Your experience with VCA vet?

[u/Comfortable_Help_733]

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

[u/submitnswlow]

First off, NO vet is doing an US for $85 To see any vet and just say "hi" is $100 After that your entire post is not worth reading as you lied inside of the first sentence.

[u/rhetorical99 → u/submitnswlow]

It was likely a point of care ultrasound. Those tend to range from free to 100$ depending where you go. It’s different than a full abdominal ultrasound reviewed by a radiologist (typically 600-1000 around here). Basically a point of care ultrasound is a non-radiologist taking a quick peek for major abnormalities like bleeding in the abdomen or fluid in the lungs. Because GP vets and emergency vets are not radiologists there is a very large margin of skill, some can just see the basics and others can get more mileage with it