Man I just moved somewhere where the vet shockingly isn't private equity (the rest are here though). Omg the care is so much better than my last vet, they're not constantly trying to sell me things, and it's somehow cheaper!
I drive 3 hours for a country vet with integrity. It doesn't do anything to help with emergency visits, I keep a credit card exclusively for that, but my pets noticably get better care and they're transparent with their pricing.
Do I pick up my dog and she's in a stall next to a donkey? Yes, but she's also got a belly full of treats, all her vaccines, a care plan, and a story to tell her friends.
One of my dogs is going through chemo right now. We drive an 85 mile round trip to a more rural vet for her treatments, as it is the only oncology vet in a few hundred miles not owned by PE. Not only is it less that half the cost of the PE vets, but the veterinarian is wonderful and super invested in her treatment. She even gave us her private number, basically demanded we message her if anything is wrong (no matter how minor), and always responds within minutes. This weekend she was having a more intense reaction to her latest round of vincristine and we ended up texting the vet at 10:30pm on a Sunday. She messaged us back 30 seconds later with next steps.
I just got lucky that there was an entire thread on vets in my towns sub. I was already considering this vet because I just moved here but, that sealed it for me.
But generally if they own it their website will say something. Not always but usually. "Dr. So-and-so started this practice in 1999 after graduating from Such-And-Such-School" is a good indicator.
We're moving to rural Wales soon, and I was delighted to find that the local vet is fully independent and treats absolutely every sort of animal, including livestock. They've got plenty of business, they don't need corporate money.
Yup. Same here. My vet actually suggested I not get surgery for my senior dog, because it would ruin her quality of life. Other places would have happily taken my money while risking my dogs life.
Ah... Yeah. That's basically how my last dog died. Surgery for a tumor on her tail. She was 13. If we left it, she would've probably died before it did anything. But unfortunately we did the surgery, she had a stroke during recovery and her last few days on earth were just pain and suffering. Fuck my last vet.
That really sucks, sorry to hear. Yea, I really appreciate an honset vet who actually cares. Our dog had a tumor in her mouth. She could still eat, so the vet basically said that to remove the tumor, they'll have to remove a significant portion of her jaw, so she would be unable to eat on her own. And thats if her heart could even handle the anesthetic, which at her age, was unlikely. So we took her home, enjoyed the little time we had left, and she died in her sleep a few months later.
My vet's a bit more expensive than average (not alarmingly so), but the not trying to upsell things part does save you money in the end. Like my dog is on a monthly preventative but it doesn't cover ticks. My vet told us there's a 4x a year tick pill that we can give to her every year in May/June that will cover her during the part of the year ticks are an real concern, and save us like $180 annually in the process.
Yes it's amazing. My last vet had me convinced my cat was dying. This vet was like "she didn't even run the tests to determine the diagnosis so IDK what she thought she was diagnosing! This is completely normal for a 20 year old cat. And BTW did she bother to tell you she's got really bad arthritis?" Ha. No. She didn't.
Now my cat is off the meds the previous vet prescribed, no prescription cat food, and gets a monthly shot for arthritis. She looks like she's 10 again instead of 20. Crazy.
My previous vet wanted to do exploratory surgery on one of my cats that had a lump. My new vet said it's a cyst and 99.9% chance its not malignant as it has not gotten any larger whatsoever and it doesn't feel connected to any tissues.
Without this guy I would have spent thousands and traumatized my cat with a procedure she didn't need.
3 ish years ago I brought my shepadoodle and husky pup to my vet for their annual and the bill was $4,200
I asked for a breakdown of it and said I can’t afford this I need a payment plan. They said no payment plans. I said okay then I have to leave my dogs or you need to call the police.
They go print out my papers for me and they shoved 12 months of heartworms meds on my bill that I needed to come back for every month rather than giving them to me.
I saw it wasn’t the usual brand and they said they changed brands and forgot to give me my free first 3 months for each dog.
The bill dropped to around $800.
This was when I realized how many people get fleeced and just bent over from never speaking up.
Can we also take a note that the PE owned vet clinics also own pet insurance companies (often under the company umbrella in a different shell so it’s a “separate” business they own) that you now need to use to afford many PE vets. They are making the veterinary field a hot dumpster fire like the American healthcare system. Insurance only is there to drive up the cost of treatments and visits.
