Vets And Snake Bites

[Shazzapug]

Thanks for this thread as sad as it is for the poor OP Husky. My vet is 45 mins away and would not hesitate to administer anti venom but I am afraid it would be too long a drive.....so this thread has prompted me to ring our local vet who charges 3 times the $'s than my Bendigo vet but I now need to find out what their procedure would be if I needed anti venom for one of the pugs.

[Jed]

These days, even regular vets wont be out of pocket, because too many people wont pay.

Emergency vets - last weekend. Couple brought in a pup, very very sick, vets thought there was not much hope. Couple went out to the car to bring in their credit card, and have not been seen since.

Woman brought in cat hit by a car. Wanted it x-rayed and treated. Vet sedated and gave pain killers, put the cat in a cage, next am, x-rayed, broken leg, broken pelvis possibly damage to bladder, outlook seemed grim, owner was advised to euth. Then went ballistic about paying for a/h treatment and xray.

When some people have nothing to see for it, they have no motivation to pay, and vets wont take the chance.

Pet owners should have a small savings account that they put a little into, and not touch, credit card, or pet insurance, to cover all contingencies.

As a breeder, i always put some of the puppy income into an account - whether it is a loss or a profit situation - and use that for vet accounts etc.

[Tim'sMum]

If I was a Vet, and let a dog die because someone did not have the full amount of money on them at the time, during what is an emergency.....I actually don't think I would sleep at night.

[dancinbcs]

Thanks for this thread as sad as it is for the poor OP Husky. My vet is 45 mins away and would not hesitate to administer anti venom but I am afraid it would be too long a drive.....so this thread has prompted me to ring our local vet who charges 3 times the $'s than my Bendigo vet but I now need to find out what their procedure would be if I needed anti venom for one of the pugs.

Our vet supplies their rural customers with intravenous Vit C and teaches them how to administer it. It must be given very slowly into a vein and can buy you up to a couple of hours with a snake bite to give you time to get to the vet. Apparently it does work, but not as well, if given into a muscle in an emergency but it will cause painful damage to the muscle it is injected into.

Regular breeder clients get accounts so don't have to put up the money for anti-venene straight away but casual clients do. If they are having trouble working out if they can afford it the vet will administer the Vit C to give them more time to decide. Occasionally the Vit C alone will work if the dog has only gotten a very small amount of venom in it's system.

[Shazzapug]

Thanks for this thread as sad as it is for the poor OP Husky. My vet is 45 mins away and would not hesitate to administer anti venom but I am afraid it would be too long a drive.....so this thread has prompted me to ring our local vet who charges 3 times the $'s than my Bendigo vet but I now need to find out what their procedure would be if I needed anti venom for one of the pugs.

Our vet supplies their rural customers with intravenous Vit C and teaches them how to administer it. It must be given very slowly into a vein and can buy you up to a couple of hours with a snake bite to give you time to get to the vet. Apparently it does work, but not as well, if given into a muscle in an emergency but it will cause painful damage to the muscle it is injected into.

Regular breeder clients get accounts so don't have to put up the money for anti-venene straight away but casual clients do. If they are having trouble working out if they can afford it the vet will administer the Vit C to give them more time to decide. Occasionally the Vit C alone will work if the dog has only gotten a very small amount of venom in it's system.

I will look into that thankyou. We have Tiger snakes, Copper heads, Red bellys and the occasional Brown. There has been a few dead on the road lately here so they are definately out and about.

[OSoSwift]

While Vit C has been shown to be some help I personally wouldn't stop for the amount of time required to give it. Unless I lived a very long distance from veterinary help.

Also some snakes dry bite, as in they strike but do not envenomate. If this is the case, giving Vit C would appear to cure the bite when there was no envenomation in the first place.

Do you have a study showing it buys a few hours?? While I believe it can help I am not sure I would confidently say it can buy a few hours. There are so many factors involved with envenomation to death that I am not sure I would trust it that much.

My advice is grab and bolt, ideally getting someone else to phone ahead so the vets are expecting you. Obviously there is the issue of payment with some clinics so I would advise finding out what your vets protocol is on that BEFORE you actually need to put it to the test.

[Danois]

If I was a Vet, and let a dog die because someone did not have the full amount of money on them at the time, during what is an emergency.....I actually don't think I would sleep at night.

I'm sure the vet will also not sleep at night worrying about how he can feed his family, pay his bills and order sufficient supplies to treat other animals who present at their clinic when he's having to carry bad debts or has insufficient cash flow to get by.

It is not a vet's responsibility to ensure people have money to afford treatment or to extend lines of credit to people. That is your own personal responsibility that you take on when you become a pet owner and if you cannot afford it or have a fund set aside then you should be rethinking your choice to own a dog.

[laeral]

When my girl was bitten by a brown snake, my vet explained the cost of treatment as she was setting everything up and getting the anti venom ready. She certainly didnt wait to get payment up front. Once I understood the cost and agreed she administered treatment straight away.

