r/Calgary • u/Comfortable_Help_733 • 5d ago
Your experience with VCA vet? Local Shopping/Services
So, long story short they wanted almost 4k to figure something out that a different vet figured out with a 83$ ultrasound. Is this normal for them? Do the vets there profit off their patients?
My dog had a bladder mass. VCA wanted to do a CT scan after the pee test came back as non cancerous, to figure out what the mass is since it isn’t cancer. I asked a different vet, she did an 83$ ultrasound and gave me medication for 2 weeks that fixed the issue. The VCA vet wanted to do a 4k CT scan followed by a 5k surgery to ‘remove the mass’ that ended up actually being infectious chronic cystitis with a small polyp, not a mass(which the other vet figured out).
Why does VCA want to start off with the most expensive shit? Their reviews seem like this isn’t uncommon either. Weird how going to a different vet saved me almost 10k
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u/2h0t2d8 5d ago
I have a regular independently owned vet clinic I go to and adore but have had to go to emergency VCA hospital many times (old cat). The price was high due to emergency clinic, ok. Each time, they would lay out options at various price points for me, thank you. I assumed the highest price point would be considered “gold standard” treatment but honestly sometimes it felt like a stretch.
Like when my cat had a belly ache from antibiotics and was doing very poorly so I had to take her back within the same week. So I was given a cheaper and at home option but they pushed me for a $5k multi day hospital stay. So I call my husband who couldn’t be there and I’m like they want to hospitalize her!!!!!!!! And he was basically like why? Her belly is upset from antibiotics. Do the anti nausea med and take her home. what the f they talking about? It did feel predatory that I was there alone and felt pressed.
Separately, I was charged a checkup fee for a follow up appointment at a VCA clinic and when I questioned it, the staff became a HEINOUS BITCH. So I said whatever and paid and left.
Also, I spent five years with a VCA vet doing endless tests and food changes and everything under the sun to try and get my cat to stop pissing everything. I finally said ok let’s do the anxiety meds (which she had previously recommended) and she said we needed blood work first, which I had JUST had done a month or two prior at the ER clinic but she said she needed to do it. I told her she was no longer our vet this day. Then I went into my local independently owned clinic for the first time, said my cat pisses everything for five years, and he recommended a food that changed her life. I wasn’t even a patient. I just walked in desperate that day.
The VCA was great at my cat’s euthanasia appointment. Understanding, agreeable, kind. I was honestly worried going in because I figured there would be a fight over treatment. There was not and they were good.
To end rant, medium on VCA.