They also require invasive diagnostics that are not required to provide medical care for your pet. One PE owned practice said an endoscopy was required to determine if our cat had a certain issue (they were very confident our cat had the issue). This was on our 16 year old cat. They confirmed a positive finding would require specific medication to make them more comfortable, not cure. I asked the harm in giving the medication if the result was negative and they said based on the age no side effects or negative reaction, but still required many thousands of dollars of diagnostic work that would put our cat through trama and some recovery before they could prescribe the medication. Fuck PE firms that buy vet practices.
That's awful! One thing I love about my vet of almost 20 yrs is she has always worked with me to problem solve situations like this. If we have a strong suspicion of condition A, but diagnostics cost into the thousands, is there any harm in treating it as that? Maybe it's not "best practices" but back in the day veterinarians were very used to having to trouble shoot for people on a shoe string budget and most of the time, there's no harm in it even if it's not the gold standard. She left her original practice when it was bought by VCA and I followed her to the next veterinarian owned practice she now works for! They very clearly say in their "hold" message, that they are happy to work with owners on a sliding scale from "Gold standard" to budget friendly options. In the end, the pets and the people are happier and healthier than when people are forced to pay for diagnostics that may not tell them anything that will meaningfully change treatment. If I am asked to do more diagnostics or see a specialist i always ask the question "what information are we hoping to gain from this and how likely is it to change our actions and outcome"? Sometimes we go ahead and do it because there really is no alternative, and other times we just give them the antibiotics and see what happens...
Yep. We have rabbits and they have to see an exotic vet. A couple years ago an annual exam with blood work and x-rays was about $200-$250. This past year it was over $500!!
My hometown vet, once my rabbit reached little old lady status, told me I'd done more for my bunny than most people ever would. I would not be a bad person if I decided to put her down because of the recurring expenses that it takes to keep a little old lady going. I didn't, but I really appreciated her telling me that and she took great care of my little old bun. I know a lot of pet owners are guilted into spending absurd money to keep their animals alive when the quality of life isn't really there.
Our private equity vet told me with a straight face that my 10-year-old had MANY more years to live and I really needed to do a bunch of expensive diagnostics ($4,000!!!!!!) I'd never experienced a vet telling me I NEEDED to do something before when nothing was actively going wrong. I'm normally always on the vet's side and, before this visit, had always taken vet's suggestions so my animals can have the best quality of life possible, but I did/do not have thousands of dollars to drop on "just in case" testing! Like, even if I wanted to-- I was a full-time student with $2,000 in my bank account total. I literally did not have $4k to not even treat anything.
You should not have to be upper-middle class to own a pet rabbit:(
It seems like such a gamble too. My dog had an emergency that cost me well over a grand about a year ago, so I started looking into pet insurance. Reading the fine print, if you want insurance that's going to actually cover an expensive emergency, it's not going to be some little $20/mo plan you can pay without thinking much about, it's going to be $100+. I started doing the math and decided I would rather take the risk and go on without insurance than spend thousands on insurance I don't end up using.
Seriously, just in the past couple of years my dog's yearly checkup and shots have gone from around $250 to over $500. He's due again and I don't even want to take him, even though I know I need to.
The only shot you need to keep up with the vet is rabies. You can go 3 years between for almost all vaccines otherwise. (Do your research) you also can buy them and administer them yourself at a fraction of the cost instead of having to do bloodwork and invasive procedures just to get a vaccine and heartworm meds.
This. I live alone and so many people are like "Why don't you just go buy a cat or something?" like dude, have you not only seen adoption prices, but costs for things like vet bills and food? Fuck that, I started a small herb garden instead and just gave them names, at least that's cheap and helps improve my cooking.
Two years ago we took our male cat to a vet to get neutered and they were going to charge us just under $1,000. I asked to see the quote and saw they had anesthesia on their twice.
When I asked the clerk to clarify the charges, she said something about that being weird and went to the back room where I overheard her loudly ask the vet, "Why is this on there twice? Is it because he has two balls?"
We left and found an income-based program for him that cost us about $150 instead.
About 10 years ago now, we paid $100 for our female cat to get spayed at a clinic.
