services away for free because you don't want to pay for our professional time, 5 years at uni, trained receptionists, nurses, tens of thousands of pounds of equipment - just because you have an emotional bond? You should see how much the NHS costs. Who should pay for the care of your pet - the owner or the vet - because it is the vet that pays if we give you cut price treatment.

missbargain wrote: »

I have bought some wet pouches from my vet that cost 70 pence each, and on closer inspection, I noticed written on them, in several languages: "Not for individual sale. To be sold as a part of the pack only".

So it was obvious that my vet doesn't comply with that, they have opened the multipack and are selling the individual pouches at highly inflated prices. I only noticed this the other day, next time I go, I am going to point this out to them, especially as they are blatantly doing it to increase the profit, not for any other reason.

Ok - we will sell you a full pack of 24 pouches at 24 x 70p. We charge the same unit price however many you buy but your vet has to have the stock sat on his/her shelf with the risk of it going out-of-date. We throw away so many pouches I probably lose money on them - I would prefer to sell full cases or none at all. The pouch is likely a prescription diet rather than plain old kit-e-kat and these are expensive diets. 69p is a common manufacturers selling price based on the same percentage mark-up as standard pet food from a pet shop or supermarket. You have obviously chosen an expensive, specialist diet. Vets are also legally allowed to split multi-packs whereas pharmacies aren't always. Best example of this is injectable drugs - only a vet can sell you the exact dose your pet requires.

missbargain wrote: »

The same goes for the medicines. About a month ago, I urgently needed a flea ampule, so I ran to my closest vet, where my cat is not registered. She sold me one (yes, one) ampule out of the pack of 6, for £7 (in words: seven pounds). I almost fainted there and then. But I suspected that my moggy might have had a flea, so I had no choice, I needed it straight away. Just terrible!

So you went somewhere you are not registered and have built up no relationship, given them no business in the past, a vets where they have split a multi-pack for you to avoid you needing to spend more money buying a full pack (the vets had to buy a full pack in the first place) so you could treat your cat for fleas within a few minutes of you noticinga flea and you complain about the price! You could have been organised and orederd some on-line in advance, you could have bought a pack of 3 or 6 from them, or you could have gone to your regular vet and bought some from them.

missbargain wrote: »

I understand that vets have to pay for more staff, rent, etc., but the prices I am witnessing are outrageous and totally unjustified. Pure greed, if you ask me.

You really have no idea about the costs of runninga surgery have you? Of that £7, by the time VAT, bank charges for your payment, staff time to process your purchase & payment, actual drug costs, there is only a couple of pounds left to pay for rent, business rates, gas, electricity, water, telephones, practice computer system, income tax, national insurance, staff training, equipment, books, cleaning and maintenance, contents insurance, bad debt, emergency cover plus a whole host of government caused costs such a practice registrations, vet registration fees, data protection registration, indemnity insurance, employers and public liability insurance .....
Trust me, your vet is not going on holiday to Barbados based on one tube of flea drops. If you don't like the price your vet charges, go elsewhere. There are plenty of decent vets who want to offer a top quality service at a reasonable price but it is not a cheap service to offer. Most of us are not greedy. Sorry for such a long post but the vets gave an individual service to supply your specific needs - no online pharmacy would have sold a handful of pouches or 1 tube of frontline. You pay extra for that kind of service.

snowman2_2

On-going meds are where the money is for on-line pharmacies and vets - there is no money to be made in emergency drugs that sit on shelves until they go off so on-line pharmacies just pick the profitable drugs. We are not in a directly comparable business due to range of stock.

Yes a small profit is better than none but some of these pharmacies are selling drugs cheaper than I can buy them, with lower overheads. i will always try to match an internet price but sometimes it is not worth it, I can;t always compete. I will also in no way defend those vets who do rip people off - I can think of some bad examples but please don't tar us all with the same brush. Drugs are expensive, as is running a surgery. Some of us are trying very hard to offer good value but that is not the same as cheap. Quality and personal service comes at a cost but leave vets that rip you off, look after those who try hard to look after you and your pet.

missbargain

I still think that the price I was charged for one ampule of flea treatment, whether I was organised or not is beside the point, is outrageous. That would make the pack of six cost 42 pounds, when it costs 13 pounds at the vets, 8 pounds online. And she did not open the pack for me, she already had an open pack from which she pulled one ampule out, which made me think that this was the common practice there to sell the individual ampules, probably to other disorganised people such as myself, or perhaps for people who could not afford to buy more than one at the time.
I do not think that my (or any) vet goes to Barbados because of one pouch of pet food, but they probably do because of many of them and everything else they sell/provide.
If I tell you (unfortunatelly I have no picture to prove it) that this vet's surgery is the tiny, pokey place no bigger than my sitting room, with no modern equipment that I could see, in desperate need of renovation, you would see that all the profit goes into someones pockets, not into the business.

