Video about crooked (overkill) vets - Page 4

Correction it was a 120ct bottle of Zinc tablets....I was so pissed my husband fell for the sales pitch.

<<The only real thing that can be done to protect the consumer is to #1  shop around and find a vet that is old school honest, hard days work for a fair wage type thinking.>>

But what is this?  What is fair wage for a doctor?  For someone who spent years & years more of schooling than I ever have?  Who has to charge me a "fair wage" not just for their time & their knowledge, but has to pay building rent, equipment, staff, supplies....I was at my vet's the other day for a booster shot.  I sat there and looked around and tried to figure out how much it cost: an unassuming but nice building, staff members, utilities, insurance, all that equipment (not super-fancy stuff but just routine exam tables, scales, microscopes for fecals, cages, surgery stuff, kennel runs, not only purchasing but maintenance on all of this - the snow plow was clearing the lot as I pulled in - ugh).  Tons of stuff.  She has to pay for ALL of it and then live on what's left. And the hours are crazy long.  Should she live a just-getting-by life for all of that?

The charge for an office visit when you drop off a dog for surgery is really pushing it IMO. Happened to me and the vet was one I worked for for 6 years.  I asked why the $35 office visit charge when I dropped  Dylan off for a skull x-ray? He told me that was because he was in the office when I brought him in and didn't he talk to me about the x-ray and look at the dog's nasal discharge. Duh....yeah, you did, but I never asked you to do that. I still had to pay for it.  I was also charged for a day in the hospital, he was there less than 4 hours, as well as for 2 xrays that were so poorly positioned and exposed that I had to  to pay the soft tissue surgeon to re-do them.  I don't use him anymore.

Vets can make just as much money by realistically lowering their fees and attracting a larger clientel.

The iron tabs story is a classic.

Tessj10,
Thank you for reminding me why I choose not to post of this board much any more.
Obviously you are either quite young and are not familiar with what reasonable rates are for a vet, considering their over head, time and all expenses including the time they put into med school.  You may want to quote another statement that I made on this thread, " It does not take rocket science to know when you are being gauged ". 

I thought I made my point pretty clear and reasonable, but you chose to take one part of it and blow it out of context. Re read my ENTIRE  post, not just the part that you want to take out to make your own argument.  Be a little more creative.  And as I said in the begining thank you for another confirmation.

But I did read your entire post.  And your post got me thinking (the object of a good post,no?).  I simply asked a question: what then is fair wage?  No blowing out of proportion, a simple question which no one answered.  

I thought it was funny that someone said vets should just lower their fees and treat more patients.    Louise, what would you say if you were told to get paid less but work more hours every week so you will still make the same amount of money? 

I googled vet salaries and found this:  http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes291131.htm#ind 

Not excessive.  Vets make about half of what people doctors make, and less than most of the people (manager level and above) in the last 3 companies where I've worked.

I agree that stories like the iron tabs one are gouging.

Here are some  hints that you might be getting gouged:

1. your vet owns a fleet of expensive cars and all the kids attend Ivy League colleges

2. he or she spends 3 months of the year touring Europe and is always out of town when you want an appt

3. the techs make little more than minimum wage and there is considerable turn over at the clinic

4. your vet has a 500K boat docked on the Altantic

5. your vet lives in a  house that rivals Trump Tower

6. your vet purchases a thousand acres of costal land in Central America  for cash after being in private pet practice for less than 25 years and lays down a cool million in cash for a new house

Another suggestion is to look up  prescription food, medication and vaccine prices on the net. Your vet is paying about half of the advertised price. For example they pay .49 for a distemper combo, a bit more for a rabies plus a few cents for the syringe. You do the math. If you use a conglomerate practice like VCA, then expect to pay even more for obvious reasons.

