Advice please! Rip off vet

iammumtoone

benny1234black wrote: »

well they didn't mention any cost of a diagnostic. Especially one that high.
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What was the breakdown of the cost? how much was the x-ray, consultation etc?

benny1234black

iammumtoone wrote: »

I think a lot of the problem is your lack of understanding how a vets practice works and the prices they charge, I agree with you the prices are high (this applies to all vets and probably has a lot to do with my perception of it as someone pointed out above I don't pay medical expensive for myself or child, if I did then I would probably view it as cheap or at least reasonable). However I still choose to have pets as the enjoyment they give far outways the cost of the vets. If iI was that unhappy with vets fees I would not have animals.

As soon as you walked through the door and spoke to someone the charge would have been around £40 regardless if you agreed to any treatment or not, did you realise this before you went in? If you didn't then you can't blame the vet as this is how they all operate you are expected to know this. Like your car analogy even if you decide not to pay for the work needed you still need to pay for someone to look at it to see what work is needed.

No I didn't understand its how they work.

Which is why THEY should have told me after asking if I had been there before and I said NO.

Its not down to me at all. Its down to them. Yes, I should have asked before hand. But they just took him off and said somebody will be out in a second so I was like okay i'll speak to somebody in a minute and ask.

And you are wrong about the car. Partly anyway.

Garages look at your car and tell you whats wrong and give you an estimate to fix it. UNLESS it will require a lot of work or something to diagnose e.g. if something is wrong with the turbo they would charge for diagnostic. If so they would TELL YOU before hand. Not just do stuff and then give you the bill.

benny1234black

iammumtoone wrote: »

What was the breakdown of the cost? how much was the x-ray, consultation etc?

Apparently consult was £120 or so. And x-ray £105.

But they said they charged me £130.

iammumtoone

[QUOTE=benny1234black;67556734
And you are wrong about the car. Partly anyway.

Garages look at your car and tell you whats wrong and give you an estimate to fix it. UNLESS it will require a lot of work or something to diagnose e.g. if something is wrong with the turbo they would charge for diagnostic. If so they would TELL YOU before hand. Not just do stuff and then give you the bill.[/QUOTE]

So if I took my car into a garage and asked them to look at it and they came back saying it would cost £XXX to fix. I said no thanks I don't want it fixing, I could just collect it and walk out without paying them anything??

benny1234black

also this is what is on the RCVS website....

9. Practice information, fees and animal insurance
Updated 24 September 2014

Practice information

9.1 Veterinary practices should provide clients, particularly those new to the practice, with comprehensive written information on the nature and scope of the practice's services, including:

the provision, initial cost and location of the out-of-hours emergency service;
information on the care of in-patients;
the practice's complaints handling policy, and could also provide full terms and conditions of business, to include for example:
surgery opening times
whether open or by appointment
fee or charging structures
procedures for second opinions and referrals
use of client data
access to and ownership of records

They also say that Veterinary surgeons should include any estimated charge or fee on a consent form

benny1234black

iammumtoone wrote: »

So if I took my car into a garage and asked them to look at it and they came back saying it would cost £XXX to fix. I said no thanks I don't want it fixing, I could just collect it and walk out without paying them anything??

Yes you can. EVERY SINGLE GARAGE I have been to that has been the case.

You don't HAVE to have work done there.

It depends what they are looking at, if its a time consuming thing and they have to take a ton of stuff apart to look at the problem they would say "we will have to charge you to take a look at it because of the time it will take" etc etc

iammumtoone

benny1234black wrote: »

No I didn't understand its how they work.

Which is why THEY should have told me after asking if I had been there before and I said NO.

Its not down to me at all. Its down to them. Yes, I should have asked before hand. But they just took him off and said somebody will be out in a second so I was like okay i'll speak to somebody in a minute and ask.
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But just because you hadn't been there before did not mean you had never been to a vets at all! How were they suppose to know that like I said all vets operate in the same way although the charges will be slightly different.

Back to the car analogy. If I ring up a garage to get them to look at my car I always ask before hand how much it will cost them to look at it for me even if I don't go with the quote for the work required. Same with my gas boiler if it goes wrong I need an engineer to look at it, ok I might not be able to afford the quote to fix it but again I always ask how much they will charge to look at it, and I expect this charge to be more if I contact them out of standard office hours (much like the vets)

Anoneemoose

Again with the car analogy, your car will not die if the garage takes time to consult you first. Potentially you dog could have.

And what a different thread that would have been. "Took my dog to the vets who had swallowed a screw but before they did anything, they sat down and talked me through costs - however that delay meant there was irreparable damage and Fido had to be put to sleep/passed away - can I sue?"

Country_Cousin

benny1234black wrote: »

Apparently consult was £120 or so. And x-ray £105.

But they said they charged me £130.

Perhaps your best hope is that they don't take away the good will and ask for it all, when you go and start complaining tomorrow...

artbaron

benny1234black wrote: »

Garages look at your car and tell you whats wrong and give you an estimate to fix it. UNLESS it will require a lot of work or something to diagnose e.g. if something is wrong with the turbo they would charge for diagnostic. If so they would TELL YOU before hand. Not just do stuff and then give you the bill.

I've never had an estimate for work on my car unless I asked for it first, the only exception being is if I take it in for one thing, e.g. a service, and it needs something expensive and unexpected. And even then I think I've only been asked once.

If you wanted to know what they intended to do you should have asked. As it is you handed over your dog who you said could have a potentially life-threatening problem. The vet clearly expected that you were prepared to pay what was necessary and reasonable for at least an initial diagnosis, as he's perfectly at liberty to do under the contract you made when you requested his services.

A person who hands over their potentially very sick dog yet decides to risk its life rather than pay a relatively small vet's fee is likely a rare individual, and the vet presumably had no reason to suspect you were a case in point. From what you said later, that you would have paid anyway, he was correct. So why on earth would he want to waste time asking you something both of you already knew the answer to? Faced with pandering to someone's sense of principle or saving the life of their pet I can't imagine that any vet on earth would choose the former.