Checkbook’s Shoppers Compared Prices For Six Vet Procedures; Costs Varied By Hundreds

WASHINGTON, DC — We love our pets and, as with any family member, want them to get great health care. To help you find a local veterinarian who provides the care and service your pet deserves without wrecking your treat budget, nonprofit consumer group Washington Consumers’ Checkbook magazine and Checkbook.org have evaluated area veterinary clinics and hospitals. Until October 31, Checkbook is offering free access to its ratings of local veterinarians to Patch readers via this link: Checkbook.org/PatchWDC/vets.

To evaluate vets for quality, Checkbook surveyed its members and other local consumers. Most of the feedback Checkbook gets for vets is favorable, but some practices received low scores on many survey questions.

Veterinary hospitals can become accredited by the American Animal Hospital Association (AAHA) by meeting certain minimum standards: maintaining adequate medical records and providing complete diagnostic, pharmacy, anesthetic, surgical, nursing, dental, and emergency service facilities. Interestingly, among the veterinary practices evaluated by Checkbook, AAHA accreditation seems to have little relationship to service quality. For example, on its customer survey question “apparent competence/thoroughness,” AAHA-accredited practices, on average, scored about the same as non-accredited practices.

Although you want the best possible care for your pet, you don’t want it to cost you your life’s savings. Unfortunately, this is an area where consumers are often dissatisfied. The most common complaints Checkbook receives from vet customers concern excessive and unexpectedly high bills. Many commented that vets not only failed to consider and discuss lower cost treatment alternatives, but also pushed costly treatments of little value to the pet and owner.

To compare vets for price, Checkbook’s undercover shoppers called practices to collect their prices for six different procedures. There are astoundingly big price differences. For example, to spay a seven-month-old, 25-pound dog, area practices charge fees ranging from $235 to $1,210. And to clean the teeth of a six-year-old, 65-pound dog, fees ranged from $265 to $1,074. Fortunately, Checkbook found that many of the lowest priced vets received very high ratings from their surveyed customers. In short, you can save a lot of money without sacrificing the quality of care.

Because veterinary treatment can be expensive, an increasing number of consumers buy health insurance for their pets. But Checkbook recently analyzed pet insurance policies and found that in most cases, even the best plans ended up costing more in premiums than they paid out over a pet’s lifetime. Most buyers sign up for insurance when their pets are young and monthly premiums are lowest. But four or five years later, the premiums most companies charge start to aggressively rise—purely because the pets get older.

Checkbook’s recommendation: Instead of buying pet insurance to pay the high costs of vet care, focus on cutting those costs by shopping around for the lowest price on whatever veterinary services you need. If you have the bucks, and you’re willing to pay any price for to save your seriously ill or injured pet, here’s how to find the best deal on pet insurance:

• Before buying, learn how your premium will increase as your pet ages by using the insurer’s online quote engine. First, get a monthly premium quote using your pet’s current age; then get quotes for the 10 or 12 ensuring years. Multiply each age’s monthly premium by 12; then add up all the resulting annual premiums to estimate what insurance will cost over that period.
• Understand what’s not covered. A leading complaint to regulators is claims rejected for conditions or treatments the policy does not cover. No policy covers pre-existing conditions, and some conditions that are covered may be considered pre-existing if they develop up to a year after you enroll. If your pet is ill or injured, the diagnostic exam is often not covered by many plans, even though the treatment itself is covered. Follow-up exams for that covered condition are often not covered either. Those $50 to $100 exam fees amount to a hidden added deductible.
• Avoid claim rejection for a pre-existing condition by insuring your pet when it’s a puppy or kitten—before it has a chance to develop a pre-existing condition (but don’t forget the caveat above). You can typically enroll when your pet is six to eight weeks of age.
• Forget add-ons for wellness, preventive, and elective care. We found that one major carrier’s plan with wellness cost significantly more when our model pet had only moderate levels of health trouble.
• Consider accident-only policies, which cover injuries but not illness and can be considerably less expensive.
• You must pay premiums every month, but you may or may not have to pay deductibles and copays, depending on your pet’s health. It may pay to cut your premium costs by increasing your deductible, reducing the percent reimbursed, and choosing an annual limit of only $5,000 or $10,000 instead of unlimited.

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Washington Consumers’ Checkbook magazine and Checkbook.org is a nonprofit organization with a mission to help consumers get the best service and lowest prices. We are supported by consumers and take no money from the service providers we evaluate. See ratings of area veterinarians for quality and price free of charge until Oct. 31 at Checkbook.org/PatchWDC/vets.