On Sunday, one of our cats fell ill. We took him immediately to our own vet's veterinary hospital at 11am.

The vet on call gave me an estimate of £400 and asked me to pay it all up front and said that she would carry out blood tests and let us know the result. We paid on our credit card.
Three hours later having not heard anything I phoned and was told that the vet would contact me with the results of the blood test when she was ready.

Three hours later at 5.45pm having heard nothing I phoned again. The vet brushed me off saying that he had some sort of virus and couldn't provide me with any blood results.
My cat was kept in.

On Monday at 7.45am I received a call from another vet who said that he had been looking after my cat overnight and that my cat was in a bad way when he took over at 7pm and he aggressively rehydrated him. He asked me to pay a balance of £244 over the phone which I had no option but to do as they had my cat.

Later that morning I phoned my vet whose hospital my cat was in and expressed my concern about the vet on Sunday and the charges they were asking me to pay. He said that those vets were his out of hours emergency service. They were a separate company called Vet Now and that he had no control over what they charged!!

Later that day, one of his vets phoned saying that she would like to run some tests and asked if I would agree to pay for them.
I of course said yes. She also said that a consent form would need to be signed. I called in and signed a form which said that the estimated cost would be between £300 - £800 and that Vet Now would need to be paid separately.

That evening at 8pm I received a call from another vet from Vet Now saying that he would be looking after my cat and that there would be a hospitalisation charge and would I be willing to pay it? He said that he would try to keep it as low as possible.
They had my cat, he was ill, of course I said yes.

In the morning I rang the hospital to ask how much I owed them and the receptionist said that she didn't know because the vet last night was from Vet Now who were a different company.

Sadly later that day my lovely cay had to be put to sleep after I spoke to a different vet who works at the practice who I trust.
It has been a harrowing and traumatic week.

Vet Now said that they have sent an itemised break down to me for that £644 which unsurprisingly hasn't arrived!
My own vet has sent me a separate bill for £679 which I haven't paid yet.

I don't know what I have paid Vet Now £644 for.
I am very concerned that the vet on Sunday may not have treated my cat as she couldn't tell me anything about his condition after 6 hours of being with him. This has upset me the most.

I am being billed for a total of £1,323 for my cat's 48 hour stay in the hospital where no surgical procedures were undertaken.
They just rehydrated him, gave him glucose as he was diabetic and took some blood tests.

I feel that we have been fleeced by these vets and that once VetNow took possession of the cat they extorted large sums of money out of us.

Our own vet who is obviously working with them is trying to say "Nothing got to do with me!!"


I would be interested to know your views anf if any of you have had similar experiences and what you would do in my position?

Also google: Vets Now and complaints to see what others say.


Sam.

OMG what an awful time you have had. Sorry to hear about the loss of your cat.

These vets seem to have charged you an incredable amount of money for 2 days worth of basic treatment, I would certainly be questioning it

This is not the first I have heard of Vets Now charging exhorbitant prices, they provide out of hours cover at ridiculous prices and no matter where the branch is, it always seems to be the same :-( If you google them there are all sorts of similar horror stories :-(

Our vets went over to using them last year but luckily the practice owner has always let us have his home number for the odd times we have an emergency as we are one of his longest standing and most regular customers, we have a lot of cats and also put our charity work through him and he knows we would only call in a true emergency. So luckily I have never had to use VN.

Sorry, how bad of me not to offer you my sincerest sympahty on the loss of your cat first, before ranting on about Vets Now :-( No excuses for my bad behaviour but I just get so angry about them. They seem to be experts at wringing every last penny out of people at their most vulnerable time.

My heart goes out to you having suffered such poor treatment at such a time.

I must say, though, your own vet doesn't exactly sound all that sympathetic or helpful either :-( I would be tempted to find somewhere else!

The more I read stories like this the more I am so very grateful for our wonderful vets who not only have fairly long weekday surgery hours but are also open Saturday mornings and Sunday afternoons.

This is a terrible tale and a warning to every animal owner. I'll get to some suggestions about this particular case in a moment but first some general points for all.

A veterinary 'hospital' does NOT mean the place is run by specialists or even particularly experienced vets. It is a term which can be used by any organisation so long as it meets requirements about a minimum level of equipment and is staffed 24 hours. Some of the larger chains have one per area and they charge huge amounts to run a 24 hour service. All vets must have provision in place for out of hours emergencies but many (if not most) simply refer patients to these 'hospitals'. They are NOT the equivalent of the university vet school centres and they are in business to make money just like any vet.

I would NEVER use a vet who didn't do their own out of hours work. You need to check. Just because a vet advertises a 24 hour emergency service doesn't mean they do their own - ask! Don't be fooled by the notion that a place calling itself a hospital will provide a higher level of care and expertise. If your animal needs more than a normal vet then it needs a specialist and you won't find one in these places.

Now the bills. My suggestion would be to put in a Subject Access Request to both places. PM me if you want for the way to do this and why it's different than just asking for an itemised account. Each one will cost you £10 but I've got a feeling it could save you hundreds.

Sam, I am really so sorry to hear about your awful experience and the sad loss of your cat. Having an elderly cat in and out of 'hospital' all this week I can sympathise with just how stressful and upsetting the whole situation is.
I took my cat to a local 'hospital' after getting a second opinion and referral for an U/S. I noticed that they had a hand out on the desk notifying customers that they were handing over their Out of Hours care to the company you mention. I am sure that the vaste majority of customers will just not realise the implications of this transfer, either in terms of monetary cost or of lack of proper care.

__________________

Nellie Paddy Mitzy Milo Peggy Murphy

Millie and Monty, the White Devils!

Hi,

Thank you so much for all your replies.

