After 12 years of being with our family and about 14 years of life, our dog died a couple of months ago. She was with us before we even had children, so our kids never knew life without her. It was tough to see her go, but it was even tougher to watch her decompensate into a shell of her former self. She was nearly deaf, nearly blind and was in pain from a tumor in her low back. After several days of constant yelping in pain and watching her chew a hole in the base of her tail, we had to put her down. We all still miss her.
When one door closes, another door opens.
About a month ago, we went to a shelter and found another pet. He was shy and unsure at first, apparently being bounced around at more than one shelter and being returned by one family because he nipped at them. We worked with him and he is truly a great animal. As he has gotten to know us better, he has relaxed. He loves to play tug of war and has developed this habit of chewing through any toy that is not partially composed of either metal or granite. Toys labeled “nearly indestructible” had him in mind. The only thing he hasn’t managed to destroy is a “Kong” chew toy.
Which brings me to the point of the post.
Samson loves to chase tennis balls, but one day he got to chewing at a tennis ball and made short work of it. Unfortunately, he didn’t spit the pieces out. He swallowed them. The pieces were too big for his intestine to pass on their own, so he developed an obstruction. We woke up one morning last week to see multiple piles of vomit on the carpet and our dog laying on the floor. We took him to the vet and x-rays revealed the obstruction. Surgical intervention was expected, but after taking in some barium, the obstruction broke free and ultimately the vet was able to manually remove the pieces of tennis ball from our dog’s rear end.
The bill for services rendered is below, although the vet gave us an idea of how much things would cost beforehand.
A couple of things came to mind.
First, in all the experiences I have had with a hospital, I cannot remember ever receiving an itemized bill for services without demanding it and refusing to pay for services until I receive it. In this case, we got it before we paid the bill without even asking for it.
Second, the total bill, including an overnight stay in the doggie hospital, was under $600, which we gladly paid. I know that we can’t compare human care to veterinary care in most senses, but some of the items charged are comparable. Ondansetron or “Zofran” is the same medicine humans receive for vomiting. One dose of Zofran in our emergency department costs more than $100. Metronidazole is the antibiotic “Flagyl” that humans use. X-rays are x-rays. A GI series in the emergency department is $450. This one cost $175. Additional views were thrown in free since we are good customers.
Want to solve the health care crisis?
Give veterinarians the license to treat humans.
Problem solved.
I’ve seen this comparison made many times and it works. Have a look at the cover article here: http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/current
The article comes from a somewhat surprising source and makes a strong argument for making healthcare more consumer oriented. All you doctors out there should buy reprints of this article and leave it all over your waiting rooms.
I am sorry you lost your long time friend. I let my boy, Chance, go to The Bridge in January. These guys just do not last long enough.
I’m with you on veterinary care. These people do such a good job with our furry friends and somehow manage to keep costs down. Of course, there is no animal alternative to EMTALA unless you count euthanasia.
There is a group called IMOM.org started by a woman in memory of her cat, Magic. People who can’t afford their vet bills can get assistance so they won’t have to put their animals down for lack of funds. You can even donate in the memory of a beloved pet.
I’m glad your boy is going to be ok!
In all seriousness, I would trust my vet over some doctors I’ve had in the past.
It was my vet who recommended I get a new doctor after mine told me that it was impossible to get rabies from a cat bite (this was when I was attacked and bitten by a stray).
Sadly, the doctors I do like and trust keep moving to other cities and opening up their own practices.
I’m glad Samson is OK. He sounds like a great dog!
I think the difference in the billing may have something to do with the fact that those who are insured or who will pay are overcharged to cover those who aren’t insured. People will go the the ER/ED regardless of ability/willingness to pay.
I’m just guessing, but I wonder how many folks who won’t/can’t pay for their pet’s healthcare just don’t go to the vet, resulting in fewer unpaid vet bills….which means the vet can charge more reasonable prices for services.
Just wondering.
Just wondering.
I think that you have hit the nail on the head!
I think that $100 to treat a $10 rat is outrageous, so none of my rats go to the vet. Afterall, though most of them ARE my friends, they are just rats and many people set rat traps or leave out rat poison to kill rats and mice. Also my rats are supposed to be, or produce, snake food.
When I took my college economics class, I realized part of the problem is the ubiquity of health insurance.
Basic rule of economics, if something is perceived as free or low cost, demand will go up.
