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In the last few years our cat has had thyroid problem, over £400 had a fight with Pet Insurance company to get them to pay up. Recently another £100 bill for fur pulling out problems? Vet suggested anxiety treatments???? 🙄 Today after not eating properly (only tinned Tuna funny enough 🙄) Blood and Urine tests plus discovered she's got a bad tooth and other mouth decay. £90 🙁she's got to go back for dental work apparently that's going to be £400!!!! I never wanted a cat in the first place! 🙄On top of that flea and worm treatment so much cheaper online but you have to get a prescription from the vet that turns out to cost the same as the difference in price. Ho hum! 🙄
Thing is she's not in pain 🤔
£400 for dental work? Bargain, ours was over £1000. Flea and worm stuff doesn’t normally require a prescription and is indeed cheaper online.
Front line doesn't need a prescription but seems to have stopped working on ours?
Nah, that’s just the price of animal
Medical care. We generally value medical quite low in the U.K. as we don’t see the upfront cost for humans with the NHS.
I find I need advocate on prescription. Haven’t fleas become immune to frontline or something?
Similar issues with our moggy. Wife didn’t like it when I pointed out that a new cat was only fifty quid.
We generally value medical quite low in the U.K. as we don’t see the upfront cost for humans with the NHS.
That's about the size of it. We also get incredibly high value for money via the NHS.
7 years training blah blah blah...
Pet plan for us which doesn't cost a lot at the moment but I'm sure it will increase massively. El dogio had his moneys worth out of it within 9 months when he broke a toe, imagine trying to get a 9 month old **** of a dog to rest up. Nope, after several failed attempts and a million bandages they lopped it off. Was about 3k I believe in the end.
Wormer is the only regular thing for el dogio and its about 10 quid every 3 months.
Pets are like fast cars according to my dad, people can afford them initially but it's the maintenance that kills you....
I never wanted a cat in the first place!
Meow meow there’s no need to be catist!
It's possible that now insurance is more common people are making money. It certainly means that more expensive options are available.
A friend from university qualified as a vet. She worked I rural south Wales.She certainly earnt less than me as a teacher in her first job. She estimated she earnt about £3.50 an hour. This was early 90s.
Partner in leafy South East in would be a different story
Our local Vet in Cambridge really struggles to keep staff as the wages don't pay for a decent standard of living in the SE, as a result she and the other practice owner end up working all hours to cover. Generally I think the fees they charge are pretty reasonable when you consider than their biggest overheads are salaries and rent, which you can't do much about.
My cousin is a supervet. She works all over the world and has been flown to various places as she alone has certain knowledge and skills to save that particular animal. Her and her husband (also an amazing vet) have 10 years of training and 10 years of experience.
She earns less than most people on here I reckon.
Now dentists on the other hand.....
I don't get how vets earn reletivley little compared to how much treatment and insurance costs.
I speak as an uninformed dog owner.
Our dog insurance comes with free consultations, which presumably the vets claim back from the insurance company, and there is a £100 excess on treatment.
One example is when our dog was a pup he was being pretty vomity, so we took him to the out of hours vet at night, 10 min check over, anti nausia shot and some probiotic? powder stuff to sprinkle on his food and he was fine, so nothing wrong with him but that was £90 which we just paid in cash.
It was only 15 to 20mins overall.
Wonder what doggy drug prices are like? How much of that money does the Vet actually see if they're paying £50 a shot?
Just interesting after all the chat about US and NHS drug prices...
The dogs last stay was £2300 for 4 nights to stabilise his heart. That's over half his cover for the year in 4 nights. Premium year starts at end of October, stay was mid-November. We can probably afford one more.
We could lay out around £15k for open heart surgery but, that's a lot of money and he deserves a pain and worry free end not weeks away from his family.
I've stopped taking pics as he's really lost a lot of weight and I don't want the reminders from Photos to pop up one or two years from now.
OH is a vet, I earn a lot more than she does despite being an engineer working in the UK!
Funny enough, before the advent of pet insurance nobody was told their pet needed £1000 worth of work......
