As someone who is looking at our next credit card statement with fear and trepidation...yes. Pele had to be hospitalized in the doggy ICU for 3-4 days in 2017, and it cost less than two outpatient vists with basic labs in 2024.
The place we brought him was purchased by a giant conglomerate in 2022.
"Veterinary prices have soared more than 60% over the past decade, according to federal stats. Private equity firms and large corps have bought 100s of facilities around the country, an acquisition spree reminiscent of the corporate roll-ups of doctors’ offices."
www.nytimes.com/2024/06/23/h...
We went from paying $100-$150 for a regular checkup with vaccine updates and normal labs when we first started going there to $550 at the latest one (for our cat).
At the point when you are charging our pet more for a basic workup than Kaiser Permanente charges me, and they literally try to charge me for everything, something has gone awfully wrong.
The best decision we made in recent weeks was to consult a mobile, independent vet about end of life care, because nobody at the animal hospital it was obviously getting worse fast, and they weren't discussing end of life.
The advice she gave us ("increase the dose of his steroid to help combat brain inflammation, there is no three months to worry about here") helped him have the best last few days he could have had. And was so much cheaper than bouncing into the emergency room with him for days.
Also the pet crematorium where we brought him afterward got bought by a large corporation, and the employee at the front (who was an amazing, wonderful, deeply compassionate person) was the best.
Not to mention they then advise you to get pet health insurance....which covers precisely NOTHING.
I got it after one of our cat's got kidney disease. It's not covered. Preventative care? Not covered. Dental? No. what MIGHT be covered is if she like, gets out and gets hit by a car. MIGHT.
Every time I look at it I just think....this is the price of hope.
I think that whenever we end up in the ER too. This is the cost of hope.
Hope costs a lot.
For us, having the insurance when our dog got cancer meant the difference between trying chemo and immediately putting her down...and that chance meant EVERYTHING. If you have a breed prone to expensive diseases, and can get it while they're young and have no pre-existing, it can be worth it.
My experience has been different. My dog got a liver infection, and required several days of emergency care. Though there was some back and forth in the claim process, what they eventually covered paid for six years worth of the insurance coverage.
Insurance always a crap shoot though.
I have never gotten pet insurance, but what's the critique of dental/vision insurance? Mine always pays for itself (a few bucks a month = annual cleaning/reduced costs on procedures or annual exam + new prescription and then new frames every year).
As a vet who sees patients whose owners have insurance and those who don’t, it often is the difference between affording the best care and not. A lot of vet hospitals are now paying their employees’ pet insurance premiums instead of a discount which works well for all/most.
I don't know how it works out for people on average, but in my case pet insurance paid for itself in the first year, and now reimbursements for my cat's monthly meds are more than my monthly premiums (I happened to sign up for it a few months before she developed her chronic conditions).
Yeah, I’d rather just figure out what they’d charge me monthly and then stuff that amount into a metaphorical piggy bank labeled “cat care,” because cash DOES cover those bills lolsob
This is why I get so annoyed when animal shelters have drastically reduced adoption events. Do people have any idea how insanely expensive it is to care for cats and dogs?
Golden may be too much of a drive for you but I've really liked Francis Veterinary Hospital. They're close to Colorado Mills. I have a new rescue dog I got in April and had to be in there tons for various things but they were really good to me through it.
I am hoping the vets I take Charlie and Clancy to can hang on and not get bought out. Yes, they're expensive, but at least I'm paying THEM and not a conglomerate.
Charlie's oncologist and Clancy's eye specialist (sigh...) are owned by the national corps but have been affordable-ish, and the oncologist bills insurance directly, so I don't have to pay it all upfront and wait for reimbursement.
Due to adopting a cat with urinary issues in 7 yrs I got to know A LOT of vets from the west metro area, there's only one I won't see again because of cost & them asking 'have we seen you before' after being there every day on & off for 6 wks.
holy shit
i have been wanting to adopt two cats but i am going to have to do some serious looking into the local options before i make that choice, i had no idea how much it had gone up...
That's so fucked up
Our vet care costs have gone up but only a tiny bit because it's still a small business, so they actually give a shit
I hope they never get bought out because I couldn't cope with the prices you're talking about x.x
man, I thought my (small, independent) vet was expensive (and also just NYC prices), but a regular checkup for my cat is only in the $200 range. (Her dental cleaning on the other hand was absurd, but at least that's only every 4-5 years).
So sorry about Pele, btw.
Sigh, this is probably a big part of the reason that some of my dad’s clients drive 40+ miles to bring their pets to him.
My dad is trying to sell his practice soon so he can retire, and I am terrified by the thought of a chain buying it.
I can’t really blame young vets who don’t want to go into practice independently — my dad worked 80 hour weeks at all hours of the day until I was in middle school.
also, not to put too fine a point on it, that practice model is really aided by having a spouse who will do all the office management stuff and step in to work whenever your one employee is out sick or on vacation.
Had to take my pup to the animal hospital last week. $3500. The kicker: I had gotten pet insurance 7 days prior, but because it's a 14-day waiting period before it kicks in, I'm on the hook for all of it instead of the $700 it would be if it were active
i was told that i need to spend $7,000 just to find out why my cat was throwing up, and then it would be an additional $7,000 at least to fix it.
i've mostly managed it with diet and behavioral accommodations because i just don't have $14,000 to spend on a cat.
They bought up a bunch of the small vet shops here in Chico and like doubled the prices for everything.
Worst thing though was they took on the '24 hour emergency vet' role in town and then during the pandemic stopped so the closest 24 hour vet was like 90 miles away in Sac.
In San Jose, our last vets had spun off from the VCA clinic -- it worked out really well for us, they were literally around the corner.
In Beaverton, VCA bought our clinic after we moved there. I didn't notice any changes in service or price.
VCA is terrible, Went to one almost 15 years ago and they wanted to give my dog and MRI. Went to another vet got a regular xray and told bone spurs were the issue for my boxer.
