I hope you questioned the doctor's office about the TWO office visit charges and the vax charges. In my opinion, sometimes things get "tacked on" to insurance billing because the consumer rarely questions something that insurance paid.

I've always believed that vet charges are a bargain compared to human medicine. Most likely the difference is malpractice insurance. Human medicine is under incredible strain with those premiums.

I'm shocked with the price of human vax, though. Is that fairly standard?

Of course, it's worth anything and everything to keep your munchkin healthy!

The amounts charged by doctors and hospitals to insurance are really somewhat of a game, the charges are at least twice what the insurance will pay and it is the insurance that determines the actual payment, often based on what Medicare pays. I think the rates may be determined as a percentage of the charges, so the MDs will inflate accordingly. Plus, there's always a variable in there that covers non-paying patients, particularly in the hospital setting, and the insured basically cover the costs of the uninsured to some extent. I'll bet when you get the statement of what the insurance actually allowed to the doctor, it won't be more than $300 max. Veterinary charges are basically "honest" in that it's what you charge and expect to be paid, usually the actual cost of the lab plus a reasonable mark-up, which is much more logical and simpler and can be done by MDs because there's no game playing with insurance. Plus since there's less overhead in a veterinary practice as you don't have the huge malpractice insurance payments and you don't have to have full-time staff just to deal with the insurance companies for approvals and referrals, the mark-up can be less.

I agree, vet charges are more honest. I always study my medical bill and if I see something suspicious or don't understand a charge, I call the hospital and if I disagree, I tell the insurance company. If everyone did this, insurance prices would be a little less. A little helps.

Having worked at a health insurance company, I can tell you first hand, the hospital and doctors do inflate their rates and will "tack on" unnecessary charges regularly or try to get the patient to pay other fees they are not suppose to. Don't hesitate to take 15-20 minutes on the phone to ASK questions, understand the charges.

Furthermore, a valuable lesson from working at health insurance company. Going to the best hospital in the area for a not so urgent surgery will cost you more. In comparing the fees of different hospitals, one of the "better" hospitals charged double,triple the rates of other hospitals. This happens for several reasons. The salaries of these professionals are higher due to the "reputation" of the hospital. Also, a majority of the non-paying, non-insured automatically go to the better hospital AND YOU AND I DO PAY FOR THEM--whether they're low income,illegal immigrants or people who CAN afford health insurance but know their way around the system.

This is my peeve, more than a peeve, I'm outraged when I see people , friends, WHO CAN AFFORD health insurance but choose to spend their money on non necessities, luxuries--the fancy condo, the fancy car, the designer clothes, shoes, designer DOGS! Sorry to ramble but I work so hard all my life to support myself, even afater losing job three times, that I'm outraged to pay for others who cheat the system. Even when I was unemployed, I scraped every penny to buy health insurance and sacrificed everything else, no movies, no eating out, walking instead of driving..Because I don't feel right in having my fellow residents support me when there is something I can do. It's called living within my means, not getting into debt and saving for emergencies! I still don't have a DVR or iPhone. Don't need it!

My health and that of my pets is number one priority.

You have Insurance...A lot of Hard Working Folks are losing their Jobs and Homes. It is OK to make a Good Living, But to make a Killing. " Change Doctors",

I wish my vets would treat me too. They are far more competent than most doctors I have seen. I know costs have risen, but my vet bills have been reasonable. The only charge I thought was out of line was a simple rear end shave on my dog. It was 60% of what is charged for a total grooming. I also don't have to review vet bills with a fine tooth comb like humans have to with doctor or hospital bills.

Insurance billing has become a large industry too with the associated costs and overhead. There are so many ways that human medical costs are inflated that's it's amazing that we get as much care as we do. I've heard that it's harder to get into vet school than into medical schoool. It shows by the competence of most vets vs. their human counterparts.

"I’d estimate that a visit similar to my daughter’s for a pet brought into a veterinary clinic would have cost at least four or five times less." Depends on where you live... in the south and southwest vet care is affordable. In western NYS it is not. I know cat breeders who can have a cat spayed, chipped and vaccinated for about $125 total. For us that would be $375.

