Veterinary question
 

I just took my dog into the vet tonight to have her eye checked out. She has a tumor coming out of her upper eye lid. Here is the estimate for removal of this tumor. Is this in line? I love my dog and want her to be comfortable. Some of you may remember my thread from a couple years ago. "My dog has cancer" We are very thankfull that we have gotten to enjoy her company for another two years since then. She has another lump on her left upper/front arm too. I am sure it is another mast cell tumor there. We are not going to do anything about that because they will amputate the limb. I will not put her through that kind of surgery at her age. It does not seem to bother her and we want her to enjoy quality of life as long as we can. We are going to let her live out her life as the dice are dealt. The eye tumor is obviously bothering her. That we will do something about.
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Snip it off yourself!


KT

Don't get me started. Actually looks reasonable.

Although with the low/high estimates it looks like she's going in for a dental and they'll do the tumor while she's already out.

I would have thought it'd be the other way around.

And what's Misc Medical Treatment? One would think if they can put a price on it then they can put a specific service with it.

That's roughly what I paid when my dog had a half baseball sized tumor removed from his leg, so, I'd say it's not unreasonable.

edit: the high estimate is roughly what I paid

that isnt a bad price!! i say, go for it.

Our dog had a large tumor in his eye orbit, we had it removed...in 2002....cost was about $600.

The $250 for a dental seems way over the top to me but I've been out of practice for ten years. Back then, in SF, a dental was usually half that incl the anes.

I understand that people need to make a living but I felt this was kind of a high estimate. Just the check out last night was $96.50
I'm still going to go through with it. Just kind of shocked. I am hoping for the lower total. Wish me (and Snap) luck.

Hope all goes well.


KT

Actually it's all in order except the dental which I said before. The biopsy/pathology seems high but I dunno what labs charge these days. Slides are prepared of the tissue and read by a boarded vet pathologist. You can see where the costs add up if you think of that.

Running a Vet practice is not cheap. A well run hospital will only net about 22% of gross, if that...some are 20% or less. Most vets who are employed by a small animal practice will only earn $60K or so unless they also are boarded specialists. Practice owners may net $200K if they are good businessmen. Lot of other professions do much better.

well put - DVMs are not making huge bucks at all (exceptions for Beverly Hills Poodle-izers & Ky Horse Vets).

I have a friend who tired & tried and could not get into Vet. School -- so she went to Med. School and became an OB/GYN...

Actually, Randy, just about any track vet is making decent money only because the horses are worth so much. Our prof liability is zilch compared to yours but our clients...the owners...have no real insurance players so they pay their own bills. An animal is still considered property so many owners just say..."I'll get another one"... Having said that, I don't expect them to pay huge dollars for any test or procedure. I wouldn't.. The money just ain't there for a lot of reasons which mostly relate to the value of human life vs. animal life. Simple as that.

I would think it would be more work to become a vet than an MD. True?

No, I don't think so at all. Most Vets don't go to school after Vet School...at least not in my day. .most don't even do a formal internship. They work for another vet to get started, and attend a lot of continuing ed classes thru the years. At this point many will get advanced training, go into specialties, agri-business, research and what all. It's a learning process through out a career.

MD's, for the most part are only just beginning at the end of Med School and it's a lot more years before they make any real money. Neither is easy at all. I think that most MD's are not paid well at all anymore with the huge insurance premiums, defensive medicine, free loaders, Medicare/medicaid and so forth.

Snap had her surgery yesterday. Everything went well. Her eye looks great now. The price ended up very reasonable. $516.00 She probably has the freshest dog breath in town too. :) The doc has us giving her 50-100mg of Benadryl and 20mg of Pepcid every twelve hours now for the rest of her life. This is to help keep the mast cell tumors hystimines (sp?) in check. They said she was a very good patient. She even got her nails done while there. ;)
Here she is sleeping off the drugs.
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Dan,
Glad it all worked out well. The meds are appropriate. Sounds like you have a good vet. Try to imagine what this would cost if it all were done on a human patient :eek:

Thanks Mark. Yes. I think the vet we took her to is pretty good. I try not to imagine how much all that would be on a human. I keep telling myself "just stay healthy" :)

Odd coincidence. My pup went in to have the tumor on his leg removed again(last time was 2.5 years ago) today. He's home, resting comfortably and feels great. Anesthesia, pain meds, tumor removal, staples (20) and an e-collar later the bill was only $350. Vet didn't see the need to do a biopsy, we did last time and it came back. It's a form form of lipoma, so no risk of spreading to other areas, but it does grow back.

Where do you live? Sounds too good to be true.

BTW, Love your signature. I showed my wife this thread and she cracked up over your sig. :D

My Snappie girl has a new spring in her step today. She does not seem bothered in the least today. In fact she was horsing around with her best friend Elliott tonight. I think we are lucky to have a dog and cat that love each other.
Post surgery picture. Yeah I know she looks like Omega Dog in this pic. The flash lit her up like a Christmas tree. Little cataract stuff going on too I suppose.

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Snap's best friend, (my grumpy bastard) Elliott (13.5 yrs. old)

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I'm on Hilton Head, SC, but the vet I use is in Charleston. He practiced here for a while then moved to Charleston to open his own practice. He did the first surgery and I make it up to Charleston pretty frequently so I scheduled it to coincide with a preplanned trip.
I'll take a pic of the itemization tomorrow, but it's basically
Anesthesia $100
Removal $125
Bloodwork $65
IV catheter $25
Pain meds $15
collar $15

The incision is about 5 inches long and has been bleeding a little, but it looks like that has finally stopped. The biggest problem is going to be keeping him calm, I tried to take him for a short walk and he was trying to run and jump.

That's a great looking pup, glad she's OK. (The cat looks evil, but most are)

I'm fond of Sinatra quotes. No matter what you say or think about the man and his music, he knew how to live life to the fullest.