Finding a good veterinarian

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Nov 23, 2003
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WA
I just adopted a cat this weekend and was researching a good vet to take her to for her first exam. I already have one other cat and the current vet I take him to I don’t like anymore. It’s part of a larger corporation and their services and upselling the last few times really pissed me off. It seems I’m not the only one that feels this way about vets these days, countless one star reviews for lack of service and upselling everything under the Sun.

I finally found a vet that I called and made an appointment with. Their first available was August 2nd. They’re a cat only vet and two of the veterinarians been there since 1990. I feel these large corporate owned vets care about one thing, PROFITS!

Here is my new angel. She had her eyes removed two weeks ago.


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I just adopted a cat this weekend and was researching a good vet to take her to for her first exam. I already have one other cat and the current vet I take him to I don’t like anymore. It’s part of a larger corporation and their services and upselling the last few times really pissed me off. It seems I’m not the only one that feels this way about vets these days, countless one star reviews for lack of service and upselling everything under the Sun.

I finally found a vet that I called and made an appointment with. Their first available was August 2nd. They’re a cat only vet and two of the veterinarians been there since 1990. I feel these large corporate owned vets care about one thing, PROFITS!

Here is my new angel. She had her eyes removed two weeks ago.


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Congratulations on your new "baby girl"! What a blessing for you both. Agree that a lot of vets are "going corporate". We are also fortunate to have a talented, considerate and low key vet to help care for our pets.
 
She's a cutie.
The best way to start the search for a good vet is to ask around.
We found a good practice, but they started their demise (with me) by forgetting what made them successful.
Unwilling to work sick cat into schedule, scheduling appts out weeks in advance, etc.
Needed to make a change. Asked around.
Found a vet 15 miles away in a somewhat small town/rural setting.
Service is remarkable. If cat is ill, they work her in the same day.
Very caring and level headed staff. Very practical approach.
And the good part?
They are MUCH CHEAPER!
 
I had a hard time finding a good avian vet, I finally found a good one 10 years ago from a breeder who has her come and check the birds once a week. Definitely not inexpensive but well worth it to keep them healthy, she checks their dietary needs (some birds need special food to address deficiencies), they have custom blended food which is also not cheap.
 
We were very lucky with our dog and the only time she needed to see a vet was when she had a nervous breakdown. I think the car ride to the vet did more to cure her than meds they gave her.

We took her to a large veterinary hospital for her shots. A loud argument broke out while we were there. The vet office has a large poster advertising pet insurance. The client purchased the insurance and then was told that the vet office doesn't accept the insurance that they advertise. They were understandably upset.

Well, we did have to take her to a vet to be euthanized after she had a stroke at 2am. She was almost 18 years old and the vet suggested we wait until morning to have the veterinary neurologist examine her and perform a CT scan. We were distraught at losing our pet but not that distraught.
 
I just adopted a cat this weekend and was researching a good vet to take her to for her first exam. I already have one other cat and the current vet I take him to I don’t like anymore. It’s part of a larger corporation and their services and upselling the last few times really pissed me off. It seems I’m not the only one that feels this way about vets these days, countless one star reviews for lack of service and upselling everything under the Sun.

I finally found a vet that I called and made an appointment with. Their first available was August 2nd. They’re a cat only vet and two of the veterinarians been there since 1990. I feel these large corporate owned vets care about one thing, PROFITS!

Here is my new angel. She had her eyes removed two weeks ago.
I hear you loud and clear and I couldn't agree more.
Our trusted vet of 30 years, who we have recommended many times, sold the practice to a corporation and stayed on (this is commonly what they do) and has caused me to start looking for a new vet for the same reasons that you mentioned. We didn't know that this buyout happened until we noticed that the vet bills suddenly tripled and the vet started trying to up-charge us for everything possible, overcharging for each service, and stacking services. For example, our current dog started having seizures and when we took him in the vet immediately tried to send me to a neurologist for an evaluation and brain scan (the neurologist is under the same corporate umbrella). A friend of ours recently went through the same thing, the neurologist's bill was over $4000, and nothing came from it other than to put the dog on anti-seizure meds. The vet could have done that. I flatly refused to take our dog to a neurologist. Now we are going through a battle over highly inflated prices for the necessary blood tests, 2 of them (titre and liver function), over $200 each for blood tests that are actually done by Texas A&M for $15 each, and the vet wants to have the blood tests done every 6 months under the threat of not providing the prescriptions.
The biggest problem we have found is that MANY of the old veterinary practices have undergone corporate buyouts and they are hard to identify because they have kept the same practice names and vets after the corporate buyout. I'm not sure that the good vets even know that this sort of price gouging was going to happen before they sold their practice and signed the non-compete agreement. This very well may have occurred with the vets that you made the appointment with. It is very hard to uncover these corporate vets.
 
