Vets say they are under pressure to bring in more money per pet

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c62zzegvk33o

Posted by Make_the_music_stop

10 comments

  1. “In 2013, only 10% of vet practices in the UK were owned by large corporate groups. Now that figure stands at 60%.”

  3. The vet/pet insurance industry is a total scam.

    I have a dog. The dog eat a cooked chicken while some friends were looking after her.

    Vet bill to remove bone fragments £3,800. Insurance covered it.

    The same bloody dog got hold of another cooked chicken while we were out again and had to go for another op. I told the vets it’s unlikely our insurance would cover it the second time.

    Vet bill came in at £2,400 for exactly the same operation.

    Their whole business model is a bloody scam!

  4. Why don’t they:

    1. Increase regulations / market practice for pet care providers
    2. Increase fines for big care pet care providers if they breach these regulations
    3. The revenue coming in from the fines to the big pet care providers are used to offset tax breaks for small / local vet practices to incentivise vets employed by the big petcare providers to start out on their own

  5. Vets near us no longer do out of hours care or over night stays. It’s gone from ~400 quid a night to almost a grand at the big national privately owned place just out of town. So when our cat was seriously ill our usual vets did some surgery during the day. Then we had to pick him up. Take him to the out of hours place and pick him up the next day and take him back to our vets. Just bat shit insane.

  6. As soon as corporate groups and investment companies get involved prices go up, service goes down, and scams to increase profits arrive.

    The exact same thing happened to nursing homes, building management, leaseholds, etc, etc … the drive for profit crowds out anything else, and the people who try to do a good job get pushed out because doing a good job costs money that could be going into shareholder’s pockets.

  7. This is why I’ve started using Vetsy for minor issues, wayyyy cheaper. It’s like £30 for a consultation and the vet sends you an electronic prescription the same day. That same treatment would cost like £200 in person. It’s obviously not useful for serious issues but it’s a great alternative for small things like minor eye infections etc

  8. More money and the service is honestly awful. Most recently my vet prescribed a cat meloxicam for a minor scab/wart. An incredibly dangerous medication that isn’t perceived to cats in the US and is under review in Europe. I understand prescribing it for serious inflammation when needed, that is within the norms of UK veterinary practice. But it was absolutely ridiculous to prescribe it for a small scab we were keeping an eye on.

    The prescription was purely just to charge more and because customers expect to walk out of an appointment with at least one prescription.

  9. More people would use them if they weren’t so expensive

  10. Vets themselves hate this. They all got into this to care for animals, and they just want to provide care at prices owners can afford.

    The vets themselves are not highly paid, unlike private human healthcare. But many can’t afford to not be part of a group, as a group company offers loans to buy the latest equipment etc.

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