$375 may seem like a lot for a feline spay, but is that still not several times less expensive than a human hospital would charge for a hysterectomy alone? If you compare them, it's not really that veterinarians are charging so much less for there services as it is that hospitals are charging so very, very much more. I once had an elderly lady furiously complain to me about the price my hospital charges for heartworm preventative (which is less than $10 a month), stating that she has to pay over $5000 in medical bills for her husband every month and therefore cannot afford our prices. Honestly, sounded to me like our prices were not her problem, and yet we were expected to be the ones to back off. I understand that animals aren't "valued" as much by society as human beings are, and I do understand that vet medicine has to charge less than human medicine because that's what is demanded; but I still think people should understand that even at $375 a spay, no one is trying to get rich off your pet like human doctors are getting rich off your family.

Thank you Dr. Coates for this article, I think it's a topic that brings awareness and value to what we do.

When insurance comes into the picture, it will only cause more corruption and not necessarily benefit the pet. Take human medical insurance...it is FAR cheaper to pay cash for a procedure than to have the insurance billed. In fact, there was a recent expose' on that subject on our local news, and I live in a very heavily populated metropolitan area.
So, essentially, those of us who can afford insurance are penalized and pay for those who can't afford it, or as one other person posted, choose to spend their money on "luxury" items.

Human healthcare is unaffordable to many, and veterinary care is becoming somewhat the same, but not because of malpractice insurance, because of greed. There are still some exceptions to the rule , and some vets who try to make things affordable for the masses and thereby, fulfill their veterinary oath at the same time, while still making a reasonable profit. However, with the advent of "corporate " vet medicine, as well as veterinarians who make their living lecturing how to "grow" one's business into a million dollar practice are symptomatic of the turn that this once noble profession has taken. This is particularly ironic because pets are legally property, and the AVMA, as well as the veterinarians themselves, want it to remain that way.
Who ever heard of paying thousands of dollars each year to feed, supply medical care, toys, etc, to an essentially "worthless " piece of property. Until veterinarians come out in force and stand behind the issue of pets as FAMILY, they have no room to talk about comparing human medical fees with veterinary fees. Kind of like the pot calling the kettle black.

A recent quote from "Radiology Today" magazine pretty much sums it up...both for human and and sadly now, veterinary medicine.

"Despite spending far more on healthcare than any other country, The United States practically stands alone when it comes to people with illness or chronic conditions having difficulty affording healthcare and paying medical bills."

Karen Davis, Commonwealth Fund President

FELINE KNEE REPLACEMENT 20K (SCROLL DOWN FOR HUMAN KNEE REPLACEMENT COSTS, WITH INSURANCE COVERAGE)

The operation began around 10:30 a.m. Attendants did not wheel Cyrano to the intensive care unit until almost 5 p.m.

Marcellin-Little said the tabby's girth and big bones were a plus. He said Cyrano should be up and around in about a week, though he won't be climbing trees for a while yet.

"We would like him to take it easy for about three months after surgery," the doctor said. "And then we will let him be himself."

Because so much of the time and material were donated, university representatives could not give a total cost estimate.

"Part of this is a pure research project, in a way," said Harrysson, an NCSU professor of industrial and systems engineering.

The bill to owners Sandra Lerner and Len Bosack will be around $20,000. Sitting in a waiting room after the surgery, a visibly exhausted Lerner — who helped found electronics giant Cisco Systems — said "Rat Boy" is worth every penny.

"He's my child. And if it were your child, would you begrudge the money?" she said. "I have a personal philosophy that people are, at best, equal with the other inhabitants of the planet. And I'm very, very grateful that I have the money and (am) able to do it."

___



Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://washingtonexaminer.com/news/2012/01/tubby-tabby-gets-revolutionary-new-knee-joint/2142941#ixzz1kh9HSrAw



HUMAN KNEE REPLACEMENT (WITH INSURANCE)

Knee replacement surgery usually is covered by health insurance if ordered by a doctor. For example, according to Blue Cross Blue Shield of Kansas, any necessary surgery would be covered, unless it is experimental or covered in a specific exclusion, which is most common for weight loss surgery. Medicare covers knee replacement surgery.



For patients with insurance, out-of-pocket expenses can vary from hundreds to several thousand dollars, depending on deductible, and co-pay or coinsurance. For example, a Medicare patient undergoing a knee replacement at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, New Hampshire, could expect to pay $4,257 out of pocket, including deductibles and coinsurance. A patient with a $1,000 inpatient surgical deductible and 20 percent coinsurance, but an out-of-pocket maximum of $3,000 would pay $3,000. Actual costs could be lower because health insurance companies negotiate special rates with certain providers.

How much did the insurance company pay out for this procedure?