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You are correct about Corporate practices. They just bleed as much $$ as they can and eventually ruin the practices. Usually there is an agreement that the prior owners stay around for a year or two. But they never do because they can't stand it. Hard to watch something you've built over the years being destroyed. Here's what is destroying Veterinary medicine. Vet schools are churning out female graduates who don't want to work full time. Historically a young vet would go to work for the owner and eventually take over when the owner wanted to retire. These women vets are not interested in doing that. Some of these guys have built up multi-million $ hospitals that give good service for a fair price. There is no one to sell it to other than corporations. I spent 35 yrs in the Veterinary business and I will not take my dog to a corp vet office. It's very sad to watch a special industry go down the tubes. The Drs in corp hospitals practice medicine by spreadsheet. No critical thinking. The scary thing is human medicine is headed in the same direction.
 
Happening to our vet of 22 years right now. They have sold the business but kept the building and are staying on for who knows how long. The corporation already added a new vet to the practice. This is in a city of 23,000. We are already exploring our options.
 
My ex worked at a corporate veterinary ER under Ethos. Maybe it's different because they're an ER but they never upsold anything and the doctors paid out of their own pockets very often when the owners couldn't afford it.

To me, if you have no money to afford medical services for your pet, don't have them. No different than having kids. I feel like this stuff ends up being more expensive for pets for being a slightly niche area.
 
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like humans prevention is key + of course a vet is sometimes needed + like mainstream medical profits are most important + keeping you coming back + not curing issues permanently. good info on line as well like holistic vet Dr Sharon Becker on Mercola.com.
 
This is why my brother no longer wants an animal. Yes the outfit that has bought up all the local vet places are huge crooks. And hire only very unfriendly people. This covid deal proved who the good and bad places were. All I could do is hold the dog I loved and try to revive him, when he died because at that time of day and the distance to the place, as well as knowing they would not do a thing for him except take him from us and hurt his condition even more thinking we are abandoning him, and make us stay in our car waiting and charge $1000's and then say "sorry". There are very few good people left in that business.
There are alot of story's about that crook outfit on line just search. And what is wrong with them not thinking of the animals fear and thoughts being taken from its loved ones? Especially if it is a rescue animal that was given up by it previous owners?
And yes your right only profits they care about.
 
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It’s a hard thing to do. We took our pets to the guy who my parents took the family dogs to ~10 years ago. He’s always busy and as far as I know isn’t taking new clients. The only reason we got in was because we adopted our cat from the shelter and she came with a free checkup.

Never had any issues with him, but he misdiagnosed our GSD two times on different things. It’s not so much the principle as it is the wasted time and money. Wasted time as in my GSD has lupus and it was attacking his nose. The vet insisted it was allergies and that he be on that medicine for a little over a month all while his nose was looking terrible and bothering him.

We now take the dogs to the vet the wife used to work at. Sadly, it’s about 1.25 hrs away. He’s a little more pricey, but that’s he’s cheaper than 2 vet visits from the other guy. His quality of work is much better too, but sadly he’s getting ready to retire.
 
This is why my brother no longer wants an animal. Yes the outfit that has bought up all the local vet places are huge crooks. And hire only very unfriendly people. This covid deal proved who the good and bad places were. All I could do is hold the dog I loved and try to revive him, when he died because at that time of day and the distance to the place, as well as knowing they would not do a thing for him except take him from us and hurt his condition even more thinking we are abandoning him, and make us stay in our car waiting and charge $1000's and then say "sorry". There are very few good people left in that business.
There are alot of story's about that crook outfit on line just search. And what is wrong with them not thinking of the animals fear and thoughts being taken from its loved ones? Especially if it is a rescue animal that was given up by it previous owners?
And yes your right only profits they care about.
I can see why your brother thinks this way, but my response to grossly overprice vet services is just have the pet put down if it's sick enough and not bother with treatments that aren't going to work. I've also had 2 cats that were really sick die at home while I was at work. I know that might sound bad to some people, but they were old and very sick and died in comfortable surroundings. I've got a cat graveyard in the back yard. I'm not going to pay a bunch of money for cremation / disposal / etc. when you go to the vet and it's all about the money anyway.
 
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