I didnt pay anything until I picked my girl up from the vets. They are my regulalr vets though so that may make a difference

It is just as well they didnt demand payment up front as I was in such a rush to get the dog to the vet I left my wallet at home. It would have been a 40min round trip to go and get it and my dog may have died. Note to self, grab wallet as well as dog.

[auir]

Was just talking to a friend at work about one of her dogs and some surgery that is required

her vet actually suggested VetPay, basically its a credit line of up to $2000 which you can pay back over 3, 6 or 12 months

sure you will pay interest on the loan amount, but it is one of the family and i think i would do anything i could to help our boy

www.vetpay.com.au

[stormie]

If I was a Vet, and let a dog die because someone did not have the full amount of money on them at the time, during what is an emergency.....I actually don't think I would sleep at night.

You should look into the suicide rates in professions and see which ones are up there...

[Aussienot]

When my dog was bitten by a tiger snake, my vet came in on Sunday night to treat him. He did let me know that every dose of anti venom cost $700, and I kind of gave a sharp intake of breath at that, but there was no question that trying to save his life was worth anything. Four days of care later, he did die, sadly. I don't know what the vet would have responded if I'd said I couldn't afford it, but I do know he cried when Finn died. I am sure that if I agreed to the amount, he would have let me pay it in large installments.

Most small vet practices don't have a good cash flow, and I can fully understand why they need payment for goods to continue in operation.

At AWL, we occasionally would have a nearby vet ring us when a dog needed treatment to live and the customer did not have income to pay. If it was someone we could treat in the shelter vet clinic, and the dog could be transported, we would work out a payment plan with the owner. We only charged for products used, a flat rate for vet time, and a small amount for daily care. Extremely discounted rates.

Fewer than one in ten every paid anything, and fewer that 1 in 20 ever paid off the account. So helping people out to benefit the animals is something only a well funded not for profit can do.

No business can survive without getting paid. A vet may start off naive, but they don't stay that way if they want to keep their practice going.

[SkySoaringMagpie]

We assume now that no emergency treatment will occur without upfront payment at any vet, and we keep a credit card for that purpose. The difficulty is that for people who are not experienced dog people, and not bad debtors, it's a hard, hard lesson in the realities of life. Many people have no reason to think they'll be asked for full payment upfront, that is not how ordinary consults work for a start, so there's no precedent for it.

I do think that if someone has a good record at the practice (ie, they pay their bills and they bring their dogs in for appropriate treatment/checkups) that it is pretty hard to insist on full payment when they are providing a good deposit in good faith.

Edited February 8, 2011 by SkySoaringMagpie

[megan_]

I understands vets need to be paid and such but they should atleast care about the animals welfare how can you just turn a dog down like that. Really confuses and upsets me at the same time, R.I.P poor dog. I dont understand why a deposit wasnt enough.

Because vets need cashflow to pay their bills - ie the timing of the income is the most important thing in keeping a business afloat. If people pay by installments, vets might not have enough cash at hand to pay their bills. After all, they need to pay their wages, the vet nurses' wages, their suppliers etc.

Would you expect a vet nurse not to be paid that week because clients were struggling to pay their bills?

Many people don't have an established relationship with their vet and then turn up and expect thousands of dollars in free credit.

As pet owners, we have a responsibility to care for our pets. This means putting aside the $ for vet care. Obviously, not every one has the same means and some owners won't be able to afford costly treatment to care for their pet. That is sad, but I don't expect vets (and their staff and suppliers) to foot the bill instead.

[~Anne~]

Anne - The vet has a business loan to cover its operating costs. It has to call on that loan in lieu of cash flow (i.e the bad debts) which would have ordinarily gone to the operating costs. As it is a loan, interest is payable. Not sure what is hard to understand about that

I would expect a Vet to charge upfront for at least the anti-venom. The minute the vial is used it is a cost to the practice. They need to ensure they are paid for that (given the cost of it) to ensure that they can replace their stock. I can imagine some here would be calling for blood if they rocked up to their vet with a snake bite only to be told, "sorry we have no anti-venom on hand as the last 2 people are paying it off at $25 a week and we cannot afford to replace it until they pay us."

Again - vets are not banks/ credit providers - they are a service provider and what people expect of vets they would not expect of other service providers.

If you read what was written Danois, it states clearly that the $1,000,000 is bad debt and is attracting interest. It doesn't say that the business owner's loan is for $1,000,000 and that without cash flow thay are attaracting more interest because it is taking longer to eliminate their debt.

vetrg:

I used to work at a clinic that had over $1,000,000 of outstanding bad debts. With the interest they were paying on that they could have employed another vet.

I asked for an explanation as I can not understand this.

I can't see what you can't understand about that.

On another note, I'd like to be the Vet that is employed there if they are paid to a value of 1 million dollars.

Getting back to the actual topic - I still think the request by the Vet was wrong. As it has been pointed out, the owner had already said they could cover part of that amount. Unless that part was a very insiginificant amount, then it should have been accepted.

I am just glad that my Vets, and any Vet I have worked with (bar one) has had the animals needs as the highest priority. Financial incentives may be a very close second, but the animals need should still always be first. No-one expects a veterinary practice to be a free for all or a credit provider, but I guess not many expect to have their dog face a life and death situaiton either and have to worry instantly about money. You would expect to at least get the dog to the clinic and treatment commenced before you have to start robbing Peter to pay Paul as the expression goes.

