Query usage
Drugs are frequently dispensed for chronic illnesses that bring in practice revenues but they can also cause long-term harm to your animals. NSAIDs are a good example and are used for long-term pain relief and anti-inflammatory action ie. for arthritis - yet these drugs can cause significant gut problems if the dose isn't minimised. A vet should be suggesting that long-term NSAIDs are given only when required, not on a 'carte blanche' daily basis, and this still applies to second/ third generation COX drugs which can continue to produce gut problems.
Check invoices
Unnecessary tests can become commonplace where vet equipment on hire has to be paid for ie. if your animal has had exploratory tests for an infection, would a broad spectrum antibiotic simply have sufficed? Diagnostic vet 'toys' with plentiful, helpful staff, usually mean high client invoices to help pay for them, so did your animal really need numerous tests that cost a lot of money? To quote one one veterinary partner who billed a client after their animal died of cancer: 'That was only ever going one way.' The client wondered why he wasn't told of the poor prognosis before the bill reached 3,000 pounds?
Skinny savings
Skins problems can be a real issue when you take your pet to the vets, and the bills can mount up if your vet runs endless tests to try and pinpoint the problem. Ask your vet for a steroid injection (which they'll be happy to give because it stops any itching and calms any redness down). As the injection wears off over the next 48 hours watch what happens. If the problem goes away and comes back, your pet probably has an allergy (ie. a contact allergy, environmetal allergy, food allergy, etc.). If it goes away permanently, then a cycle of irritation and scratching has been broken, and if it happens again in the future, another injection will do the job. If it doesn't go away at all, then the problem probably isn't an allergy, which rules out numerous possibilities and gets rid of a lot of red herrings. The steroid injection should only cost about a pound, but the results are good value for money. Quite often the simple and cheap tests can be just as revealing as the expensive ones.
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Honesty and ethics
Unethical business practices can on occasions be employed by veterinary surgeries, and whilst these may erode public confidence, please remember that each surgery should be judged on its own merits (particularly the small independent surgeries). Vets also get fed up when colleagues take unethical advantage for commercial gain, and summarily pretend that all is well. Some of the 'sharp' practices that can be used, are discussed here.
Vaccinations
Vaccinations are essential in protecting your animal against common and severe diseases, and don't allow anyone to fool you that they aren't. However, there are some money saving ideas to be aware of, in connection with vaccinations. Firstly, you get a six-month leeway either side of the annual vaccination date for dogs, and a three-month leeway for cats. If a veterinary practice attempts to insist that you re-start the vaccination programme with a primary vaccination course (ie. that's more than twice as expensive as an annual booster), you have a good basis to smile reassuringly, enjoy the justification to be patronising, and simply take the annual booster instead. It's not a good idea though to extend the annual vaccination to every 18 months because vaccinal immunity wanes with time: nevertheless, the booster will still bring your pets' immunity levels up to the required antibody levels at 18 months from the last booster. One thing that many practices do, is to offer concurrent vaccinations ie. Kennel Cough, at the same time as the annual booster (for distemper, hepatitis, parvovirus, parainfluenza and leptospirosis). This is clearly against the manufacturers recommendations, but the offer is made because practices know that clients are unlikely to come back for the Kennel Cough jab if it isn't given alongside the annual booster. Combining the vaccinations can decrease the efficiency of the vaccines, and this is unwise.
Prescriptions
There's good news and bad news about prescriptions... and also a shaggy-dog story. But if you can't follow the story, no worries, because it's designed to be that way! Here's how it goes. When the previous government gave the public free vet prescriptions (for three years) they forgot to mention that they'd taken away all the cheap human drugs. No longer could human drugs be used on animals (despite the fact they'd been used successfully for years). The licensing costs of the veterinary drugs were passed onto the public, and veterinary drugs were about five times more expensive than the human drug equivalents. However, the licensing costs would already have been financially accommodated by the sales figures years ago, and although the new rules increased the veterinary drug sales, the prices were still kept high. This monopoly on high prices gave great revenues and taxes, so who lost out? The public. And the story was so boring and convoluted, everything was simply buried in complexity. Have you got a headache with all this information? If you have, then that's exactly the general idea that was intended. So don't necessarily believe it when someone tells you things are great, because you're getting free prescriptions... virtually nothing's ever free, and there's usually a catch!