The thing that also upsets me is the fact that we have been with this vet for about two years and have latterly dealt with the owner and head vet.

I had a BEAUTIFUL british blue cat called Blue who last September at 4 years of age suddenly showed symptoms of laboured breathing.

I took him to this vet who immediately took him to his vet hospital.
He and his staff kept me informed of all the treatments and the prognosis and showed us the X ray results of his enlarged heart.
Bluey was in their hospital for about three days before he very sadly had to be put to sleep. I am still not over his passing. My heart literally physically ached for my beautiful companion.

There were no phone calls from Vets Now in the evening looking to extort money out of us nor any suggestion of the division of labour between my vet's practice and some other company.

They billed me about £650 which I felt was reasonable for what they had done. I paid it before seeing any itemised bill and was grateful that Bluey was provided with a high standard of care and that he didn't suffer in the end which was my main concern and I felt that they had achieved that.

As you can imagine, when my husband and I took our cat in on Sunday we expected a similar level of care and once we walked through the door we felt that he was in safe hands.

I had never heard of Vets Now.

I feel bereft at the loos of my lovely cat but in particular at the thought that they may not have treated him on Sunday and also just kept him alive to make money out of him because one vet said that without the drip and glucose he would be dead.

I feel that we have been mugged in a well orchestrated joint enterprise on the part of both vets practices.

I will follow this up though. I won't let them away with it.

Any advice you can offer as to how to best go about this would be gratefully appreciated.


Sam.

OMG what a nightmare for you. I am so sorry about your poor cat.

I won't say we had a similar problem exactly but we have had troubles with our vet to the extent that I have now broken off a nearly 30 year relationship with them following several 'incidents'. The last one was at the death of my cat Bella last September. She was 14 - not young perhaps but not desperately old and in good health generally. We were told she needed 'masses' of dental work which I didn't entirely believe but I accepted that she might need some work so consented for the treatment after paying for several tests to ensure that liver/kidneys etc were well enough to proceed. She seemed to go through the surgery fine and came home okay but the veterinary nurse who handed her back said something that didn't fully register at the time 'if this doesn't work we'll have to try something else' and she didn't need 'masses' of work - a clean and one tooth removed was all.

She went downhill so rapidly that it took my breath away, refusing to eat anything despite us trying everything under the sun to tempt her. I rang for advice but got fobbed off by the same nurse who suddenly announced that we might need further anesthetic because the vet had apparently noticed something wrong with Bel's jaw during the surgery - never mentioned until now. I insisted on seeing the Senior Partner and boy was that a waste of time. He was rough with the poor cat which upset me, gave her another injection supposedly to stimulate her appetite [didn't work] and told me that the operating vet had called him in for a consult during the surgery because she'd noticed something wrong with Bel's tongue. This they should have known about anyway because they'd treated her for an injury in her mouth years before when she'd had a run in with a hedgehog. Fobbed off again we went back to coaxing, begging and pleading with the poor cat to eat. When we went back for our follow up a few days later Bel had managed to take in something but not enough to keep a fly alive and then a few days after this I came home to find her in a terrible state. She was lashing out wildly at everything, wild eyed and terrified. I held her all night trying to calm her down and comfort her but by morning it became obvious that this could not go on.

This was on a Sunday morning but they wanted £130 up front before I could even go in. Of course you are on a hiding to nothing - of course you'll pay it and they know that. It turned out that Bel's liver had packed up, she had actually gone blind and was lashing out because she was frightened presumably of the shadows that she COULD still see. I can't remember the total cost by the time the end came but I felt very ripped off.

I wrote to the vet asking them to review Bel's treatment because I felt we'd had so much misinformation that her treatment had been compromised in some way. I really felt that her death had been completely avoidable [I heartily wished I'd never let her have that dental]. They did not respond. I waited a couple of months and wrote again, finally getting a response that really did not help at all.

This vet was a good surgery at one time but like so many vets these days it seems to be more about the cash than the care. Once a pet gets past a certain age they seem more keen to put an end than make any attempt to help.

I'm so sorry for the pain you've gone through. Losing a pet is bad enough, losing a pet and having the vet empty your bank account to no good effect just adds insult to injury. There seems to have been a lot in the press lately also about poor and expensive veterinary care. At least Dick Turpin wore a mask so you knew him for a highwayman.

Oh that is such a horrible thing to have happened. So sorry for the loss of your cat.

I would call the charges extortion. I recently had my kitty at the emergency vet and he stayed for 24 hours for gastro. When I arrived to pick him up, the vet nurse first got him to me and then after giving me time to say hello, went through the antibiotics instructions. Before I left I asked what the bill is. The nurse seemed surprised and said "you have insurance right? do you have a claim form?" and when I said we haven't contacted them she looked up his records, said that we had a vaccination due in 3 weeks and just to drop the claim form at the local surgery and they would handle everything.
I did get the total price which is about £400, including the emergency consultation, overnight stay, IV drip, antibiotic shot and antibiotics. We did sign a number of forms that night and the vet did mention some of the possible fees when we called her originally.

I'd start with some written complaints and see if there is a formal handling process you can go through. Not sure about where you can take it from there as I'm not familiar with UK laws.

So sorry for you loss, these out of hours and your own vet sound awful!

I would refuse to pay anything else until they give you a breakdown of EXACTLY what treatment your cat had and also demand a breakdown of the bills that you have already paid, then sit and go through both bit by bit and mark off anything you feel is unreasonable. Go to a different vet and ask for their oppinion of the bills to and find out how much it would of cost if you'd of taken him there.

If either the ooh company or your vets dont co operate complain about them as this just sounds completely like trying to make as much money as you'll part with under duress