The one vet has been there about 5 years, the other is fairly new but she started when the other vet retired and sold his private practice to the corporation. I have worked both private and corporate practices. Right now I work for a VCA and I really like them, the private one I worked for the vet was a complete a$$ and treated everyone like crap. He even did your W2 for you and we have NO benefits. There was a higher staff turnover there then at any VCA I have worked at.

is there a high turnover among the vets there? I'm just wondering if some of them work at corporate clinics like the one where you work, and the ones at Petsmart, just long enough to get some experience and save some money so they can open their own clinics.





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we paid in total about 1200 for Onslow'r recent surgery and got almost 900 back. They have never refused to pay for any spacific illness.
I have heard people say that they have paid for insurance and then never needed it. I think it's like house insurance- you get it and hope you never need it.

Sherryl, Onslow and Buttercup

never heard of any seminars like that. A lot of private clinics have more say over their pricing, the corporate clinics do not. My clinic for example, is a corporate clinic. We are one of the most expensive in the area because unfortunately the corporation raised our prices again 3%, so that means everything costs more and we don't really have a say. We do military and senior discounts, multi pet discounts, free follow-up rechecks, try to script out to Walmarts $4 program when we can etc..to try to help ease the costs. I think some of our prices are insane.

not too many years ago, I owned 3 dogs and 5 cats. I spent over $3,000 on just one of them, i.e., one of my cats, who kept getting a mystery illness that eventually took her life. Since then I have had to scale back on the number of pets I own. I doubt I will ever own 8 pets again. It is just too expensive. My vet gives me a lot of breaks, but even with them, it is just still too costly to continue being a multiple pet owner. Last week, I had to board three of my dogs for a day and a half. The boarding cost me $154. I could have rented two hotel rooms for less than that.

Most of the time when I go to a people doctor for a non-critical problem, my bill is less than when I take one of my dogs to a vet for a non-critical problem.

Before I started taking my dogs to my current vet, I lived for over ten years in an apartment complex up the street from a vet clinic. I referred many, many of my neighbors to that clinic, probably somewhere between 50 and 100 of them. But it started to get embarrassing because when I would later run into those neighbors, they would constantly complain about the amount of their vet bills. Over time, I got to know the vet clinic's staff really well. One of them confided to me that many vets go to seminars where they are taught to never let a patient walk out the door without at least a $100 bill. From talking to people who go to numerous different vets in my area, it sounds like that figure has since been raised to $200. That might be bearable for people who only own one pet, but it can get pretty rough for multiple pet owners. I'm lucky in that my current vet doesn't do that but even with his discounted billing it has gotten very hard for me to bear the vet bills from owning multiple pets.





ALL PHOTOGRAPHS TAKEN BY ME ARE MY PROPERTY, ARE COPYRIGHTED UNDER FEDERAL LAW, AND CANNOT BE USED FOR ANY PURPOSE WITHOUT MY WRITTEN PERMISSION. ANY INCOME MADE OFF OF MY PHOTOS AT ANY TIME MUST BE IMMEDIATELY REMITTED TO ME.






And click here for puppy photos of Boo & Clovis:

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arthritis therapies.

for Audrey's first year, when the routine expenses are so high. She had an er visit from an allergic reaction, that was $500, she got attacked at a dog park, that was $90, she pulled a muscle in her neck, that was around $60 maybe? and she had that dang ear infection that wouldn't go away. I don't even know how much we spent on tests, medicne, ear cleaner, re-peat visits for more tests. I think it was around $120 all total for that. Then she was spayed. So even thouh the policy cost $767 for the year, when I added up every penny I paid for vet visits, well puppy and vaccinations, and what I paid for heatrworm and flea preventatives for the year, her spay, then added in the cost of the insurance, then subtracted what I got reimbursed from the insurance, I saved close to $400 for the year.
This year I switched to Trupanion accident and illness only. She is not going to have the routine puppy stuff, she's already been spayed, and the AKC insurance excludes ALL genetic illness and conditions, which I didn't like and trupanion does not. I truly hope I never have to use it, but at least I know that if she does get sick or has an accident, I will have 90% of it paid for. The cost for the policy for one year is about what one er trip cost us last year.

Cathy
when she first came home

so all my bills are discounted 75%. That means for me...I have unlimited access to any vet care my kids needs at a low cost.

I don't know if I could afford some of the things my kids need otherwise so I am very thankful.

I think most people would be better off with a savings account.

The last week of Chief's life trying to save him. Keep in mind, his problems started from a sting.

Maizy $1,300 for a palate trim and entropian surgery.

Morgan $900 for a palate trim.

I could go on and on about my Vet bills.

In the last year alone, I spent about $6,000 on her eyes (3 surgeries, check-ups, chemo, etc.). I had insurance to cover about $2,500 of that but still. And that's not counting the eye drops she continues to be on...

No contribution this year to my retirement fund, but hey, no regrets here!

We just spent $7,000 to try to save Rocky. We had to take him to the Vetinary specialty emergency hospital. They are very expensive. But the money didn't matter at the time if we could have saved him.

Other than that he had the normal check ups and I think the biggest bill was his June check up with the ekg and lots of lab work. It was round $1000. Rocky also had very bad food allergies and air born allergies. He was also Hypothryoid.

as soon as they have an illness someone doesn't want to pay for (or can't, I don't know)...

simply because the owner used the dogs tight,infected,tail pocket as another reason to euthanize the dog. He said the dog had pain everytime it used the bathroom and so he thought since he couldn't afford an overnight ER visit and the dog had other known simple health issues that euthanasia was their only option. I would sped thousands of dollars easily to save my dozer if anything happened to him.

high prices, but it was the closest place and at the time we thought the best, with 24 hour staffing.

that bill was over $4,000. I would have paid ANYTHING to save her.

But can not tell you what the insurance companies pay or don't pay. Unfortunately, pet insurance is not at all like human insurance, the clinics do not submit for payment, it's up to the pet owner to submit the invoices and depending on the plan tier the owner chooses (most insurance companies have multiple tiers)is what/if the insurance company reimburses the owner after a pre-determined deductible is met.

Not all insurance plans are created equal. Check them out very carefully before you choose. Most have their plan tiers up on line so you can compare them and see what is covered. Look at exclusions, some times there is a waiting period for certain things, other times there is not. Some insurance companies will cover NOTHING they feel is a pre-existing condition and that includes some of the genetic defects.

we had to come up with about $1,300 in that 5-7 day span...give or take a bit.

with my first Luigi, who we had to help cross over anyways...we spent about $4,000 in that 3 1/2 weeks we fought to save his life.

maybe there was more to his story, like the dr. felt it wouldn't help anyways? or only a temporary solution?

This bullie was acting fine up until the day before the vet visit when it had been throwing up white foam. So they literally had no idea their dog was ill. but he also mentioned that it had a tight tail pocket for awhile and that it couldn't go to the bathroom without pain. This to me just seemed like a very naive bulldog owner.

I've never used mine, but that was the idea. I can't imagine what they don't cover, my pups have had insurance from the day I got them. I just refuse to get in a situation where money comes in between me and the dogs. We have Pet Plan. Maybe someone on here works at a vet. and can tell us if the insurance companies pay or not. I have $200 deductable, and 100% after that.

Steve