Fees

The NHS has it's good points, but I think it's at fault for the misconception that "Vets are expensive". There may be some expensive vets, and the growth in the corporate chains, might be taken as evidence that there's money to be made from Veterinary Practice, but there are still a lot of practices who's bottom line isn't purely profit. Fortunately, I'm not just doing it for the money, and whilst the hours on duty aren't really compensated financially, it's uplifting to see the fruits of our labours. Measured in terms of Thank you cards versus complaint letters, our practice is very successful.

Practices that have time on their hands, will phone round their competition to check prices. Most practices want to be competetive with their vaccination and neutering fees- These are the ones that clients are likely to check out and compare. They hope that clients will form an opinion on the basis of a couple of prices, and because those prices were low, they may (sometimes erroneously) assume that the rest of the prices are reasonable too. When there's a growing number of practices in town, we can't all be the cheapest.

I know that my prices on a "basket of goods" are very reasonable. The SPVS does a survey an annual nationwide survey, and I find that I'm always below last years regional average price. In difficult times, we're resigned to losing an odd client who has found a special offer on their annual healthcheck and vaccination, and thinks they're going to save a few quid. In reality this saving may be small in comparison to the ongoing costs of moving to another practice.

About a year ago, a man brought his 6 cats to us for a 2nd opinion. He'd recently had them vaccinated, and had been told that they would all require dental treatment at a cost of ~£300 per cat. When I checked over the cats, I judged that 4 of them needed treatment, and happily for him, in the most expensive case the treatment was less than £150.

Whilst I wouldn't want our practice to have a reputation for being "cheap", a lot of clients, who've come from other practices, think we offer very good value. Having offered "Free Home Visits" when I started out, I've now stopped trying to win customers with special offers. We concentrate on providing the best service, at a competive price, and let our existing customers spread the word for us.

Prescription only medication

 We can only prescribe medication to animals "under our care". This is a legal requirement, it it also common sense. We want to make sure that the medicine is being used effectively, that it is still the right choice for the condition, and that there are no evident side effects. For an animal that appears to be stable on a suitable medication, we say that a 3 monthly interval between checks is sufficient. It will never be longer than this. Please don't argue with the staff when they explain this to you. Persistent offenders will be asked to find another practice. I'd be suprised if they can find one that acts outside the law!

Prescriptions

I didn't like it when we were obliged to provide free prescriptions, but I'm perfectly happy (excuse the sigh, and rather hurt expression) to provide prescriptions for customers who would like to buy their expensive medication, from somewhere less expensive. Our prices for medications are perfectly reasonable- we don't benefit from the large discounts that the large chains can get from manufacturers. We're a corner shop, not a supermarket. We like to keep a full range of medication in stock, but if it goes out of date, not only do we lose out, but we then have to pay for it's disposal.

*** Top (red) Tape - All injectables once opened now have an arbitrary shelf life of 28 days. They must then be disposed of, at our expense! Expect to pay more for rarely used hormone injections and frequently used but tiny guinea pig mite treatments which come out or a rather large and expensive bottle. Thank the VMD ***

We make a not unreasonable charge of £8.51+VAT for a prescription. This compares very favourably to the £20 a doctor charged me for filling in an insurance form, and the £35 administration fee that a travel company charged me this week, for altering a mistake on a booking. I'd have been annoyed about that, if I hadn't recently received correspondence from a Solicitors which made me laugh out loud!

A client of ours had the misfortune to die a few days after writing us a cheque (purely coincidence I trust). Unfortunately his bank wouldn't honour the cheque, so we had to wait while his estate was sorted out. After we'd patiently waited 18 months, we received an explanation from the solicitor. Unfortunately the man had more debts than he had savings. The banks and credit card companies had wrongly thought that he was a good risk for a loan, and were quite rightly stung. In common with us, they received just 9.4788379%, of what they were owed.  (I received a cheque for £11 of the £116.12 that I was owed, the banks lost £39K!)

This is obviously a sensitive subject, and I feel sympathy for the family in their personal tragedy- I'm not making light of that. What amused me, was that in these unfortunate circumstances, a local solicitors admitted that for spending a mere 3 hours 18 minutes shuffling a few papers around a desk, and owning a calculator that worked to 7 decimal places, they were prepared to relieve the dead man's estate of £2000 + VAT. I'd rather have not had an itemised bill. £2000 for 18 months work- fair enough, but £2000 for 3 hours and 18 minutes!!! (I hope they're treated as sympathetically when it comes to their reckoning day!) 

Payment

We're open with our fees, and will discuss likely costs in advance, and where available cheaper alternatives, but we do insist on payment at the time of treatment. Unfortunately we've had too many broken promises.