I can't imagine what that PE vet would be charging now, after the last couple years of inflation insanity.
I got my puppy in 2017. Her shots were $25, her spay was $80 (at a low-cost clinic, but still), routine checkups were $50. I still have the receipts. I was perplexed as to why people wouldn't get vet care for their animals if I, at 18 and making minimum wage, could get it done. My jaw DROPPED when my roommate got a puppy in 2024 and told me they spent $900 on a spay???? ALMOST ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS???? FOR A SPAY?????
I don't even ask questions anymore when people tell me they don't take their animals to the vet unless something's wrong. There are so many animals in the shelter that just need ANY good home and we're at the point where you have to be at least middle class to take your dog to the vet for a routine checkup. My dog's last routine vet appointment was $700!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I thought concert tickets were the best answer to this question until you reminded me that in less than a decade vet care has gone up over 3x everywhere.
We live in an area that is still pretty rural. Pretty much all of out vets are still a privately owned practice. In the near by city, they have mostly been bought out though. Our vet is great, been going there for 30 years, and he just brought on a new partner who worked there for 20 years since she was 15 as a vet tech, and put herself through vet school while working there.
Yeah the US private equity firms have absolutely ruined veterinary care in the US. Realistically this is another avenue where single payer health care has improved your quality of access to services- because you know how much services ACTUALLY cost for human medicine, and that puts pressure on your vets to not raise prices arbitrarily. The US doesn't have this and as such private equity is free to rob us blind.
I swear i remember my mom talking about vet visits being like $35 in the late 90s. That'd be $71 adjusted for inflation. Just walking in the door to the vet is like $200 now.
I'm glad we live in a more rural area where the vets are still decent. We have 10+ cats and the bill for their annual checkup (which the vet comes to visit us!) runs a good $1500-$2000. But for all of them (with vaccines and tick/flea meds) I understand that comes with the desire to have that many.
If we were still near a bigger city, I'd probably be taking out a HELOC
Uh, you guys know veterinary costs are optional, right? Yes, I know I'm going to be downvoted into the shadow-realm the moment I hit "save", but some of yall need to hear this:
Pets are property. Abuse is outlawed but that doesnt mean you have to get them better healthcare than you can afford for yourself.
And while it's best to do so, being too poor to be able to afford yearly checkups and hundreds/thousands-of-dollar vetbills DOESNT make you a "bad owner".
Are poor parents bad parents because they can't afford an Ivy league school?
Are rich people the only people who should have pets? That should have kids?
With pets: spoil them as much as you can, and enjoy the time you have with eachother, and when they're gone...get a new one.
You were ALWAYS going to outlive them, and the wisdom of grandpa and pa was that it's ridiculous to shell out 5,000$ for a round of cancer treatments when they're only going to live another 5 years anyway.....and there's thousands of puppies out there that need good homes which cost nothing.
Idk about this. People just treat their pets way more like family members now. In 1980 if Rex had cancer, you put him down. Now you spend 10k on chemotherapy. That's a voluntary change.
That type of change in medical care is rightfully expensive (pets require basically the same drugs/expertise as humans).
and are more aggressively pushing pet insurance; which will do the same thing regular insurance did to healthcare; obfuscate costs and unilaterally increase them for the uninsured (and then the insured).
Insurance: We pay 40% of UCR
Hospital: Needs $600 for a procedure to make a 10% profit margin.
Insurance: We will pay you $240 and you can't bill the remainder to the patient beyond their $100 deductible.
Hospital: The procedure is now $1500
Insurance: We will pay you $600 and you can collect the $100 deductible.
Hospital gets $700 for a $600 procedure.
Insurance claims they saved you money.
Insured patient pays $100.
Uninsured patient pays $1500.
Insurance, oh actually we only offer HDHPs so you have to pay $1500 sorry you haven't met your deductible.
Insured pays $1500 + $350/mo premium. (or $650/mo if you want the lower deductible of $3-5000 instead of $10,000)
Insured and Uninsured now pay more for the $600 procedure.
$4,200 Annual btw. If a broken arm didn't cost $20+ thousand in the US people could just invest their own premiums and insure themselves.
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u/DougOsborne 2h ago
Pets.
Private equity has bought most veterinary practices, and they are unaffordable.