I'm gonna stick up for the vets!
Vets ARE expensive, but IMO you get what you pay for! Where I work is particularly expensive, but thats mainly because of the quality of care you get.
A consultation fee is £31.95, whether it's a great dane or a mouse. A mouse would get exactly the same physical examination as the great dane, so why should the price be any different?
The consultation fee is very high, but that's reflected in the fact that when you call to book an appointment, and say "I have a guinea pig with wheezy breathing" or "I've got complications with my dogs heart issue", they book you in with a specialist for that problem, be it an exotics vet, a cardiologist, an opthalmologist, an orthopedic vet etc. These people qualified as a vet (at a huge cost!) and are STILL (even the exotics vet at 60+ years old) in education. This ain't cheap!
Also, overheads in a veterinary surgery are beyond belief. Where I work, on a normal day, theres 3 vets operating at any one time, theres a nurse working with each of them in theatre. There's someone running the lab, there's 2 ward nurses dealing with inpatients, and theres 2 nurses on duty for nurse clinic appointments. There's 3 vets consulting, 2 receptionists on the desk, at least 3 people on the phones upstairs taking incoming calls, and then theres management - the practice manager dealing with whatever it is she deals with, theres someone dealing with insurance claims, someone dealing with accounts, someone dealing with a discount scheme we offer, and someone dealing with everything else (telephones, software issues etc.), plus 4 people dealing with HR. We also have a team of food sales people, currently 4, who deal with food orders and such, as this was taking up so much time with the receptionists, and then theres 2 guys who do food/medication deliveries. There's 2 night nurses who do the night shift looking after inpatients and such. That's just one surgery. The company I work for has 7.
All these staff are highly trained, and their pay has to be reflected as such (and trust me, the wages aren't great! I haven't had a pay rise in 2 years because of the low profit that the business is making!). That's before you even consider rent, insurance, utility bills, equipment maintenance costs etc.
Personally, I would rather pay the higher prices, for a higher level of care. Pets are a luxury, and as such aren't cheap!
As others have said, you can get a prescription written and buy the medication elsewhere, but you have to pay for the written prescription, which (having spoken to clients) often makes it less cost effective, when you add in P&P costs too.
So be sure to give your vet a little bit of love next time you see them!