Because of insurance, people feel like medical is or should be free or low cost. Because they don’t feel the costs directly, they have no incentive to control costs either. No matter how much costs go up, people still pay.
Pet health insurance is available, but it isn’t universal. For the most part, people pay Vet bills directly. They limit the frequency they go to the Vet, they rarely go for stupid stuff. If the cost goes up, they go less often. Animal medicine walks a balancing line of how much people are willing to pay.
I don’t have any direct experience, but I believe the Tort costs involved in being a veterinarian are much lower as well.
Another very good, and valid, point.
None of our pets have any health insurance.
After the only veterinary practice in the entire county mistreated our cat; instead of suing, we simply stopped going to any vet.
And people wonder why I pay pet insurance on my animals. Seriously, it makes a world of difference. Granted, they rarely EVER get hurt or go to vet outside of check ups, but when the time comes to take them, I know they will be well taken care of and it won’t kill my pocketbook.
I and my many thyroid-buddies have long wanted to beg our vets for treatment. I can’t tell you how many of us have dogs that were easily diagnosed and treated for low thyroid. And how many of us humans fought through years and countless doctors (while extremely sick!) before finding the special one who would acknowledge we might have a thyroid problem.
Cheers to all the great vets out there!
Sorry for the loss of your very special old dog, but very happy that you were able to add another one who seems to be fitting in so well!
Thank you! Always nice to know our services are appreciated!!
-A vet
Medicine would be this way without the insurance industry and creation of medicare and medicaid. This has ruined it because medicine is not governed by the free market.
The best deals and service out there in all of medical care is Lasik eys surgery and boob jobs. Why? Precisely because it is not covered by any insurance.
Snarkychef,
Your challenge is to please find a link of any single credible report of rabies transmission to humans by a cat. Anyway, hope you enjoyed your shots.
http://www.avma.org/reference/zoonosis/znrabies.asp#reference
http://fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2009/052009/05092009/465124
a rabid cat was found but is there any documented case of transmission of the virus to humans??
Human rabies: a reemerging disease in Costa Rica. Emerg Infect Dis. 2003 Jun;9(6):721-3.
A boy and an elderly woman died of encephalitis. In retrospect, both were bitten a few months earlier by a suddenly aggressive house cat. A laboratory confirmed diagnosis of rabies was made in the second patient (the first was already dead before the diagnosis was suspected). The virus was a bat strain, but there was no reported history of bat bite in either patient.
I suppose you could argue that the cat was a red herring (the carcass could not be located), but it would seem extraordinarily unlikely for two members of the same household to contract rabies directly from bats at nearly the same time.
The fact that cats do not typically serve as a “reservoir” of rabies does not mean that an individual cat cannot contract rabies and spread it to you.
From personal experience, I can tell you that housecats are quite enthralled with bats and capable of catching them and toying with them, as cats are wont to do. The cat in the above case was likely exposed to a bat from which it contracted rabies, which then got spread to kitty’s family.
I live in the county seat of a rural county that is large in square miles, but is very low in population (around 10,000 for the whole county).
We have one dental practice, one newly remodeled hospital with attached medical clinic (and 4 shared FP doctors), and one veterinary practice. They each charge monopolisticly high fees. To seek services elsewhere, means a trip of more than 130 miles – each direction. I usually go to the veterans affairs medical center that is about 180 miles away.
We no longer trust the local veterinary practice, so our animals (1 cat, 2 snakes, 10 rats, and 4 mice {recently bought as food for one of the snakes, which refused to eat them}) simply do not get taken to the veterinarian.
Two reasons for this:
one: patients never feel the impact of the costs as “insurance covers it”
two: contracting between physician and insurance company causes prices to be inflated
How to fix it all:
1. get rid of group health plans–allowing patients to have real power in dealing with the insurance companies
2. get rid of all contracting between physicians/facilities and insurance companies.
3. establish a “basic health plan” which must be at the core of all policies –similar to the “minimum liability” that one must carry on a car.
4. provide a billing schema for nursing care–nursing time is currently “unbillable” and is therefore lost in the shuffle of reimbursement, therefore becomming marginalized.
If these 4 things were done the consumer would be back in control of their healthcare costs and market pressures would change billing for the better.
