Some vets are scammers -- most are not.

I have several vets in my family and they loathe, loathe, loathe the business side of things. As crappy as our healthcare system is, most Americans are pretty insulated from the true costs of healthcare—it's expensive but between the system and human medical ethics where doctors are (generally) supposed to solve the medical issue and THEN talk money, vets have to go by normal business people standards of talking money before the service and that really is off-putting.

Shop around, find an honest vet and get pet insurance.

Yes, please, please visit mom and pop vets.
You will not want a world where it’s all corporate.
My DH is one. He has worked for three employers. 2 being mom and pop. 1 was a corporate that was actually unique and decent. (Not Banfield, etc).

Vets are not scammers.

Anyone arguing that prices skyrocketing is reasonable because now vets are being compensated for their worth is an idiot. It’s private equity. The vet and especially the vet techs are still underpaid. It’s going to the Carlyle group, Mars and other PE groups.

Here is the PE model. Buy out practices using leveraged buyouts which mean the PE group buys it and then saddles the practice with a massive loan paying the PE company back. Next skim 20% of the profits per year and charge a hefty management fee to the practice. These proceeds go to the investors and are not reinvested in the practice. Now operating expenses are through the roof with debt and fees. Solution cut staff and start heavily pushing expensive services, raise prices. Next sell assets if any. If the practice owns the land they are on and it’s lucrative sell it and saddle the practice with expensive lease payments. Anything to squeeze out more money. When the practice goes bankrupt which is 10 times more likely once PE owns it, walk away liability free.

PE is known as vampire investing or the revenue extraction model.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We don’t go to the vet anymore for our two dogs. Stopped vaccines, flea chemicals, and feed raw meat, organs, sardines, salmon etc to our dogs now.

We will go in case of injury or acute issue but most of the issues we are seeing with pets are the same that we are seeing in humans. We are correcting the root cause of illness with good food, exercise, outdoor play etc. My two dogs, ages 13 and 11 are thriving!

Wow. This is profoundly ignorant.

NP. This sounds sensical to me.

I guess if you're ok with a flea infested home and your kids dying from rabies. Not vaccinating or using preventative is nuts.

I agree. It's not hard to find low cost pet immunization. My cat's was 30. Rabies is a real thing and raw meat food and air won't prevent it.

Indoor cats are unlikely to get fleas. I treat as needed and have never had to treat the indoor cats, though my barn cat gets fleas about every other year. They sell flea treatment OTC at Walmart, etc.

I vaccinate for rabies but that is every 3 years now. You can go to a community low cost event. Tractor Supply and the Humane Society have them in my area.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We don’t go to the vet anymore for our two dogs. Stopped vaccines, flea chemicals, and feed raw meat, organs, sardines, salmon etc to our dogs now.

We will go in case of injury or acute issue but most of the issues we are seeing with pets are the same that we are seeing in humans. We are correcting the root cause of illness with good food, exercise, outdoor play etc. My two dogs, ages 13 and 11 are thriving!

Wow. This is profoundly ignorant.

NP. This sounds sensical to me.

I guess if you're ok with a flea infested home and your kids dying from rabies. Not vaccinating or using preventative is nuts.

I agree. It's not hard to find low cost pet immunization. My cat's was 30. Rabies is a real thing and raw meat food and air won't prevent it.

If you go to the vet for a yeasty ear instead of treating it yourself, you are going to pay $400 for it. It’s the nature of the beast, not a scam. They have so much overhead, etc. you are paying for your share of all that.

I live on a farm and have had many animals for 40 years. I do basic diagnostics/treatment myself. I call my vet for things I can’t do, or things I need a vet record of for competitions (vaccines, health certificates, etc.). My vets charge a lot and I am fine paying it. My vet was out ultrasounding a mare this week—his machine cost $30k. Something has to pay for that.