And as for the Uni fees, well, the degree provides a nice income and the guaranteed customer base (at least where I live), so I don't see why overcharging for food and medicines would factor into this.

Most people I know who go to UNI, go there so that they can have well paid job and some kind of choices and opportunities in their life, and to be able to do the job they like (because if you like to be a vet, or dentist, or doctor, you need to go to the Uni) Like with any investment it takes some time to get the return on it.
If I invest 200 000 pounds in setting up my restaurant, I can't charge 20 pounds for a sandwich because of that initial investment, it would take me years to pay off the initial investment, besides making money for everyday living. So the UNI fees are the lame excuse, you are already reaping the rewards of UNI fees for doing the job you (hopefully) love, is decently paid and in good demand. Also, I have not commented on treatment cost, although, I don't understand why scanning my cat would in some instances cost more than the scan for myself.

Unfortunatelly, I can't go somewhere else, as I live in Central London and it is all much of a much there, even the shabby, old surgeries charge the same as the modern ones. I would not have adopted a cat if I didn't want to pay for it, I am just saying that in many cases, the prices are completely unjustified, whatever you may say.

Just to correct you on your assumption: noone here was looking for CHEAP fees, but for reasonable fees, and there is major difference between the two. As is between those and the rip off. And sorry, £7 for one ampule is a rip off in anyone's book.

missbargain

P.S.

I have just checked, the pouch that I bought has the expiry date of 09/2009.

This is a very long shelf life of the pouches, I don't see how anyone "organised" would waste lots of pouches with such long life product. And this vet in question only had about 5 or 6 types of food on offer, not exactly unmanagable, is it?

Perhaps they need to get someone organised to take care of their ordering quantities and schedules. I know a bit about that as I used to run a fish restaurant a while ago (talk about perishable!), I wish I had such long shelf life of my food, I would have hardly wasted a gram.

snowman2_2

I never said anything about uni fees - I qualified before tuition fees came along but it takes 6 years to become fully qualified then fr a vet to earn less than a dentist and a 1/3 of a GP for a comparable job. The average vet earns £35k for up a 60 hour week, the average GP £100k. There is a lot of time invested by vets in training which deserves a decent reward which with the level of qualifications it takes to be a vet, we could easily get loads more money elsewhere.
£7 for one ampoule - it still has the same selling costs as a six pack. It isn't 1/6 of the price for the vet to sell you that in the same way 500ml bottles of coke cost 95p and 2 litre bottles cost £1.40.
As to restaurants, they mark up food 300-400% from costs of materials, a lot more than vets mark up drugs.
Yes you do have a choice, you could have rung several vets but you are complaining because you live in the most expensive part of the country for everything. Move to Lancashire and that £7 would have been cheaper because of location - but it still costs us the same to buy the drug.
As to being organised with food. Yes - for my 3 or 4 biggest sellers but someone wants something a little more unusual, I buy a case of 24, they buy 6 packs and then never ask for more as pouches are expensive. Loads of waste. For that reason, I always try to push dried food for the speciality foods as it is so much cheaper.