Looks to me like that was a new and revolutionary procedure they were doing on the cat, so I can understand the expenses are going to be much higher than something than is done more commonly.

Also, I'd like to know how much the hospital actually got paid total, from the insurance company and the patient, for the human knee replacement.

Sorry humananimal,

I somehow missed your first post completely, so if it seems like my last comment lacked a little perspective, it did. ;)

However:
"This is particularly ironic because pets are legally property, and the AVMA, as well as the veterinarians themselves, want it to remain that way.
Who ever heard of paying thousands of dollars each year to feed, supply medical care, toys, etc, to an essentially "worthless " piece of property. Until veterinarians come out in force and stand behind the issue of pets as FAMILY, they have no room to talk about comparing human medical fees with veterinary fees."

The hospital I work in, and the doctors I work with, very strongly support and encourage the idea of pets as family. I do agree that, as a whole, the veterinary community could stand make some changes and educate the public about this issue; but I know that where I come from and what I believe is that pets ARE family and should be treated as such. And when I compare vet fees to human medical fees, it is not to justify that we could or should be charging more, it is to say that many of us are already charging as little as we can to cover overhead and stay in business, and I wish more people could see that and give us a break. My hospital has some of the lowest fees in town, but there are still always the people who love to complain about prices and claim that they must be paying for the doctors to drive fancy cars and take vacations, when that just couldn't be any further from the truth.

Salamandee, I know of the owner of a clinic who bragged to a mutual acquaintance, who happened to be a neighbor, of how much money he was raking in, not the quality of care that he was providing. How sad is that?
Our veterinarian charges, for the most part, what I would consider to be fair prices. But it's the labs that are unbelievably expensive...more than I pay for my own. Ijust paid seventy five dollars for a thyroid ultrasound for myself. An x-ray at our vet is one hundred dollars. Unless one is having a major procedure like surgery, or a CT, I don't think it's fair to compare, as the cost of veterinary care has risen dramatically, and I think that vets are trying to justify that in a very,very bad economy, when people are struggling to put gas in their car, losing their jobs, food prices are skyrocketing, etc. Because fewer people can afford to care for their pets as they would like, I think we, the ones who can and are willing to do so, are having to make up the difference, but that is just my opinion.
Since we are comparing human and veterinary medicine costs, let's get down to another very valid comparison.
Could an MD ever....

1. beat a patient to death and still have a license?

2. punch a patient in the eye, dislodging the eye, and still practice medicine?

3. beat a neighbor to death and still practice medicine?

These are just a few examples that come to mind.

I am sure that that there are many, many vets, like our own, (and ALL of his techs and receptionists), who TRULY love animals and do the best that they can to help them. But in this era of corporate veterinary medicine, I am sure that there are just as many who rip off patients, do not think of the welfare of their patients first, and do actually engage in cruelty to their patients. It is just a symptom of our society..which has become much more materialistic and much less ethical, overall. The veterinary profession is poorly regulated and has been for a long, long time. Ethics used to overcome that, but no more....

I don't disagree that many vets charge more than they need to or should, my point is simply that most human doctors and hospitals charge exorbitantly more than they need to or should. I am fine if you don't think that's worth comparison; but clients often do compare us to human medicine, and they expect all the same standards of us except when it comes to cost, so I do think it's fair.

I do agree the profession is poorly regulated and hope for change, so I definitely appreciate your point of view and motivation to speak about it. There are a lot of things that it seems to me should be mandatory (AAHA inspections & hiring credentialed technicians come immediately to mind). Sadly, these things aren't enforced and cost the clinic more money, so many clinics don't do them. I think it's especially sad because I believe a lot of the unsuspecting public DOES think they are mandatory, just as they are in human medicine. I thought they were mandatory myself before I entered the field. I make it a point to educate everyone I know about this, as I think it's something people SHOULD know.

Ethics is a tough thing to fix. It's always wrong when doctors put money above their patients well-being, and even though the details may differ, I think greed, cruelty, neglect, and malice continue to run rampant in both fields. I've had my share of horrific experiences with human medicine, so maybe I'm just more inclined to defend one over the other, but honestly I think both should be held up to much higher standards. The way everything is going I can only see it getting worse.