However, the good news is that if you're careful, you don't have to pay the inflated prices. If you're currently using the human drugs, you can still hold onto them because they were originally dispensed before the previous government changed the rules. But remember, hold onto your human drugs for all you're worth, because if you lose them, you lose them forever.
Pet food
The TV series The Apprentice is a thoroughly entertaining series: it's a shame about the veterinary advice though. One of the programmes featured a criticism of 'EveryDog' dog food that could only really be described as interesting. The advisor they'd shipped in for the TV advice was always going to suggest that different dogs require different diets, because numerous different diets yield higher sales revenues. From a business viewpoint the criticism of 'EveryDog' dog food was short-sighted, since the idea was excellent. Dogs are omnivores, and most will thrive on a cheap, general purpose diet. In reality, the most important diets are the prescription diets, ones that treat specific ailments such as diabetes, urinary tract stones (or crystals), and conditions requiring liver support, etc. With time, prescription diets can significantly improve the condition of patients. We all make mistakes, but it's a pity that this castigation of 'EveryDog' on The Apprentice was such a howler. The bottom line is, for regular dog and cat food (to keep pets healthy) you don't need to spend a lot of money to get good value.
There's also a large volume of data to suggest that exercise is as effective as conventional drugs in resolving and preventing certain diseases. Most importantly, exercising the dog is totally free.
Even the 'less important' prescription diets sold at vet practices, can be sidelined by some careful management. For example, weight loss diets are effective because they reduce the fat and carbohydrate content of pet food, whilst the high bulk content fills the bellies of satisfied pets. However, there's a simpler and cheaper way to achieving the same result. Gradually give your pet less to eat, because this method is just as effective. Similarly, expensive hypoallergenic diets can be mimicked by cutting out red meats that occur in pet food, since it's the red meats that cause more problems with food allergies. In other words, choose diets with chicken above diets with pork, and choose diets with pork in them, above diets containing beef. Careful planning can usually help reduce your bills.
Beware of startups
Practice startups can often be the idea of a disgruntled employee from a practice down the road - startup owners usually want to work less hours and for more money. Startups can also be the instrument of commercial competition between different local practices, and such business dealings detract from the main focus of all veterinary practices ie. treating animals. The respectful startup practice (ie. that fills a geograhical niche where there's a need for a new practice, because other practices are some distance away) should of course, be welcomed.
Test sensibly
If you are going to have tests done for your pet's long-term chronic condition, make sure that the tests are to regulate the dose, as your animal hopefully responds to treatment - put simply, if you have regular tests for toxicity and the medication is important, are you really going to withdraw the treatment? The answer is basically no, and for most conditions, the best monitors for the effects of treatment, are the observable clinical signs. If the signs of the disease are improving, any costly tests are unlikely to tell you anything different, so it's probably better to save your money.
Out-of-hours
Practice owners get really fed up when their vets only have one or two out-of-hours calls a week, yet whenever they work a weekend they get ten to twelve out-of-hours calls ie. employee vets will do all they can to fob clients off, so they don't have to get called out. This isn't good for clients, and it isn't good for their pets. But you can use the situation to your advantage. Don't get too disheartened when a vet doesn't want to come out. Try and get as much information as you can from the vet at the other end of the phone. A huge number of issues can be resolved simply by the directions from the vet, and a crisis can be averted. What's more, you save the out-of-hours charges, which will usually top more than £150. If the crisis is averted, just go to the surgery for the next regular appointment, because it's a lot cheaper. This strategy works.
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