While I can’t speak for any of the people in the OP, I did have a friend who had lost her job and was struggling to make rent and such and then her cat which she loved dearly started not eating and such. She had a similar conversation with her Vet, she was at her wit’s end because she really wanted to do something, but seriously could not afford to do much for her cat. I overheard havinga similar conversation with a vet’s receptionist, “Are you sure?” “Maybe she’s alright” etc. She just grasping for anything, because what she had to do was give the cat away, which broke her heart.
Was this situation routine? If not, why apply the policy? Is it your belief that genuine emergencies can be scheduled?
No, he charges *extra *because it is an emergency. That is my complaint. Read the post again.
AS I SAID, my vet says “come on in.” My vet does not say “Don’t bother unless you pay me extra.” My vet does not charge extra when a pet’s life is on the line. If such behavior is normal, then I am very grateful for my vet. And, as I also said, the vet previous to this one had the same policy.
I don’t understand why you jump to conclusions. I’m not the least bit angry. Disgusted, perhaps. But not angry.
Look, if I misinterpreted, please show me where. Did vetbridge, knowing that a dog was perhaps fatally injured, refuse treatment because the client would not pay a surcharge, or not?
My vet has a higher charge for “work-in” appointments when animals need to be seen on an urgent basis. There have been times when it has been clear they’re slammed, but have still told me “bring him on in and we’ll squeeze you in somehow.”
I personally have no problem with this, looking at it like if I go to the emergency room for something, I’m going to pay more than if I were able to go to my regular physician.
We have made the painful choice to have a dog put to sleep rather than undertake a workup because the dog was exhibiting erratic and dangerous behavior (snapping and growling at random moments at us and the cats) and the vet told us that he could not, in good conscience, advise that we take him back home under those circumstances. (The dog had classic symptoms for a growth in the brain and our local area does not even have an animal MRI. ) It was a horrible decision to make.
We also have a cat that’s cost us several pretty pennies over time thanks to multiple urinary blockages. (Changing to wet food and cranberry cat treats has apparently eliminated that problem, thank goodness.)
First of all, no treatment was refused, she declined to even have her pet seen. The client opted not to come into the office. I think, if she couldn’t afford the visit surcharge, there is no way she would have paid for surgery, and the result would have been the same. So no, vetbridge is not at fault for anything that happened. That’s just life.
He would not see the patient unless an extra fee was paid. In effect, he said to her “Unless you pay me extra, I will not see your pet.” If he had said “Bring the dog in and I will see it right away,” she would have come in. It’s called triage. All the best docs do it. Again, his practice, his choice. My whole point is that it is a bad choice. YMMV.
So now it’s what, an actuarial decision?
Yes, the client was an ass. He is an ass for having that policy, unless I have misunderstood. Again, I invite you to educate me. Did he or did he not attempt to extract extra money because it was an emergency? Charging more because your pet is critical is unconscionable.
The dog was dying. He knew it. Suppose, while walking in the park, he had come upon a person and a dog that had been bitten by a snake. Would he be within his rights to refuse treatment because the owner would not agree to excess charges? How about if the owner would not agree to any charges at all?
Really? Remember, she did make an appointment for the next day, then cancelled it because “the dog looked fine,” even though she’d been told the tube sock wouldn’t pass on its own. If the dog looked fine a day after eating the sock, it no doubt looked fine at the time she made the initial call. This is the behavior of an owner who’s looking for reasons not to take the animal in for medical care, not the behavior of an owner who’s genuinely worried about her animal’s well-being.
Nope. The dog had a serious problem that would kill it eventually if left unattended. It did not have a problem which had to be dealt with instantly. If the owner was so cash-strapped that paying the emergency fee was truly a hardship, keeping the dog home overnight (with no food, and minimal amounts of water) and bringing it in to be seen at a scheduled appointment the next day would be a reasonable alternative. (And if the owner couldn’t afford the small emergency fee, what makes you think she could afford the much larger fee for the endoscopy or surgery needed to get that sock out?)
We get that you don’t like Vetbridge’s practice’s approach, but there’s nothing inherently unethical about it. It’s simply a different approach than the one your own vet has chosen to use. The problem in this case lies with the owner, not the vet.
vetbridge is well within his rights to charge extra for working a client into his already packed schedule. Some other vets will do this and some won’t. Often the extra fee is to insure that the client isn’t coming in for something not really an emergency, this isn’t an unusual practice. The fee is usually about $20 to $40 over the normal office call, making the exam fee about equal with an emergency clinic office call.
The dog was not in a critical situation or dying at the time the woman called. Sure it would have been easier to treat the dog then and maybe prevented the critical situation days later however the sole responsibility of this lies on the owner not the vet.