On the topic of raising of prices all around, let me offer a different point of view. While I don't doubt that many vets justify it so they can line their pockets, I think just as many if not more justify it because they have to.
Everyone is hurting right now. Many clients look for the cheapest prices, and corporate marketing campaigns have been very successful at winning those clients. People demand quality, but they shop around for the lowest prices which doesn't typically result in quality. I see the entire field of vet med getting a bad reputation because more and more clients are turning to the cheapest and best marketed, but not the best at practicing medicine. The hospitals that do keep the focus on the patient, rather than advertising and gimmicks, have to raise their prices just to stay afloat, or simply go out of business. Remember that we are steadily losing clients to big businesses with lower costs, and the cost of our supplies continue to rise as well. But people see a price increase and they automatically think "greed". We are pretty darn low in cost (could'a got two xrays for about the price of one at your clinic) but nevertheless there is always a percentage of people that are inclined to distrust us and think we only care about getting into their wallets. When the reality is, in just about every aspect, the businesses who can offer us the lowest prices are the ones digging into our wallets the most.

I just had about a very long, probably nearly half an hour, phone conversation with our wonderful vet about one of our babies. I had a long list of questions, he responded to every one, will do research on appropriate antibiotic, gave us guidelines in DETAIL of how to manage her health problem, and will even ask around with his own physician for a particular speciality of medical doctor for me.
Last week, I also had an equally long and detailed conversation with my primary care physician, who is also wonderful, about the findings on a recent ultrasound, which will require a Bx. This doctor not only FOUND the nodule, but she called me from home and gave me the results of the ultrasound.
You can not put a price on quality. Our vet is a one man operation ,which I prefer, as it's much easier for him to remember his patients than if he is only seeing them occassionally. It is also easier to establish a rapport with ONE person whom you admire and trust than a bevy of people and different personalities. The same goes for my primary care physician. It is just she and her husband, one great nurse practitioner, some excellent techs, and the greatest two receptionists in the business.
My point being.....just because one is dealing with a "speciality" clinic, or a larger conglomeration of physicians/vets, does not necessarily make it better or more worthy of greater fees. Yes, they went to school longer, and yes, some probably became specialists because of the added income, but not all.

A good doctor or vet is priceless, and to lump them all together would be folly.

We all have choices to make when it comes to our own healthcare and that of our pets. More expensive does not necessarily equate with better care, and often, the bigger the practice, the less personable and personal treatment one will receive. There are always exceptions to every rule, but that is what I have found. If you find a good doctor or vet, stick with him.

I respectfully disagree with Dr. Coates that you "get what you pay for" when it comes to medicine. I have been to a very expensive specialty clinic that I wouldn't give you two cents for, where the vets didn't use the common sense that God gave them, had no diagnostic skills, and I have seen the worst and the best in human medicine as well.

Medicine SHOULD be a calling, not a "business", and in some instances, it is the reverse, and patients have suffered as a result.

SAL'S QUOTE:

"On the topic of raising of prices all around, let me offer a different point of view. While I don't doubt that many vets justify it so they can line their pockets, I think just as many if not more justify it because they have to.
Everyone is hurting right now. Many clients look for the cheapest prices, and corporate marketing campaigns have been very successful at winning those clients. People demand quality, but they shop around for the lowest prices which doesn't typically result in quality."


SALAMANDEE, I tried to reply to yout preceding quote in the "normal" way, but the "reply to this comment" window won't load on my computer, very capricious. It just "freezes".

Anyway, you made a good point about the large "corporate" vet clinics. However, I must respectfully disagree with you regarding price and quality. I have gone to a local specialty clinic which is known to be very expensive and high tech. Yet the vets there (some of them interns, some not) were some of the poorest diagnosticians that I have ever seen as long as I have had pets,...which is my entire life, and I'm elderly.
However, from what I have heard from people who take their pets to the corporate owned vet clinics, I do agree that the quality , for the most part, is just not there. I can not speak from personal experience, only what I have heard anecdotally from, others.
One thing that does bother me is that I often wonder if all clients are charged the same prices. I think when you are talking about medicine, be it veterinary or human, unless one is destitute, all clients/patients should be treated equally when it comes to fees. As a matter of fact, those who are loyal and longterm clients with multiple pets, if anything, should be the ones given a break once in awhile.
My fear is that vets will price themselves right out of existence, and truly, if prices keep rising as they have, many more people will not be able to afford to PROPERLY care for a pet. And that will be a tragedy, fueled by the veterinary profession itself.


