Are all veterinarians this greedy ?

[Paa Langfart]

Took my cat in for a routine vaccine today.  One shot.  Bill came to $46.  
They charge $19 for the appointment, $7.00 to dispose of the needle ( supposedly a biohazard) and $20 for the actual shot.  All performed by a vet helper.  And from what I hear talking with other folks in my area other vets are charging similar prices.  Really pricing folks out of being able to afford to have a pet let alone more than one.  

[LinvilleGorge]

There's a spectrum like in all things. But honestly by and large vets aren't making the type of money most people assume they are. Most of them have a poo ton of student loans and running a clinic isn't cheap with the rent, utilities, staffing, etc.

[HaricotVert]

Yeah they are and I say that with a dear family friend thats a vet

We recently went through a patch with a vet oncologist.  Talk about greedy...  They regularly leveraged the soft pressure of "Well I cant tell you what to do but I wouldnt spare any expense if it was my dog" when talking about a $10k radiation treatment for our beagle.

[jfra78]

Get any shot you can at humane society, so much cheaper

[CRA]

On 7/17/2025 at 11:28 AM, Paa Langfart said:

Took my cat in for a routine vaccine today.  One shot.  Bill came to $46.  
They charge $19 for the appointment, $7.00 to dispose of the needle ( supposedly a biohazard) and $20 for the actual shot.  All performed by a vet helper.  And from what I hear talking with other folks in my area other vets are charging similar prices.  Really pricing folks out of being able to afford to have a pet let alone more than one.  

like any profession, a lot of them are very greedy and balloon up bills.  My buddy is a vet.   When he was first starting out he had BIG issues with the vet he was employed with because he was expected to drive up bills.    He now owns his own practice driven by that very reason.  Good man that wants to sleep good at night....doing what he set out to do at a young age (with the same reason in mind, to help animals and people).  But per him, a HUGE % of small animal vets are just gouging the f out of people. 

like most things, I want the most mom and pop variety I can find.  The bigger practice, like most businesses, it more likely is owned and operated to make as much money as possible at the end of the day. 

[LinvilleGorge]

3 hours ago, CRA said:

like any profession, a lot of them are very greedy and balloon up bills.  My buddy is a vet.   When he was first starting out he had BIG issues with the vet he was employed with because he was expected to drive up bills.    He now owns his own practice driven by that very reason.  Good man that wants to sleep good at night....doing what he set out to do at a young age (with the same reason in mind, to help animals and people).  But per him, a HUGE % of small animal vets are just gouging the f out of people. 

like most things, I want the most mom and pop variety I can find.  The bigger practice, like most businesses, it more likely is owned and operated to make as much money as possible at the end of the day. 

Like a lot of things in today's economy, market concentration is a huge issue in the vet space. Mars (yeah, the chocolate company) owns roughly half of them with their control of Banfield and VCA as well as numerous smaller chains. Oh, and all that Royal Canin food the vets are prescribing and recommending? Yeah, that's owned by Mars too. Don't even get me started on the racket that is "prescription" dog food and how incredibly uneducated the average vet is on basic pet nutrition. Back to the actual clinics... private equity ghouls who care about literally nothing but profit own another 30%. Now you're down to roughly 20-25% of clinics that aren't under the thumb of Mars or private equity.

[toldozer]

Started going to stand for animals. An annual check up with a few shots should not be almost 400 dollars. Use to go to Wilkinson animal hospital and bounced the fug out when they got bought by someone else 

Edited July 18, 2025 by toldozer

[scpanther22]

I've seen a lot of charges for both human and animal by medical professionals that basically just boil down to "because we can "