Here’s some points;
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The emergency fee he quoted is not likely to be a huge increase over his regular office call but enough to compensate him and his staff because they will most likely end up staying later in the day, past closing time to catch up.
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Unless vetbridge is the only vet in town, she had the option of going elsewhere if she didn’t want to pay extra.
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She chose to miss the appointment for the next day.
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She chose to wait until the dog was dying to bring it in and then declined to treat it.
At any time she could have taken her pet elsewhere, she did not. She could have brought the dog in sooner before it was dying, she did not. She could have had it treated or even humanely euthanized, she did not.
This sounds like a typical client who does not want to pay for anything, they only finally bring the dog in when it’s obvious that something is very wrong so they can feel like they did something and then they can blame the vet in their mind for not treating Fluffy for free, which he should do because after all doesn’t he love animals?! Often it isn’t even that they don’t have the money, they just don’t want to spend it on a pet.
I used to work at day clinics and talked to plenty of people on the phone and told them to bring their emergencies in and we’d work them in (no extra charge) and they never showed - many times we even waited until after closing for them. Often they’d finally show up days later with the now dying animal that we could have saved had they brought it in the day they called, but it just wasn’t sick enough then for them to bother. They called the vet, they felt the did their part.
If people can’t visually see that the animal is sick, they can’t bring themselves to pay someone “just to look at it”, since that’s all they think we’ll do.
So a visit to the human emergency room should cost the same as a routine doctor visit as well?
I don’t get the outrage here either. If the person can’t afford occasional emergency care, or refuses to pay it, then she shouldn’t own a pet. It’s part and parcel of having one. Vets are generally very busy, and it only makes sense that an immediate demand on their time, whether “justified” or not, should cost more. vetbridge made this clear up front; he didn’t try to gouge her after the fact.
Ditto for people who won’t get an animal treated, and won’t even pay the relative pittance for humane euthanasia in the alternative. That shit pisses me right off. Again, vetbridge offered this and was turned down. So the poor animal got a bullet to the head (I hope it was at least a clean shot :mad: ) for the crime of eating something he shouldn’t have, when he could have been either treated or peacefully put down. I fault the owner here 100%.
And yes, I would gladly and patiently wait at the vet’s office (and have) if someone with an emergency jumps the line in front of me. It’s fair trade for if/when (God forbid) it’s my baby in trouble.
My vet swings both ways: he will advise over the phone at no charge and has seen us on weekends during normally “closed” hours for emergencies, but we also willingly paid his off-hours surcharge.
You know, I was feeling like a shitty pet owner yesterday because my cat got to some ribbon on the balloons from my son’s first birthday party on Sunday - I thought I had cut all of the long ribbons off, but I missed one, and then the balloons lost air, so he managed to chew through one when it sank. Luckily, it appeared that he barfed up all of the ribbon he ate, so it doesn’t look like any harm done, but I even went home at lunch yesterday to check on him because I was worried about him.
I’m feeling like pet owner of the year after reading this thread.
You’d think horse owners would think twice about starving their animals, tying them up, overbreeding them, leaving them with open wounds… then you visit a horse rescue or a rural SPCA. Whatever most vet fees are for dogs and cats, they’re double and triple for horses. So is feed, equipment, shelter (if they have any). But for some reason I can’t understand, some people just need to have a pony, anyway, especially if it’s free. And even if they’ll never touch or talk to it again. Pathetic.
When I was young, I thought I wanted to be a vet.
But, having heard stories simiilar to these, decided it was the people I couldn’t deal with. And I just know I’d have nightmares for the rest of the my life letting a sick or injured animal go home with the owner because they didn’t care enough to pay for treatment/euthanasia.
I admire the hell out of people who can do it. My vet took wonderful care of my Bear for a long time, doing the best they could 'til the end. I will never forget that.
But, even from them, heard stories of people coming in with their injured pets and then having to let them take them home with no treatment because it was either too expensive or too much trouble.
The ability of people to be cruel never ceases to amaze me.
No, it doesn’t.
Call your vet back and ask for their protocol when the office is closed. I offer, for the same emergency fee, to see client owned animals (people I’ve seen before).
There are as many different ways to handle things as there are practices out there. If I did not charge extra to drop what I’m doing to handle an emergency, many people would not bother scheduling appointments. My normal exam fee is $30. My emergency fee is $58. It does not go anywhere near covering the overtime I pay my employees if we have to stay late.
In Pennsylvania (where I live and practice) I would be within my rights to do pretty much anything you describe. In reality, if I came upon a snake-bitten dog, I would advise the owner to transport the dog to a veterinarian. I do not carry the supplies necessary to address a copperhead or rattlesnake bite while walking in the park.