Personally speaking I find it hard to grasp people spending big bucks on pet repairs but I guess that’s partly due to spending my summers on a farm where things were more practical !
One example is when our dog was a pup he was being pretty vomity, so we took him to the out of hours vet at night, 10 min check over, anti nausia shot and some probiotic? powder stuff to sprinkle on his food and he was fine, so nothing wrong with him but that was £90 which we just paid in cash.
It was only 15 to 20mins overall.
And the vet had to have staff available 24/7 to answer your cry for help; that probably means not just a vet but a nurse and maybe reception staff or call center to screen calls make arrangements; they have building to heat and light 24/7, pay its rent and rates, but probably also some vehicles to maintain. They have finance team to get payments, process the admin, pay the tax, chase the insurers etc. and then the cost of processing the credit card payment. They have various insurance, registrations etc to maintain and all before they’ve even treated their first patient.
Now you got 1/4 of an hour of an experts time. He then dispensed a medicine (Which they have to keep in stock - just in case you need it), then dispose of the syringe in a sharps bin which costs yet more overhead to legally dispose of. Frankly it’s miraculous that they can make any money at 90 quid for that (the vat, card processing, drugs, gloves, etc will mean that actually the fee for their expertise was probably less than £60 quid - not bad for an out of hours service - try getting a plumber to come and isolate a leaking pipe for that in the middle of the night.)
oldfart
Front line doesn’t need a prescription but seems to have stopped working on ours?
Might just be a sales pitch, but been told by our vet nurse that 'consumer' Frontline has changed its formulation to stay within revised guidelines and so is less effective these days.
I live in leafy, expensive Buckinghamshire. Our cat was run over and jaw broken on the side. Cat not insured. Jaw broken on the side means you can't wire it together easily - should be multi week supervet for external cage. The vet uses 3 buttons and sutures to reduce jaw movement and inserts tube for feeding through the side of neck. The button and suture thing is relatively new and she'd only seen it in journals.
Because I'm uninsured she gives me a reduced rate and the practice teach me to do the feeding so the cat doesn't have to stay in long after recovery from surgery.
I got all the experience and skill of the vet (and the buttons from her shirt) for (relatively) little money because the vet didn't want a saveable cat put down. They probably covered costs or made a small profit. I'm grateful for that.
I never wanted a cat in the first place!
I think I've found the root cause of the OP's complaint.
There's two things at play here really isn't there.
Firstly, in the NHS-powered (for now) UK we don't have the faintest concept of how much medical treatment costs. Go talk to an American.
Secondly, at the end of the day it's "just" an animal. If the cost of vet's fees was payable up front, how many of us would still have pets? Sure you can have a cat / dog but that'll be two grand up front, lifetime veterinary fees included. Kind of a bit different when you've already had them for 15 years.
Funny enough, before the advent of pet insurance nobody was told their pet needed £1000 worth of work……
No, the vets said "sorry, Fluffy has got to go to sleep now..."
Our vet dropped the fee for our rescue quie massively, and said if he needed further work then that would be free - he had to have all his teeth out - came with mouth ulcers, not properly checked by Charity, so we had a full MOT done, blood tests. Came bac cat flu - but it had manifested in gingivitis - so all he teeth came out - £1k in all as he wasn't insurable.
We had another older cat at the time that hadn't had any trouble in years but she was in cat hospital last year with breathing troubles - over £400 in one night ! Fortunately she is insured. We also have 3 pedigree Ragdolls and all are on a £99 vaccinations for life policy, plus insurance.
The 'un-insurable' cat has a monthly policy to cover flea/worming and regular checkups and vaccinations to ensure he is OK.
The cost of the 3 young pedigrees is the same per month as the old cat's policy.
Like has been said, there are alot of overheads in running a business.
Flea treatment is available on-line - we get it via Vet Medic, no prescription, but you put in cat weight. Costs less than £10 for 4 applications, and seeing as we go through 5 applications a month, £25 at the vet's isn't affordable.
Front line doesn’t need a prescription but seems to have stopped working on ours?
We had to change as the local fleas became immune to it. As you would expect given their short lifespan and genetic variation, after a few years of constant exposure the few which are immune will outbreed all the others.