missbargain

But in this case, they are making £42 gross on a box that might have cost them 5 pounds (perhaps less) to buy wholesale, because they are routinelly selling individual ampules. And I know that they sell whole boxes for about 15 or so pounds, so this is a huge mark up on the single unit.
But she would not sell me the whole box at the time because my cat was not registered there, so I had no choice but to buy one unit. He was not registered because I had just adopted him, so I was still getting my head around owning my first cat, and the flea caught me by surprise (I wrote about his adoption in other posts).
I agree that I had to pay premium to get the ampule quickly from an unknown to me vet, but even if it was £5 it would have been a high price (although I would not complain), but £7 is far too much.
You see, by doing this, they made me look for an alternative vet. Not because I could not afford £7, but because I really did not like that they sell one ampule for so much money, when even £4 or £5 would have been double the price of the whole packet. So I registered my newly adopted moggy with another vet, a bit further, but much more reasonable. So they are getting my business, not the first one, even though I have to sit in a car and drive there.
Not everyone can move, often we have reasons for living where we live, jobs, family etc, and also I like living in London. All I am saying, and I believe others as well, is that some vets (not ALL) are really taking the p..s with their food and medicines, especially medicines. I do believe (but I don't know) that perhaps the practise is more widespread in London than in the countryside or smaller towns, as they can just get away with it here more.
As for the restaurant, the mark ups are about 200 percent on average depending, but the costs or setting up a restaurant and running it in London is enormous, only the rents are from 60 000 pounds (in my area), without staff, business rates, overheads, wastage etc, not to mention the so called "premiums" one is required to pay for the good site. Also, I believe that the competition is higher than for the vets, as there are so many restaurants around, and it is a bloody hard work - no weekends, holidays, evenings. Trust me, the cost of running a small vet surgery cannot be compared to the cost of running a restaurant, but this is altogether another topic.

I agree that vets should earn good money, after all they are specialists who look after our much loved pets and we need them, no denying that. But sometimes, especially when one comes across some shabby little practice with ancient equipment and surly staff I think the prices are unjustified and overinflated.

Perhaps in todays economic climate places like these will start loosing business as their customers will look for something more reasonable, even if it is a bit further away, or as many do, on the Internet.

snowman2_2

missbargain wrote: »

So I registered my newly adopted moggy with another vet, a bit further, but much more reasonable. So they are getting my business, not the first one, even though I have to sit in a car and drive there..

You have done exactly the right thing and the thing I have been arguing the case for on this site - move vets to a good, sensibly priced one. Give them your business and they will thrive. If everyone did this then the rip off vets would have to reassess their business model.

missbargain

Yes, I am more than happy to give my business to this reasonable (and much friendlier) vet, even though it is about 1/2 hour away from me by car in terrible London traffic. The new vet is great, really symphatetic and genuinely interested, unlike the jaded vet in the first practice. And the price for the consultation and some injections was almost half to the rip off vet.

However, I wish my local vet was a bit more reasonably priced and not so snooty and surly (the receptionist), as it would be easier and more convenient for me, especially in, God forbid, case of emergency.

So I do hope that the good ones get more business in these times, and overpriced and uninterested ones start loosing business, perhaps that will be the wake up call that needs to happen.

orlao

snowman2 wrote: »

You have done exactly the right thing and the thing I have been arguing the case for on this site - move vets to a good, sensibly priced one. Give them your business and they will thrive. If everyone did this then the rip off vets would have to reassess their business model.

I have to admit that I've only stayed at the vets I use now because of one vet who is great....but I've heard a rumour that he's moving on!

Pricewise, the vets round here are pretty much the same....but their attitude can only be an improvement;)

snowman2_2

missbargain wrote: »

Yes, I am more than happy to give my business to this reasonable (and much friendlier) vet, even though it is about 1/2 hour away from me by car in terrible London traffic. The new vet is great, really symphatetic and genuinely interested, unlike the jaded vet in the first practice. And the price for the consultation and some injections was almost half to the rip off vet.
However, I wish my local vet was a bit more reasonably priced and not so snooty and surly (the receptionist), as it would be easier and more convenient for me, especially in, God forbid, case of emergency.
So I do hope that the good ones get more business in these times, and overpriced and uninterested ones start loosing business, perhaps that will be the wake up call that needs to happen.

30 mins by car in London - what's that about 2 miles:D Would be about 20 miles up here but don't tell everyone, you'll all be moving up north!

Communication is the key - a vet who can explain and justify the charges in relation to the care your cat needs - and a fantastic receptionist. They are the immediate face and voice of the practice and I am lucky to have 3 great receptionists. I would never hire a surly, snooty receptionist - the two people that you are most likely to see (and then make a judgement on the whole practice) are the vet and receptionist. Glad to hear you have a decent vet, hope you don't need them much (just good preventative medicine).