“two: contracting between physician and insurance company causes prices to be inflated”
hahahaha, stopped reading after this
I’m a vet student, and have worked small animal general practice for 7 years, and it’s so nice to see that some people do understand just how much vets try to keep costs affordable. On the one hand, we love not having to deal with the headache of insurance companies and paperwork, but that means that everything has to be paid up front and out of pocket, so we talk money with owners ALL day. It’s the most exhausting part of the job, to explain, justify, and sometimes beg for every cbc/chem, fecal, cytology, x-ray etc., over and over – but I think it keeps us honest. And then we go home and drink
PS – The Kong toy comes in a radiopaque version (genius!)- the regular ones are pretty hard to destroy, but they obviously don’t show up well on an x-ray.
I think another aspect that helps costs is approach to end of life care. We spend so much money throwing every treatment possible at poor 100 year old grandma with multiple strokes, urosepsis and bowel obstruction, performing chest compressions every time her heart stops, until we torture her body into finally dying. We approach our pets in a much more humane way and have the decency to actually let them go.
Absolutely. It is said that about 50% of human healthcare costs are expended in the last 6 months of life. Part of this is because caring for sick people is plain expensive and sick people tend to be the ones that die, but another significant portion is the fact that our healthcare system is terrible at documenting and communicating our end-of-life wishes. Most people don’t want to end their lives with tubes running in and out of them and connected to a ventilator but it happens all the time anyways.
The number I read put it closer to 30%, but as you point out it’s difficult to assess because you can’t predict who’s going to die.
I disagree that it’s only the healthcare system at fault for end of life issues. Most of America is in death denial. When someone dies, the assumption is often that we’ve failed as physicians. Many families want ‘everything done’ no matter what because they believe that this one time out of a million, there will be a good outcome, and nothing the provider can do or say will convince them otherwise.
In most European countries the physicians and families are willing to draw the line when care becomes futile and say ‘no more.’ I suspect our politicians don’t have the balls for it (look at Terry Schaivo’s story).
I’m in peds and see this in our tiny 500 gram premie infant babies, but it’s the same as the 100 year old grandma. There has to be some sort of coming to terms with death, and both the medical profession AND patients need get more realistic expectations if we want to reduce costs here.
A flaw with the argument that fees are lower because there’s less insurance in the game is that it does not hold true in dentistry. Sure, dental x-rays are cheaper than medical x-rays, but dental services are sill much more expensive than veterinary services.
I think, in the end, it still comes down to how much we value the life of the patient. On the one hand, surgery for a human is always more expensive than the same surgery for a dog. On the other hand, no one seems to care if you show them pictures of malnourished children, but show them an emaciated dog and the donations start flowing.
With that, I’ll modify my previous statement on value of life to include consideration for whether or not you give a damn about the person (i.e., it’s not my family/gender/color, so I don’t care about them).
Wow, your vet is cheap! My vet charges $850 for teeth cleaning (requires anesthesia, but no overnight stay), $1500 for x-rays (the itemized list includes antibiotics, observation, iv fluids, etc)…I shopped around like crazy and finally got $600 for teeth cleaning. Skipped the x-rays since it was too much $ (was saving up for it when another vet found the culprit…a string going down the throat).
That is definitely a higher cost than human teeth cleaning.
My local pet emergency department (24-hr clinic) is even more expensive, since they have dog/cat lung, trauma, oncology etc specialists. If your situation (cost-wise) is typical, I wholeheartedly agree. But I have a feeling the vets are wising up and charging like mad because they can.
That’s because human teeth cleaning doesn’t require general anesthetic!
That sounds about right. We rack up the prices because we love transferring kittens to Jesus when owners can’t afford to pay for life-saving treatment. Makes us feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
Please do not accuse us of charging high prices just because we can. I cry with you when you have to euthanize your pet due to lack of funds or because it’s time to end your pet’s suffering. I have friends who have gone home and cried because they had to euthanize so many patients in one day. We joke about who was the deadliest doctor on shift to try to let off steam–but it sucks to be that deadly doctor. It’s a rude awakening when you want to help all the animals you can…and find that money prevents you from doing so way more often than you expected.
Medical care, veterinary or otherwise, is expensive. I would dearly love to charge less, (so I could use less pink juice) but we don’t have subsidies, so if we want to provide a high standard of care and stay in business, we have to charge for it.