Funny enough, before the advent of pet insurance nobody was told their pet needed £1000 worth of work……
No, the vets said “sorry, Fluffy has got to go to sleep now…”
I think there's probably more than a bit of truth in that, then again I'm sure Cats and Dogs didn't cost four figure sums either.
What's ballpark for pet insurance now? My lot have been bending my ear about a Cat, I'm sure it'll become my soul responsibility and I don't want to spend £1000 in the final weeks of it's life again,
If you think the vets is expensive wait til you go to the doctors in 2025
The way I look at it, I love my dogs to bits and I’ll pay whatever I have to do they can be healthy, happy and pain free.
Both have PetPlan insurance which in the case of the older mutt has been well used due to him having arthritis and spinal problems along with aortic stenosis.
Yes, it would be nice to have to pay less for it but whatever it takes I’ll cover it.
Wonder what doggy drug prices are like?
I heard part of a radio phone-in about homelessness and dependency, and someone mentioned the use of dog ketamine tablets, which cost 25p, apparently.
Secondly, at the end of the day it’s “just” an animal. If the cost of vet’s fees was payable up front, how many of us would still have pets?
Feeding the birds and the hedgehogs is costing me a small fortune every month, and I don’t even have to factor in vets fees!
I couldn’t afford to have a pet even if I wanted one, which I don’t.
It's time for a dog's carbon footprint thread!
Dogs mainly eat bit of animals killed for human consumption. But they eat the bits that humans won't eat. So it's way lower than some estimate that assume that they eat meat in the same way that people do.
Back to this thread. Our experience with pet insurance is that the premiums increase with age. If I was doing it again I'd look for one that didn't do that
Because I’m uninsured she gives me a reduced rate
Brilliant. All insurers are bastards, of course.
Our experience with pet insurance is that the premiums increase with age. If I was doing it again I’d look for one that didn’t do that
TADTS
After age kicks in, it costs a lot of money to keep something on the road, whether it be a car, a human or an animal. In the past, people were less sentimental about it all, and a lot of vets would have put animals down rather than keeping them going.
Info about Vets salaries.
As a newly-qualified vet, your average starting salary will be around £30,000.With further training and experience at a small animal practice you could earn £43,200, while in large animal practices this can rise to £44,184.Senior vets with over 20 years' experience can earn up to £72,360.Experienced vets employed in industry earn around £64,870.
So not big money, certainly not after a 5yr degree course.
Some who have their own perhaps multiple practices will earn more, but then their buisness people not just vets.
On top of that flea and worm treatment so much cheaper online but you have to get a prescription
We switched from Frontline to Advantage for fleas. Much more effective and doesn't need a prescription. HTH
I'd say a lot also depends on the practice. I started off going to a Pets@Home vets, the practice was part of the shop. Place was an absolute con. My cat had two teeth left and they wanted to charge me cleaning of the teeth before removing after she went in for a check up and boosters. Decided against it and got a second opinion from my local independent long standing practice. Still ended up having the receptionist(!!!) ringing me up with scare tactics to try and get me to bring the cat in for the work about £400 worth of work. Local practice said leave them, they'll drop out and don't worry.
Since then I've had two visits to the local independent where they have charged me nothing and another where the cat had to stay overnight, (at one of the vets houses!) and including him getting up twice during the night to give the cat sedatives. Total cost less then £200.
Some very relevant points about costs of NHS being an enigma to nearly all. However, a lot of "VET" medicine is way overpriced. One of my old dogs had a very bad stomach issue (similar to crones), eventually had to be put down, and one of the medicines she was prescribed turned out to be identical to an off-the-shelf human one for 1/10th the cost. My insurance stopped paying out in the end and this was the only way to give her what was needed. So I absolutely believe it’s a market forces issue in some cases compounded by insurance availability..
It's amazing how much money you can save with a lump hammer 😉
Maybe 'pets - a license to spend money' .....😂
Vet bills usually seem relatively in line with what I'd expect a professional's time to cost, plus overheads & any medicinal items, etc, i.e. a lot.
