What an awful experience. Yes there are vets in it for the money. I have gone only once and never looked back to some. I have been lucky at our local ER. I've heard stories similar to yours though.

It's not always the money either. Long ago I took my Sheltie Mix I had at the time to a vet. They were two brothers in the practice. One had the kindest petside manner and you knew he loved animals. The other was just a jerk as I found out the only time I ever saw him. He was examining my dog and it was uncomfortable for the dog. The dog turned his head and let out a slight moan. The vet immediately stepped back and told me my dog had aggression issues and should be muzzled!! When his brother moved I found a new vet.

I stayed with my old fashioned vet until he retired. The vet who bought his practice is wonderful and caring. However I cannot use him. His staff (which includes his wife)has no sense of how to triage. They refused to see my dying dog. He called the next day to ask about him and apologize but it was too little too late. maybe he learned from the experience but I never went back. My dog would have died anyway but those extra 20 - 30 minutes of having to drive across town to my alternate vet were agony for me.

Currently I have a great team. I normally don't like larger practices but the one I go to is run like a "family" practice. My primary vet is one of the owners. I have never had one member of their staff behave like they it was just a job. Yesterday I noticed my Rottie was behaving oddly. Called late in the afternoon. The official policy is to charge extra for last minute walk ins etc. I was told to bring her in an hour. Turned out she had an impacted anal gland without the unusual symptoms. S That is ALL I was charged for. Several times the doctor and his staff a have given me their time at no charge except for a lab fee. I am so so lucky to have them. A month ago I was in for almost 2 hours with my diabetic Lab. I was in the hospital area to learn how to draw blood. At the time the vet asked if he could run some more tests beyond the one I came in for. I heard the ca-ching go off in my head but the tests were a valid option so I agreed to them. I was so pleasantly shocked at the bill. No charge for the office visit, no charge for the extra labs. My only bill was for the lab fee for the one test I knew I was bring him in for.

I am so so lucky to have this special team on my and my pets side.

moonie, I'm not understanding why you were so upset. The bill was higher than expected...which I assume there were legitimate reasons for. Why are you thinking you were just being taken advantage of financially? A lot of times when dealing with sick people or animals something comes up and it can cost more than expected. Possibly the doctor billed you $1200 but his costs were $1500. I'm not seeing how you know.

And, I guess I'm not getting a clear idea of what happened with the charges. Could you not call and speak to an office or billing manager? My vet doesn't necessarily always do the billing himself or even know all the prices you may get charged....maybe he should. Were you not given a bill to pay? How do you know he just wouldn't come out and talk to you versus that he was with another dog or on the phone with an animal emergency talking doctor stuff? And if he was ignoring you, I would guess he was afraid of a billing confrontation and maybe that's just not his job. I would think someone else would be the one to talk to about a billing explanation.

Sounds like an unfortunate situation...I'm just not seeing how you know he was only in it for the money.

Something similar happened to me but even though they gave me the breakdown of charges, I still had them explain them to me. When took my dog in to get his teeth cleaned, they quoted a little over $300. When I picked him up the bill was a little less than $700. And we're talking about a 10lb dog.

They thought it was necessary to do blood tests for the anesthetic because of his age. Surprisingly that's considered on the old side. That added to the bill.

After that visit coincidentally he started having seizures and is now on pheno too. Hopefully your dog led a full life on the medication.

This was a new vet because my regular one left the island and I'm still not comfortable with them. I realize now that my old vet really cared about the animals and not so much the money. I don't remember him ever charging more than $200 for anything. With this new place I cringe everytime I go up to pay the bill. I swear they charge more than a regular doctor.

So I understand what you're saying.

wildchild - makes you wonder how two brothers can be so completely different, huh?

We are also lucky with the care and compassion at our vet clinic. I don't think I've ever been to any kind of facility to find as many loving people as we have at our clinic. With Quincy, and as much time as we sometimes spent there, they would often charge only for the meds. A couple of months ago I stopped in to pick up some Frontline. The receptionist handed it to me, and when I went to pay she waved me off and said "you need a break".

Hope all your Furs are doing well!

carla - leave it to me to not give enough details for someone to understand. We did not leave Quincy that night so therefore, there was no bill. The estimate that the Dr. gave us should not have been much different than the first 3. Even in a worst case scenario, Quincy would not have needed surgery, xrays or any extensive bloodwork. And yes, it is the ER Dr. that works up your estimate. When we asked the receptionist why the estimates were so much different from previous visits, she stated different Dr., different estimate. She went to the back to get the Dr., as we wanted to talk to him, she came back and just shrugged her shoulders and told us the estimate remained.

He was in it for the money.

zeetera - you would have thought they would have contacted you when the estimate went up by more than 20%.

How is your little dog doing on pheno? I'm so sorry that he has had to be placed on it. Does he continue to have seizures even with the meds?

Unfortunately Quincy did not live to see his 4th birthday but he did enjoy every day of his life up to the end! Such a character he was!

sometimes things like this happen and you just never get over it...(((Moonie))...I'm so sorry you lost your Quincy...

When my 10 lb. older dog was younger he had an assended testicle and the dr. was going to charge me $800.00 Plus he had a puppy tooth that had not fallen out so she was going to charge me an extra anthesia charge plus 300.00 to pull the tooth...now this is 12 years ago. I thought this woman is nuts. So I being in the public employment I started asking around...more than one person told me this dr. would charge the amount by the way she felt she could get by with.. huh??? I was not sure I believed this...but next town over, went to this highly recommended dr. and she operated on my dog and casterated on my dog, removing his assended testicle, pulled his baby tooth all for $200.00...she pulled the tooth almost as a after thought...it was like Oh, he had a tooth that needed to be pulled so I went ahead and did that, did not need to be there. I was figuring on making another appointment. That other vet was trying to rip us off. She no longer has a pratice here, heard she moved on to a much larger city 95 miles from here. Look we are a bunch of farmers, and country peeps..we can't afford prices like that. She was a new vet, I guess she learned real quick she would have to go to the big city to charge those kinds of prices.

Yes Moonie he has had them while on the meds, but hasn't had any in about 3 months. I think the triggers may cause them to happen even when on meds and I'm trying to determine what they are. The last cluster he had was right after I used a particular bug spray and before that he had licked a chocolate wrapper. I've also stopped using a lot of cleaning products.

Sorry to hear your little one passed but he had a good, active life.

Sorry you had a bad experience with that vet. I still miss a dog I owned over 40 years ago. Her name was Lady and she was a beagle.

I don't blame you for being angry Moonie, I would have been as well. We went to a large clinic for over 20 years, it was expensive but they were kind and caring. As the founding vets began to step back from the practice and brought in new blood to handle the practice the prices went up and up and up. So quite by luck I found our current vet. She was setting up her own practice and made house calls. She still does that one day a week, what a great service when one has 3 big cats that don't like cars! She comes to do their annual inoculations, what a life saver.

We used the same veternary practice for our Westies for years, although the owner's specialty was birds.

I wondered what he was *thinking* when he posted a magazine cover blowup at the front desk. It showed him caring for a bird, and he was featured in an article about his successful practice. All well and good, but it was MONEY Magazine, so there was his face with MONEY plastered across the top.