WC, I’m sorry about the passing of your dog, and glad that the medical emergency for this dog had a happy ending. (no pun intended)
Compare the care your dog received to what a person under similar circumstances would go through in a hospital. For example, if I want to give a patient some zofran, I have to: fax an order to pharmacy, wait for it to be entered into the system, verify the order on the computer, obtain the med from the pyxis, scan the patient’s id, scan the medication, and finally…the patient can have some zofran. Oh…and I had to assess the patient, document everything a zillion times, and then reassess the patient once the med kicks in. Think of how much of our time goes into documentation and jumping through hoops to prove that we provide safe, patient-centered care. And, how many people are employed, how many meetings attended, all for the sake of staying in compliance with regs? It’s a beast.
As a capstone project, one of the medical students where I did residency tracked a written prescription through the system. In the ED, there are 23 steps between my ordering a medication and it being given to the patient (if parenteral – 21 if PO). At least 11 had been initiated in response to “safety mandates” from government or quasi-governmental (i.e., The Joint Commission) agencies.
The difference is quite simple. Physicians, some 40 years ago, hopped on the govt. gravy train in the form of Medicare and Medicaid. For decades it paid them very well without too much hassle. And, the consumers of their services came to see them not as professionals, but simply delivery mechanisms which they didn’t pay for.
That time has ended. The baby boomers are done paying in and now starting to be payees instead of payors. Costs must be cut, because all that time they were paying in more than was being taken out, we weren’t saving the money.
All of which puts us in our current fix. Physicians complain about it, and point to the vets, but few of those physicians dare leave the govt. gravy train for the free market like the vets. The vets can’t count on submitting bills and the US Treasury, after some haggling, always paying them. The vets get their money directly from the people. They have to price their services in a free market against other vets, and they compete on quality and price, like every other profession.
We have nearly two generation of US physicians who have no idea how to do those things. So we’re not going to go back to the free market. We’re going to go forward to universal coverage. The vets? They won’t change much.
Cool Matt,
We agre for once. Let’s abolish EMTALA, Medicare and Medicaid, move to a true negotiated insurance set up where I bill you, you get back whatever the insurance company will give you AFTER you pay me.
BTW – who cleans up? I mean remove the bodies of the renal dialysis patients who will die by the boatloads because they can’t afford insurance, or of the now septic IVDAs who never got treated for their skin pop abscesses, heck, just those of the ODs who perished for want of narcan… And if we move to this free market system you do realize that physicians will be able to (and probably will) refuse to treat lawyers or their direct families. Yep, we agree – SIGN ME UP!
BTW – the system you describe is now in place (sort of) in Russia. The government pays a small fee for each case, but a physician is free to charge additional fees and can demand those fees up front. I know of the niece of one of my nurses who died 2 months ago because her mother did not have the $600 (USD) to give to the doctor to treat the 3 month old child for pneumonia. Yep, free market works GREAT! And before you even think about it, the physician is immune from suit. He had no duty to act, until payment of his fee, there was no physician / “client” relationship.
Fry,
As if to illustrate my point that physicians have no concept of the free market, you even state you would decline to treat a group of people most likely to be able to pay you, simply because of a degree they hold. Or their children, which not only makes you foolish, but heartless.
Oh well, you’re going to be employed no differently than the people who scan our bags at the airport in 5-10 years anyway. Don’t be surprised when you’re given the same respect.
That Russian comparison is excellent by the way. Very on point, as always.
Actually Matt, I do understand the free market. The cost of choosing to treat lawyers, both in the risks represented, and in the detriment to the overall good, is simply too high. Lots of free market decisions are based on the risks versus the reward – so no, you wouldn’t get treated, and as for your kids, it is not heartless, it simply falls on that same risk / reward spectrum.
I’m sure that’s based on your usual deep statistical analysis of treating various professions. If I were you, I wouldn’t rush into the free market.
You can call your analysis what you want, but refusing to treat children simply because of a degree their parents hold remains a heartless thing to do.
But hey, if you can live with yourself, go ahead.
Yeah again Matt,
You don’t mind destroying other professionals, their families, lives and children to make a few dollars, but if I find the risk of your ire too great to assume (given a choice), I am heartless?
Please. As far as I am concerned if a few lawyers undergo the stress they put everyone else through, GREAT! I’m sure you don’t consider the “Grinch” from WC’s story heartless, but what was the effect of this suit on his (WC’s) kids?
It is your profession that begs us all to argue with logic not emotion. Increased risk (treating lawyer’s spawn) for no increased benefit equals poor business decision in a free market when analyzed in an emotionless manner.