"SAL'S QUOTE:
I see the entire field of vet med getting a bad reputation because more and more clients are turning to the cheapest and best marketed, but not the best at practicing medicine. The hospitals that do keep the focus on the patient, rather than advertising and gimmicks, have to raise their prices just to stay afloat, or simply go out of business. "

AGAIN, Sal, I must respectfully disagree. I think that the reason the the entire field is getting a bad reputation really has very little to do with that.., but rather, the fact that is poorly regulated, and that the state boards do little or nothing to punish egregious CRIMES and unethical behavior perpetrated by vets who do not care, are sadistic, are drug addicted, or are just plain incompetent. While medical boards for MD's aren't much better, the profession as a whole is much, much better regulated.

In addition, their hypocritcal stance on the pets as property vs. pets as family issue has rubbed MANY of us the wrong way. We see that as a direct slap in the fact to every pet who has died prematurely and needlessly,and to every person who has suffered emotionally because of that loss.

http://www.thebostonchannel.com/news/20203212/detail.html

THIS is why the veterinary profession is losing respect in the eyes of the public.

I don't balk at prices at the vets 99 out of 100 times. The one time I really thought it was ridiculous was when I was charged about $40 for a bag of lactated ringers, and when I was charged about $50 for the tech giving my mom's dog 50 ml of the fluids not to mention the $15 for hte 50 ml of fluids themselves. I know what lactated ringers cost by the bag, seriously, that was nuts.

So, I am happy to pay fair prices and even high prices if indeed I am convinced I am getting good care. But as you know, one of the big problems is that unlike our children, our health care plans don't cover our pets, and even teh best pet insurance plans don't cover a LOT of stuff. Basically, we still pay out of pocket for pet care.

So when I hear the argument that vet care is still cheaper than human care, and therefore we shouldn't balk or be concerned about price, I really can't agree. Because my vets prices may still be slightly lower but NOT BY MUCH. An office visit is now about $75 (I don't think my PCP charges much more than that) and a blood panel ranges from $150 to over $200 depending on what they are running; ultrasounds are over $300 and xrays are hundreds too.

I almost never have a vet visit that is less than $200 out of pocket, and $600+ is not unusual with my aging pets.

On the other hand, I almost never have a doctors visit that costs me out of pocket more than $50.

Yes, true, I pay a few hundred a month and so does my employer, but I generally get a lot more out of it than I pay in which I can't see ever happening with pet insurance.

So, vet bills take a bigger bite out of my hide than my own medical care does. I'm not bitching; you need to be paid a fair price and I am happy that we have access to much the same medicine for our pets as humans. (When we are smart or lucky enough to end up with conscientious and competent vets, which I think is at best, 50% of the time.)

I think my current vet is in that 50% and I'm happy to pay her but seriously, it costs much much much much much much more than my own medical care. Thousands out of pocket a year, in one two year period well over $16,000 and that was thanks to a vets negligence and the medical costs of treating and dealing with the iatrogenically induced brain damage he suffered because of that vet.

Even now in a normal year, with my (I think and hope) good vet and her high-but-I'm-happy-to-pay-them prices, it's THOUSANDS every year. I wouldn't be surprised if I added it up and found it's nearly $10k in a normal year, having 4 cats 3 of whom are now "senior" and being one of those people who still gets talked into annual dentals at $600 a pop.

So, I'm not begrudging or denying the realities of school debt, and equipment and staff costs and all that. I'm just saying that because it's a sliver cheaper still than human medicine doesn't mean it's less expensive for us. It can be cheaper than human med yet STILL much more expensive for us than our own medical care and that's why it can be such a burden on people that they resort to doing perhaps unreasonable things like trying to get you to take things off their bill or complaining about the expense. It's not an atractive behavior but it's very stressful to think that you might be in a position of being unable to afford care for your pet.

I have to agree with HumanAnimal that there are many expensive vet clinics with awful vets. I shoudl know, I FOIA and read state veterinary board records every year.

What I figure is this:

You cannot get top notch veterinary care at bargain basement prices. You just can't. Maybe you can get a good "basic" primary care vet who is a real animal lover and taken an oath of poverty, who is great (I know one) but that person is ONLY ever going to be able to do exams and basic stuff.

However, you can pay the highest prices in town and still unwitingly end up at a butcher's. The vet who left his patients, including my cat, with his unlicensed son who wasn't even a vet tech and thus used the wrong syringe to give my cat insulin resulting in a huge overdose -- that vet was AAHA accredited and still is. AAHA investigated but didn't do much. When I asked them about it they basically told me to leave them alone. AAHA doesn't give a fig. Really these people pay to be in AAHA and they game the inspections. I heard it from one of the vet boards inspectors here. AAHA has to know that. They refuse to do unannounced inspections, they schedule them, thus ensuring that vets can game the inspections. AAHA hospitals are more expensive.

