$400 is slightly more than 10% of your bill. If we were talking about a human they would be offering 10x the bill to keeps malpractice suit away. I’m lucky to have a couple of great vets in my area. They are all about helping the animals, and not so much about overcharging.
You're correct that $400 is slightly more than 10% of the bill from the first vet, yes. But I pulled him from the first veterinary hospital and took him to the second where they had a proper prognosis within 15 minutes of me being there by simply taking a sample from his butthole. They started a treatment plan that had him back to normal in 72 hours. My total bill was $7296.30 between the two veterinary hospitals but if i had just gone to the 2nd one in the first place, it would've been no cost to me because the vaccination company is willing to "cover the expenses up to $5,000.00" because their vaccination is guaranteed up to 3 years. My dog isn't even a year and a half yet.
Honestly, I don't even care about the money. It's the fact that there's zero accountability for making mistakes in pet medicine. I had the first veterinary hospital send me over his "medical records" and everything they put in there was noted as "exploratory" or "experimental". I exchanged phones calls with the owner and I politely asked for him to refund the entire amount I spent from 10/26/19 to 11/1/19 and this offended him. He went on to state that I signed a release of liability for the surgery and everything was experimental and exploratory. This is when he offered $400.00 as a "good faith gesture".
At this point, I consulted a few attorneys and they've all said the same thing; "It's fortunate that your puppy survived, but it's unfortunate in terms of finances. There's just not enough money involved with malpractice case on an animal that survived."But they did offer a little bit of consultation advice. I was instructed to develop a timeline, get a copy of all medical records from 10/26/19 - 11/1/19 (which I have) and a copy of all invoices from the same date (which i have, as well). In the medical records, it clearly states that he was being treated for a gastrointestinal blockage from 10/26/19 - 11/1/19. They performed surgery on the animal because they assured me that it looks like he swallowed a plastic bag via x-rays. During surgery, one of the doctors called me mid operation and explained to me that she didn't find anything lodged in his body but did inform me that his small intestine is "pissed off" and she wants to take biopsy samples. Still not knowing what's wrong with the animal, I approved the extraction of the samples and hoped that my dog would last the 3-5 days that it would take to get them because again... We didn't know what was wrong with the dog.
The surgery took place on 10/30/19. After two days of my dog sitting in a steel kennel being stabbed with every needle known to man, I called on 11/1/19 and demanded the biopsy report. An hour after my heated discussion with the owner of the practice, he magically reveals that he has the biopsy results and that they're 99.9% sure that he has the Canine Parvovirus. Here's where it gets really interesting... The owner then states that "You need to relocate him to a different hospital because we don't have the ability to give him the proper care to treat Parvo." I exploded. I took the rest of the day off work, went down to the vet to recover my sick and dying animal and when I get there to pick him up the veterinary hospital refuses to release him to me until the entire bill is paid. $3740.13. I paid it, laid my dying animal down in the 4Runner and rushed to Vista Veterinary Specialists, get him admitted and he's there for another 72 hours. After the 72 hours, he's as good as new. Other than the fact that he's shaved and skinny, he survived. Adult dogs have a 1 and 8 chance of survival when it comes to Parvo and he still pulled through even after having it for nearly 144 hours without a proper prognosis.
Currently, he's back to normal. Hair is growing back and the 14-15 pounds that he lost is definitely put back on. But it still doesn't justify the lack of care he received at the first vet.
Needless to say, I can rant and rave about this all day. Let me know if you want to hear more or have more questions.