“You don’t mind destroying other professionals, their families, lives and children to make a few dollars,”
As I told you, I’ve only handled two med mal cases. One, against a hospital where its employee blew up the tube in the urethra while the tube was still in the shaft (forgive me for not remembering the terms, it’s been awhile) which settled for somewhere under $30K I remember. Two, where a physician tied the tubes of a woman without her consent, made no mention of it in the records, and only admitted it later when the story began to leak out. Now, if handling those cases for the victims, both of which were paid by insurance or the hospital, constitutes destroying lives, and you won’t treat my children as a result, then you’ve got some skewed morals.
” As far as I am concerned if a few lawyers undergo the stress they put everyone else through, GREAT!”
Yeah, those district attorneys and those probate lawyers. Heartless SOBs.
“I’m sure you don’t consider the “Grinch” from WC’s story heartless, but what was the effect of this suit on his (WC’s) kids?”
Why is he heartless for taking a case that two out of the three experts who reviewed it thought the care was negligent? Because the defendant was a doctor? If he represented you against the truck driver who ran you over, and the truckers expert said the trucker had the right of way, does that make him heartless? Or are you immune from the consequences of the negligence of others?
” Increased risk (treating lawyer’s spawn) for no increased benefit equals poor business decision in a free market when analyzed in an emotionless manner.”
Again, the free market usually demands you are able to quantify a risk before making an economic decision. You, my good man, are just guessing. Which is why you better stay in medicine, where the government pays you a consistent salary.
The market will not bear the same costs. Vets charge what their market bears and we (and the pharmaceutical/hospital/etc industry) charge what our market bears – a crapload more. In upscale communities, the vets charge more than the vets in the working-class neighbourhoods.
You don’t charge what your market will bear. You don’t even set your own prices for your services.
Three thoughts:
1) You got a nice price. My mother’s cat was in ICU for several days a few years ago. It worked out to be about $1000./day. No surgery involved.
2) Every pet insurance plan we’ve looked at for our dog is effectively managed care – and (imho) fairly minimal care at that. This has been a bad year for us vet bill wise (two knee ligament surgeries) but at least we got to select the surgeon and much of the cost is PT rehab which isn’t covered by pet insurance.
3) Dog knee ligament repair was significantly lower price than husband’s ACL repair. However, the dog’s and daughter’s physical therapy appointments are about the same price. 3yo daughter goes to private PT for developmental help which isn’t covered by insurance.
There are quite a few differences between human and animal care. Actually, animal care has much in common with third world care in many ways. My horse gets sick the vet comes out and gives it an exam and a shot or whatever. Or we take her to the vet office and they put her in a metal stand, rusty in places where the paint has worn or been kicked off, hose the area down with warm water, and go to it. It is covered but outside, so any flies or whatever can visit. He washes his hands with a sanitizer, but doesn’t dress in clean scrubs. If the outcome is not what we want, he knows the chance of being sued is vanishing small.
If my sheep is sick, most likely I will administer a shot, .22 caliber.
Those are some of the differences in price.
Vets do have a lot less overhead. Not having to deal with insurance is huge. I recently had to have my dog in for x-rays (she was limping) as she was in such severe pain that she refused to eat even dog food (though she did eat some bacon I fried up for her) and I was going to have to put her in the kennel for a few days. I paid with a credit card right away, so unlike with insurance he had my money immediately.
By bill was very similar with the addition of a charge for anesthesia and the blood work necessary (and minus some of the others) to make sure such was safe as she is an older dog (they had to manipulate her legs which would have been difficult if she was awake). Turns out she just had a soft-tissue injury (and has since 100% recovered) likely due to her jumping my baby gate to keep her out of the kitchen (I’ve since got a 4′ tall gate) but it was still really nice how the vet sat down and explained the costs of everything. He also spent about 15 minutes going over the digital x-rays with me (how many radiologist do that?).
But yeah, most vets do their best to keep costs down. In fact, just like human doctors, they tend to do lots of pro-bono work. I recently adopted a second dog whose owners was on death’s door (I didn’t meet the guy so he may very well have passed away by now). The dog is obese (when I got him he was 72 pounds, he is now 65, but should only weight 50) as his owner was unable to give him much exercise and he was confined to an apartment. Anyways, because of his weight, he is having knee issues. Luckily there is a vet willing to do the procedure for essentially free (I’m paying a minimal amount) as he is simply happy that the guy found a home.