[OSoSwift]

the owner had already said they could cover part of that amount

That's the point though, they said they would pay X amount. Saying and doing are two very different things which is why the situation stands as it is.

[Danois]

the owner had already said they could cover part of that amount

That's the point though, they said they would pay X amount. Saying and doing are two very different things which is why the situation stands as it is.

Exactly - and what if the dog needed a second vial? Suddenly the vet is $1,500 out of pocket for medication they've had to buy and having to rely on someone saying they will pay the bill with no way of knowing if they actually will or simply drip feed it back to them over the next 2 years.

[dasha]

As said............vets are not banks.

Do you expect to go get all your groceries in a trolley, swipe them and then say do you mind if I pay next week when I get paid. Or go to chemist to pick up important heart meds and just expect them to be handed over because you left your wallet at home but you NEED them and so they should just trust you will come back later and pay for them.

Vets are also running a business and yes I understand more emotions are involved in animals than groceries but why should vets get a raw end of a grudge. They don't know you dog like you. Clients are trying to protect their pets which is fair enough. Vets are also trying to protect your pets as well as their business or their bosses investment and their own jobs.

[bulldogz4eva]

As said............vets are not banks.

Do you expect to go get all your groceries in a trolley, swipe them and then say do you mind if I pay next week when I get paid. Or go to chemist to pick up important heart meds and just expect them to be handed over because you left your wallet at home but you NEED them and so they should just trust you will come back later and pay for them.

Vets are also running a business and yes I understand more emotions are involved in animals than groceries but why should vets get a raw end of a grudge. They don't know you dog like you. Clients are trying to protect their pets which is fair enough. Vets are also trying to protect your pets as well as their business or their bosses investment and their own jobs.

Now you are talking about 2 different things.Paying later and being asked to pay upfront.I would expect to pay at the end of treatment/consult.Not before.

[bulldogz4eva]

While Vit C has been shown to be some help I personally wouldn't stop for the amount of time required to give it. Unless I lived a very long distance from veterinary help.

Also some snakes dry bite, as in they strike but do not envenomate. If this is the case, giving Vit C would appear to cure the bite when there was no envenomation in the first place.

Do you have a study showing it buys a few hours?? While I believe it can help I am not sure I would confidently say it can buy a few hours. There are so many factors involved with envenomation to death that I am not sure I would trust it that much.

My advice is grab and bolt, ideally getting someone else to phone ahead so the vets are expecting you. Obviously there is the issue of payment with some clinics so I would advise finding out what your vets protocol is on that BEFORE you actually need to put it to the test.

I can tell you from experience it will buy you a few hours.My dog was bitten on the lip twice by a 6 to 7 foot dugite (brown snake).Vet said becuase of capillaries this is the worst place to get bitten.I saw her get bitten and injected her intravenously straight away and then an hour later.It was 2 to 3 hours by the time I got a vet and got to the surgery.I am talking about a 60 pound dog,so there is no way a dog that size bitten where it was could have survived that long without it.Vet administered antivenine and dog was looking good but the inexpereinced vet gave her an atropin injection straight away and stopped her heart so I lost my best mate and still had to pay $900.All he could say as I carried her out the door was are you going to pay now or later.He is very lucky he still has his front teeth.

[bulldogz4eva]

I am only asking this as I found it a bit sad

My neighbour was at her friends house on the weekend and friends Husky

decided to take on a Red Belly. The Husky lost and was bitten

They rang the ladies ver and another vet to seek treament but both told her

she needed to pay full treatment price before they open the vile of anti-venom

The lady had part but not full payment of $1400 quoted so they ended up rushing her

to another vet but it was to late and he had to put the dog down.

As a dog owner i would be really stressed and feel so helpless if this happened to me

I rang my vet and asked them their snake bite procedure and they told me they would expect

a deposit before treating.

I find it a bit disgusting actually but I dont have that much time for a lot of vets.Last time I took a dog in for snake bite it was also a sunday afternoon.they told me it may not work etc...They never asked me for any payment up front.this is not a vet I use or would use again as they caused my dogs death but thats another story.They charged me $900 and I paid it within the week in full.

My sister worked for a vet they also never asked for upfront payment and always let people pay it off.They also got there antivenine from the hospital when it was out of date so it cost them very little.These days its all about the cash.What they pay for stuff and what they tell you it costs them are usually 2 different things.

Out of date antivenom from the hospitals is as rare as hens teeth, and if we were to rely upon it for all the snake bite victims we see each year 99% wouldn't get treatment.

If anyone wants to kick and scream about people being asked for dollars up front then spit in the direction of the grubs that never pay their bills.

I have never been asked for payment up front and my vet would never refuse any animal treatment regardless.Maybe I have just been spolied or maybe it is just there are less grubs in this state so we dont have a problem.I can sympathise with vets not geting paid but if they didnt overcharge people so much maybe they wouldnt have as many problems.