The cost of prescriptions from our vet

Our vet charges £60 for a vet consultation and £50 for a follow up, we hardly ever go nowadays because it's daylight robbery - if one of our pets is ill we try recommended alternatives first, but vets straight away if anything serious.

A few weeks ago we took one of our cats, she had a bad case of diarrhoea. Vet said she needed blood tests (£280) and poo tests (£380) and I nearly dropped to the floor, +£60 consultation fee = £720 😱

I told him that was ridiculous & he offered to prescribe some Ghiardia medication - it cost me £100 altogether.

The medication didn't cure the diarrhoea.

Since then we've taken her to Animals Trust Charity - a good 20 minute appointment with a specialist cat vet, absolutely lovely woman & she explained her diagnosis in full, so much detail I wanted to hug her. She wrote me a list of 3 foods to choose from and a choice of 2 supplements - absolutely brilliant. A prescription for steroids (inflammatory bowel disease) and it cost £29.00 all in plus an appointment in 3 weeks time with her.

What annoys me is that if we or our children have minor injuries or illnesses we don’t need to see a doctor, we buy what’s needed at the chemist and it’s cheap.
With our pets we have to pay a consultation fee then pay exorbitant prices for drugs which would cost very little for humans.
My cat is on a simple anti inflammatory. 60p for Ibuprofen for me, £50 for Metacam for cats.

Are these prices because we have fewer and fewrer independent vets in this country, resulting in the big enterprises like CVS buying out practices and thinking they can get away with charging higher prices?

I often visit vets in France, (routine and emergency), and consultation fees are as little as €30. Procedures are half the price too.
I think veterinary practices in France are largely independent by law, and French regulators strongly protect the professional independence of vets. So the law there requires vets to hold majority ownership in a clinic, so outside corporate investors are prevented from taking over businesses.

I would never, ever be without insurance for my pets, having recently run up a bill in this country of £6,000 for my dog, which was paid with no questions asked.

My new puppy went to the vet last week for his initial check to make sure everything was OK. The breeder did all the vaccinations, so that was one less expense.

I wanted his eyes checked as one iris is larger than the other. It was OK and he is fit and well. The bill was £127.57! Don't forget that was without vaccines. Consultation charge £50; iodine for a red tummy £12.40 (£2.50 at the pharmacy); worm pills £15.60 (not asked for and I had routinely wormed all dogs three weeks ago); then something which cost £49.57 but not the foggiest what it is for.

Funnily enough I have challenged the bill!

Find another vet ASAP!!

We pay a monthly fee which covers vaccinations, flea & worm treatment and twice yearly health checks. However our vet discovered a heart murmur in one dog which requires 2 medications per day. I was shocked to be charged over £200 when I picked up the medication. I now buy them online which requires buying the prescription at a cost of around £35 for the two. However online this prescription can be used for 3 months. The medication costs around £70, still expensive but far less than the vet charges.

Thanks for all your input. I think we may consider changing vets. Our rescue dog has severe anxiety and has been prescribed tranquillisers which have helped a lot but boy are they expensive.

Yes, our vets are extortionate. My husband always takes her and when I saw a invoice lying around I was shocked at what he paid for a prescription. We do now buy the drugs over the Internet as it is far cheaper. Our last insurance company refused to pay for one set of medication and when I checked on the Internet the vets had given it a 400 per cent markup! He queried it with the vets and the reduced the cost to half. It used to be a very reasonably priced vets until it was taken over by one of these large companies.

Gosh these vets know how to charge 😳

The law demands that, in order to prescribe medicines or supply prescriptions, your pet must have been seen by the vet within the past 6 months. This is not down to the vet although course it is to the vets’ advantage.

Unscrupulous vets will carry on advising monthly flea treatment all year round just as they still send reminders for annual vaccination boosters, long after the official guidelines changed all this.

We also didn’t vaccinate the dogs after they were 8 years old - again the (wonderful) Vet said that the regular shots in their previous years had built up sufficient immunity to protect them for the rest of their lives. A footnote:- that we never had any of our dogs (or cats) insured - we just bit the bullet, as and when.

Wasn’t there a feature on vets charges recently on the news?? Some of them do sound to be exploiting pet owners and the COL is difficult enough without added costs for keeping pets healthy.
I often wonder how the wildlife rescue centres cope with vet charges.

You need a consultation anyway for vaccinations and I think most insurance companies expect pets to be vaccinated. A lot of people are rethinking having flea and tick treatment throughout the year. I have vaccinations and wormer because of lungworm but don’t use flea or tick treatment, having said that I have a short haired do so it’s easier to spot parasites straight away. And, of course, cats can pick up fleas when out and about. I think there’s government legislation going through regarding vets charges.

The British Small Animal Veterinary Association (BSAVA), alongside other veterinary organizations, supports a guideline recommendation to charge no more than £16 for providing a written veterinary prescription.

Mine's just put the charge up from £20 to £25 but next time if it hasn't gone down (I think these charging guidelines are relatively new) I am going to mention the guidelines.

I also resent the consultation fee(which can't be done at the annual check up & vaccination appointment at our vets). I'm perfectly capable of weighinng my dog myself. So I did buy online instead of getting at the vets & having to have a consultation last month. Same drug for fleas / ticks except the vets sold a combination for worms too, whereas I need 2 seperate ones with these, but worming tablets are cheap & effective anyway, & my dog eats tablets like treats.

Oh my word Gin I’ve totally misread your post and see you already get your meds online. However, we used to treat every 5-6 weeks (working dogs) and our Vet (she was a farm Vet) had no issue with giving us a ‘script for hundreds of tablets.

Get (buy) a prescription from the Vet and then buy the meds online. I’d consider changing Vets if yours doesn’t co-operate.
We changed our Vet years ago, as it had been taken over by a multi-national and the Vet agreed prices had been hiked to pay for all the new machinery and upgrading.
At one point we had 10 dogs and bought worming tablets in ‘industrial quantities’ which worked out at £1 a tablet. I’m sure it’ll be more now, but even if it’s triple that, still a bargain.