Anyways it would be nice is the medical profession didn’t have to deal with the hassle of paperwork, of collecting their money, and of liability (if the vet were to kill my dog the most I could expect to get would be 1-2k for a new dog). Fortunately I trust my vet (he’s a UW grad, and as I’m a current UW med student makes sure to go over everything with me at a “medical” level). Also, I think it helps that vets get to do so much. I mean, my vet office handles everything form imaging to pathology. That makes it a lot easier to make a living and also makes the job a lot more fun. I honestly find the current job of a human PCP to be pretty boring (and am not planning on going into that field, though emergency medicine seems like it could be pretty stimulating).
Oh, also I highly recommend buying some kong balls (the large size is $10 on amazon.com). My 2nd dog is quite the chewer and has destroyed many toys, but these are still in good shape. Also, if you are looking for another dog toy, my dogs really love their busy buddy dental brush/bouncer toys (also available on amazon), while they manage to gnaw off the replaceable rawhide chews in a day, the toy itself has held up so far.
oops looked it up. The busy buddy tow is actually the “bristle buddy.” It has bristles (essentially a bunch of tooth brushes) that are supposed to brush the dogs teeth as they gnaw on it. I think is better than the bouncy buddy as the rawhide treats last longer (I own the large size of both). However the “bouncy buddy” makes for a better game a fetch.
AS much as I agree with the logic you are getting at, we have made our healthcare so confusing and complicated that it would be impossible to be able to treat humans at this low of cost. We ruined those chances way back when. And now if you talk to any doctors or nurses about it, and you’ll learn that our system is too screwed up to change it effectively now.
Boy, do I feel the same way! Every vet knows the cost of the service he’s about to perform and is able to discuss it beforehand. And if you say something is too expensive, they can try to come up with a cheaper alternative.
And we can even get that bill together and to the client in a few minutes before they walk out the front door!
I can tell someone bringing in a hit-by-car dog that we’ll burn through about $1500 stabilizing the patient before we can take a breather and talk about reconstructive surgery. If you can’t deal with a $2000+ bill, tell us quick and we’ll get out the euthasol.
Vets are a lot less defensive, and definitely do things on the cheap, but a lot of it’s the same medicine. (By which I mean the activity, not pharmaceuticals!) It’s even often the same equipment; every vet near a hospital tried to befriend an O.R. nurse. Unused drapes and things from surgery packs on non-infectious patients get re-sterilized and used.
Most every vet staff member has had things quietly taken care of at work rather than bothering a human doctor with it. Think you broke a toe? Let’s take a quick X-ray and see. (Unfortunately, it’s muy illegal to do this professionally, so it’s a service limited to family and close friends.)
What’s really impressive to me is that vets are mostly generalists. The same guy does internal medicine and dental and orthopedic surgery and dermatology and so on. (We generally refer oncology, but there are some vets who do that, too!) You refer to a boarded surgeon for the really tricky surgical cases like organ transplants.
Was your vet planning on referring the surgery? Or was it (as I expect) back to the O.R. and into the abdomen we go?
The main difference is that vets aren’t used to really sick patients with a lot of comorbidities. Usually, by the time the second organ starts failing, people would rather put Fido to sleep than keep him going.
The other thing I note is that a lot of doctors become doctors either due to family pressure or to make money. (Physician trade journals have ads for drugs and articles about investing.)
There is (in my limited experience) a much higher density of vets directly motivated to take care of patients.
Oh yeah, and as you’ve seen, vets are suckers for giving discounts.
“I can tell someone bringing in a hit-by-car dog that we’ll burn through about $1500 stabilizing the patient before we can take a breather and talk about reconstructive surgery. If you can’t deal with a $2000+ bill, tell us quick and we’ll get out the euthasol.”
Well, there it is. Health-care costs for animals are lower because we’re willing to let them die. And note that I say COSTS, not PRICES. The typical consumer’s price for health care might be quite low, but a few “please don’t let him die, do anything so that he won’t die!” cases can drive the total cost through the roof.
And, y’know, it’s not that this is a bad thing; we value human life quite highly and are willing to go to greater lengths to preserve it. But when people start ranting about how dog doctors are so much cheaper than human doctors, it’s important to consider the reasons why that’s the case!
Just wanted to thank you for your observations on vet med. After arguing with clients that vets really *aren’t* making a killing on Frontline prescriptions and vaccinations, it’s nice to hear someone give some positive feedback on veterinary bills.