Keep in mind that the salaries Tessa listed here include all vets practicing in the listed states.  Not all are in private practices, some work for the vet school or in a state run facility,  work in research, some for pharmaceutical companies, some are retained by coops to educate farmers in animal husbandry, some are on staff at racetracks, some in large animal and mixed practices. These vets do not earn nearly as large a salary  as  most vets in private pet practices.  Now we even have vets who specialize in and only treat cats and exotics. Do you really think they would do that if they couldn't make a ton of money in the process? These figures are an average and only reportable incomes. Some vets might not report cash transactions....oops! I've worked for 4 vets and I know of only one who made less that 200K per year; he worked at an embryo transfer service and later taught at a vet school. Not much money in either. Don't be fooled by the average advertised salary for any occupation. What you need to see is how much vets are making per year in a private pet practice. I'll guess a LOT more.

If you're happy with you vet even though he or she charges an arm and a leg for everything, then by all means stay there. If you're not, a little common sense can help you figure out which are gouging  you and which aren't. Few vets today are starving and the stats are intended to justify their fees to their clients.  Best to take them with a grain of salt.

Veterinarians who work at university vet schools, research, government jobs, pharmaceutical companies, etc, do get paid less (and considerably more after establishing tenure) because they have no overhead expenses and have loads of fringe benefits (,job security, vacation, sick leave, grants/stipends (T/A's--teaching allowances), retirement, health insurance, dental insurance, vision insurance, legal insurance, etc.). As a retired vet school employee, I get these latter five perks--plus Social Security and Medicare--not bad in today's economy!

Unfortunately, many vets in private practice may have little or no training or skills in practice management. Whose fault is that? Don't answer. Some may attempt to support their lifstyles by hiring recent-low-paid graduate veterinarians, unlicensed-uncertified-untrained-uneducated "technicians" ("trained" on the job), cultivating a high-income clientele, using their office/technical staff to peddle merchandise (prescription diets, designer dog foods, parasite preventatives and treatments, shampoos, often unnecessary-unwise vaccines, etc.), gouging clients, etc.

What is a fair wage? I don't know--so long as it's fairly earned. When people confessing a love of animals apply to vet schools, they do so with the full knowledge that they are unlikely to ever earn as much as M.D.'s and that there are no pet/livestock HMO's.

We had a situation in August 2000 that took place in Columbus, Ohio where a client(police officer) and his wife had another breeder pick up their male GSD puppy, have it at the other breeder's residence 2 days, then picked up the puppy from the 2nd breeder's location (stud dog owner's residence). The clients claimed the puppy wasn't acting right, so they took it immediately to their vet. We offered their money back for returning the puppy OR replacement when we were first called and told that they felt their puppy was sick before the pup even went to the vet (even tho we techincally didn't owe such since we hadn't left the puppy at someone else's residence for 2 days-that had been their own decision). The clients claimed they loved the puppy and wanted neither replacement or refund from us, but were still unhappy with us for the situation. Their own vet pursuaded these people that the allegedly sick puppy needed exploratory surgery to find out what was wrong with him-apparently none of the blood/fecal testing or anything else was showing anything seriously bad enough to explain the puppy's lethargic behavior-he had been checked by our veterinarian and issued a clean bill of health less than a week prior to pick-up. The owners oked the surgery without us even knowing what was going on and thus KILLED the 7wk old puppy on the operating table. When the diagnoses was all done and complete, $2,000 later the only reason they had for explanation for the surgery and huge medical bill was COCCIDIA. We all know that Coccidia clearly is NOT a reason for exploratory surgery by a long shot-only if a puppy that age had an obstruction which could be easily identified via X-ray should a puppy be operated on, period. That's not rocket science. They did not have such evidence, but yet the clients, who wouldn't listen to a thing we told them, clearly had no idea what they were doing. The clients never questioned the vet nor the bill, but blamed us for their poor handling of the entire situation with their puppy from the start.  We were new to things, too, so we've learned alot since that incident. 

So we have learned via experience that not all veterinarians are out there to do what they're supposed to be doing for situations and charging reasonably for it to naive clients.  AND, not all clients are wise enough to think that just maybe what a vet is telling them is NOT what should in fact be done with a situation for their dog or puppy.