Another guy here locally is one of the most expensive vets, with the most expensive equipment, and lots and lots of horror stories. IMHO, seems like he's in love with all that gadgetry and he and his staff don't seem to be too careful about how much drugs they give animals so they are more readily able to play with all that gadgetry. But people don't know that, they see all the modern equipment and get impressed. Another expensive dental specialist in my state has killed at least two healthy animals with what I believe to be an overzealous and incautious anesthetic protocol. Very very sad story -- he kept an elderly dog under over 3 hours and the dog died. Who keeps a 13 year old dog under 3+ hours? Someone who loves to pull teeth more than he loves his patients, that's who.

So, yah, bargain basement prices and generally a red flag. But don't ever fall into the trap of believing that top prices necessarily mean top quality. It may be that the former might help provide the resources for the latter, but they do not in any way ensure the latter. Sadly. You can't buy competency at any price. You really have to look at other things, like reviews and disciplinary records and ask lots of questions about the practices and VERIFY the answers.

A big thing for me, for obvious reasons, is "does the vet use exclusively or primarily licensed technicians?" That is also no guarantee, but I would argue that it is a much better indicator of a vet who cares about QUALITY of care than price is. Admittedly, having licensed techs will mean higher prices, but many vets have higher prices just to make more profit and still hire untrained idiots and put them in scrubs and call them "technicians."

Stefanio,
You made some great points here, and I am sorry that I have been late in responding as I hadn't seen this, since I've been spending much of my time lately going to doctors myself.
I think that the issue of CVT is a good indicator of care, and sadly, the specialty clinic in question..you know, the one with the high prices and fancy diagnostic) equipment (which they don't know when to use) hired both certified and non certified techs. That may have changed now, but at the time that our dog died there, they did not hire CVT's exclusively.
On the other hand, and this is just conjecture, I don't know if certification necessarily is the be all end all. Logically, it should be, as one certainly doesn't want a tech that is "learning" on your pet. However, if vet licensing is any indication, there are licensed vets, like at that specialty clinic for example, who don't use the common sense that God gave them in order to rule out or to diagnose. The vet in question (who is not a specialist, by the way, seven years after our dog's death), had no more idea of how to recognize an emergent situation than someone off the street. Yet on the website, one of her interests is "emergency care." Go figuer. She got through vet school, but does that mean that she is a great vet? Not really.
Just some random thoughts regarding your great reply to my post.

human animal: I couldn't agree more that since the vet profession has turned to the human medical world as an example of how to run a business, things have gone downhill. I just don't understand it, since the human medical world in the US is such a spectacular failure. Here in FL we have the highest rate of Medicare fraud in the US. And no one is doing much about it.
Salamandee: I really don't think comparing costs of hysterectomy to spay is useful. Do vets use all the equipment available for humans in surgery? Doubtful. I also think the cost of human procedures is inflated due to insurance and malpractice issues.
Stefanio: Here's the rub. Just why did a vet think he/she could charge 40 bucks for a bag of Ringer's? I'm not interested in hiking fees to pay for everything else in the clinic. Just charge what it's actually worth.
And, by the way, this site still takes the longest to load and sign up. Speaking of not getting what you pay for in terms of site management..........

CathyA, great points. On the one hand, they want us to believe that our pets are property, and on the other hand, they want to compare vet medicine to the human model, which is certainly broken. You are right about the level and pervasiveness of Medicare Fraud in FL, and yet it still persists.
As far as comparing a spay to a human TAH/BSO. Unfair comparison. Many hysterectomies now are done robotic, and the equipment for that, I am sure, is very costly, and beyond the reach of most veterinarians. On the other hand, in the local specialty clinic, they have CT's, MRI's, and other very expensive machinery, so it is understandable that they would charge accordingly for those services. However, their reputation is suffering because many see them (and rightly so, in my opinion) as lacking in ethics, and out only for the almighty dollar, as evidenced by the comments of one of their own as to how much money was being raked in, not the quality of care.
As I said before, in these uncertain times, if veterinarians want to stay in business, they are going to have to try to hold the line on costs, or at the very least, try to realize that if they don't, they just may well be putting themselves out of business.
Scary times in which we are living, on many fronts.