Today's encounter with health care
-
This time with veterinarians, but the same themes apply. My dog's face is swollen. I've given it a few days expecting it to go down, but this morning it was markedly worse so we took him to the emergency vet. Even his eye was swelling shut. They took him in for an exam, and we went home to wait. They called back to let us know that according to the ultrasound there is no abscess, which was surprising if it was an infection. So they don't know, maybe he needs a biopsy. I guess to check for golf ball size cancers that occur in a week. The vet who called me said there would be two options, one out patient and one hospitalization. The office assistant would call to provide estimates. 15 minutes later the assistant calls and gives me the price tags of the two choices. $250 or $4000. Which would I like? Gosh, it's times like these that an expert would come in handy to give advice about relative risk. Too bad I'm talking to the assistant now and not the vet. But lol I am imagining that the vet would be capable of giving that level of advice. I almost forgot, that advice would be completely arbitrary anyway. I went with the outpatient. They'll give him some antibiotic pills, for what is painfully obviously an infection, and not a golf ball sized tumor that grew in a week. And they recommended that I take him to my normal vet if he gets worse. Thanks for the expert advice!
-
Hope the antibiotics help the dog.
I have a friend who is a vet who eventually moved to Mississippi, partly because he had trouble competing with the other vets. He told me that the goal of most vets is to get you to spend at least $250 dollars (this was 8 years ago). He was only able to recommend one vet to me when he left. One honest vet in the 10 city area that I live in.
-
Yep that sounds about right. I particularly like the part where their instruction was to follow up immediately with my primary care vet. "We're not sure what's wrong, here's some antibiotic pills, see another vet ASAP for a fresh bill and a fresh opinion, that'll be $270."
-
Emergency vet hospitals are a giant vacuum hose on your wallet. And they get the money upfront often. Would be interesting to know if pet insurance would have covered the hospitalization.
A dog is still cheaper than therapy generally and may be more effective.
-
Boris and Maggie are insured. It costs me about $30 a month with a $500 deductible. Covers everything other than routine visits/vaccinations, etc. I have a "care plan" for that stuff.
That "care plan" is about another $50 a month. It covered Boris's neutering as well.
-
an hour after he returned from the emergency vet, his wound is finally opening back up, oozing blood and pus. There was an original wound there from a month ago which had healed. Apparently just before it healed, an infection set in, and the wound healed over it, for an infection time bomb two weeks later.
-
Short of not keeping any furry, mammalian pet at all, what’s the alternative?
How much would it cost you to put the old dog/cat down and get a new one?
Maybe the vet figured out that “$250” is just below replacement cost such that most people would just pay $250 to the vet rather than pay somewhat north of $250 to replace the pet?
-
@Horace said in Today's encounter with health care:
an hour after he returned from the emergency vet, his wound is finally opening back up, oozing blood and pus. There was an original wound there from a month ago which had healed. Apparently just before it healed, an infection set in, and the wound healed over it, for an infection time bomb two weeks later.
Now that the cause of the problem seem apparent, hope he gets the right treatment and recovers soon.
-
@Horace said in Today's encounter with health care:
an hour after he returned from the emergency vet, his wound is finally opening back up, oozing blood and pus. There was an original wound there from a month ago which had healed. Apparently just before it healed, an infection set in, and the wound healed over it, for an infection time bomb two weeks later.
What was the source of the original infection?
Oh, and laudable pus!
-
Education is extremely important.
-
@Horace said in Today's encounter with health care:
he got into an argument over food with his step brother, and got bit.
Interesting. Dog bites are generally pretty clean (unlike
The Beecat bites). Glad that there's a resolution. Gonna be messy for a while, but he'll feel a hell of a lot better by the end of the week. -
Education is extremely important.
-
@Horace said in Today's encounter with health care:
hopefully the antibiotics will work.
Most important thing is to be able to drain it. Pus is the accumulation of white blood cells fighting a bacterial infection. If they can get out (by draining it), there's more that can come in and fight the infection. If the abscess is contained, the response is self-limiting. The antibiotics will pick up the slack.
-
I expect he will feel better, I sure hope so. Not sure why they would need a biopsy when there was an obvious wound involved.
But Loki is right about emergency vet clinics being a giant hole into which one pours money. They will usually offer you the most expensive option.
In their defense, they have and have to maintain a lot of space, 24-7 personnel and equipment your average vet does not have - MRIs, ultrasounds, etc. Maybe even CAT scans, I don't know.
“I am fond of pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.” ~Winston S. Churchill
-
@Mik said in Today's encounter with health care:
emergency vet clinics being a giant hole
Indeed. When Boris had his adventure with his neutering, the bills were north of $2K (ICU care, IVs, antibiotics, O2). Insurance covered it, less my deductible. I'd NEVER go without again.
"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... " - Mik, 6/14/08
The saying, "Lite is just one damn thing after another," is a gross understatement. The damn things overlap.
-
Hope all goes well, Horace. Sounds positive.
Not sure if you mentioned, what kind of dog is he? The reason I ask, is that George mentioned squeezing the puss out, but if your dog is big, with big teeth, even as his owner I'd be a bit afraid. I mean, if you did something like that to me, I'd bite you too!
-
Hope he gets better soon!!BTW @horace How did your hand surgery go?