As a thing, Tesco Value Pet Insurance (ultimately RSA?) have been dead good for us, paid out no quibble a number of times on various treatments for all of our dogs.
It cost us £625 for a vial of adder anti venom when dog got bitten. We needed to buy 2 but only 1 got used as far as I know. It was a £1500 bill all in with an overnight stay...
one of the medicines she was prescribed turned out to be identical to an off-the-shelf human one for 1/10th the cost.
I'm sure vets were stopped from using identcal human options. They have to use specific animlal ones that have gone through all the tests. Hence the cost.
Not sure how many of you have private health insurance but I have used it for a few operations and so has my wife. You get to see the itemised bill of what the costs are.
I had 3 operations on a broken finger and the total cost was £10,000, that was with no overnight stay but included the consultations etc,. Just the charge for the anesthetist was around £800 each time.
All the equipment, skills, cover etc,. for my finger operation are very similar to a animal having the same done in a vet. I don't see vets costs as high at all.
I’m sure vets were stopped from using identcal human options. They have to use specific animlal ones that have gone through all the tests. Hence the cost.
Vets can prescribe human medicines but you need to sign a waiver. I took a prescription to Boots a few weeks ago from the vet.
I took a prescription to Boots a few weeks ago from the vet.
Interesting, currently in discussions with my vet over pain relief medication for our dog.
My parents cat had a bowel issue, essentially needed a very small amount of liquid laxative mixed in to his food. Vets strongly suggested that what they were prescribing was the same as the human one. which could be purchased much cheaper at a pharmacy. Just couldn't explicitly say it.
Who knows what she was up to in the lounge but I heard the dog yelp from upstairs, came downstairs to find her looking very sorry for herself.
She couldn't put weight on her right front leg and was yeling when I gave the wrist joint a little squeeze.
Off to the vets we go (one a Sunday...gulp) by the time we get it's visibly swollen. Vet gives her the once over, a shot of dog anti-inflammatories and I'm told to bring her back n the morning for x-rays.
Walk down to the kitchen in the morning, open the pen and she bounds out like nothing ever happened, little bugger. Still take her in to the vets but she's given the all clear with the proviso of no off lead charging around for a few days.
£176 bill...Insurance excess is £100 and seeing as we've made one claim already, I just paid it.
One of ours is just going under the knife right now, £1800 to remove an intestinal blockage, that's on top of £450 worth of xrays, ultrasounds, blood tests so far....
Starting to think that self insuring wasn't such a great plan after all, especially if it turns out to be FIP, which is terminal.
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Re drugs prices.
Digby is on three medications
Furosemide a diuretic costs around 7p a tablet
Vetmedin make the heart beat stronger around 60p a tablet
Cardalis keeps the heart sack fluid free 50p a tablet.
Daily costs are 75p for Cardalis, £2.70 Vetmedin and 28p for the diuretic. Insurance is currently covering all this.
I’m sure vets were stopped from using identcal human options. They have to use specific animlal ones that have gone through all the tests.
Our vet is prescribing human-suitable steroids for our cat, we have to cut them into quarters to get a low enough dose though.............
P-Jay
Member
Funny enough, before the advent of pet insurance nobody was told their pet needed £1000 worth of work……
No, the vets said “sorry, Fluffy has got to go to sleep now…”
I think there’s probably more than a bit of truth in that, then again I’m sure Cats and Dogs didn’t cost four figure sums either.
What’s ballpark for pet insurance now? My lot have been bending my ear about a Cat, I’m sure it’ll become my soul responsibility and I don’t want to spend £1000 in the final weeks of it’s life again,
There's truth in this. People paying huge sums for over-bred and/or designer dogs - often more prone to needing veterinary treatment - are also ripe for having their pockets turned upside down for other services.
In short, yes - being a vet is a licence to print money.
By degree subject, veterinary graduates have the third-highest median earnings, after medicine & dentistry in first place and economics in second.
Mine isn't insured and has just been diagnosed with diabetes. He's been pretty healthy the five years I've had him but getting a bit of fear how much it'll end up costing!