Medicine costs

[sjewart]

Advice please. Ive been with my new vet practice a while now and it's become apparent medicine costs are high. For instance a farmer elsewhere bought a bottle for £12. Ive been charged £27 for same.

I know you can ask them to give you a prescription but I'm guessing that doesn't go down very well with vets.

Any other suggestions? I just dont want to be constantly ripped off.

 

[CornishRanger]

Change your vets? I'd guess that they would charge you so much for a prescription that unless you need a lot of a drug you won't save anything overall anyway

 

[Clive]

Who are the big uk vet med suppliers ? Let me know and I will speak to them about Farm marketplace / discounts etc

All sounds a bit like the arable world where different farms pay different prices for chemicals etc !

 

[llamedos]

Advice please. Ive been with my new vet practice a while now and it's become apparent medicine costs are high. For instance a farmer elsewhere bought a bottle for £12. Ive been charged £27 for same.

I know you can ask them to give you a prescription but I'm guessing that doesn't go down very well with vets.

Any other suggestions? I just dont want to be constantly ripped off.

Speak to your vet/practice manager, if no joy, then move practice.
We need our vets, and although I buy companion animal meds via a script from my vet, it is with their, and on their recommendation.

 

[yellowbelly]

Advice please. Ive been with my new vet practice a while now and it's become apparent medicine costs are high. For instance a farmer elsewhere bought a bottle for £12. Ive been charged £27 for same.

I know you can ask them to give you a prescription but I'm guessing that doesn't go down very well with vets.

Any other suggestions? I just dont want to be constantly ripped off.

It's a tricky one - especially if they're good at what they do.

The approach I used was.....
"Look, because of the internet, we all nowadays know roughly what the price of these drugs should be. I realise that the likes of Farmacy, Vet Drugs To Go, etc are not going to be here at 2 am on a freezing cold night when the rain is coming sideways and I'm therefore quite happy to pay a bit of a premium, BUT, you must realise, this is a two way street and we are working in a difficult financial climate and you must appreciate I wasn't born yesterday and will NOT tolerate having 'my leg lifted'."

See where you go from there. Good luck.

The whole job is wrong but I don't know how to change it for the best. For a 'one off' bottle of something, you'll find the charge for the prescription cancels out the saving from one of the internet firms.

 

[llamedos]

Who are the big uk vet med suppliers ? Let me know and I will speak to them about Farm marketplace / discounts etc

All sounds a bit like the arable world where different farms pay different prices for chemicals etc !

That is not a route to go down with veterinary medicines.

We already have a shortage of new vets coming into Large animal practice, and screwing them down on veterinary meds will only in the long run hurt the farmer.

 

[yellowbelly]

Who are the big uk vet med suppliers ? Let me know and I will speak to them about Farm marketplace / discounts etc

All sounds a bit like the arable world where different farms pay different prices for chemicals etc !

That would be great in an ideal world but I'm afraid with prescription meds and all the 'hoo-har' with over use of AB's, I can't see it being workable.
Large animal vets are getting too thin on the ground and good ones need supporting but unfortunately some of them see prescription meds as a licence to print money.

 

[sjewart]

Thank you all for your comments. I changed vet practice last year and am happier with the vet care I am receiving but the meds costs are undoubtedly steep. Being pretty rural I don't have a large choice of vet practices I can use.

Yep paying for a prescription would cancel any savings to be made by buying online.

Looks like il have to suck it up but it leaves a sour taste in my mouth. I can't afford to be overcharged.

 

[Hampton]

Who are the big uk vet med suppliers ? Let me know and I will speak to them about Farm marketplace / discounts etc

All sounds a bit like the arable world where different farms pay different prices for chemicals etc !

Not really.
You can get basis and walk your own crops within 12 months with a distance learning course.
It's 7 years to Become a vet.

Might be a possibility with some of the vaccines etc though

 

[llamedos]

Thank you all for your comments. I changed vet practice last year and am happier with the vet care I am receiving but the meds costs are undoubtedly steep. Being pretty rural I don't have a large choice of vet practices I can use.

Yep paying for a prescription would cancel any savings to be made by buying online.

Looks like il have to suck it up but it leaves a sour taste in my mouth. I can't afford to be overcharged.

Just speak to them, it would not be uncommon for a mistake to have been made on billing either.

 

[sjewart]

Just speak to them, it would not be uncommon for a mistake to have been made on billing either.

I did do - he told me the price over the phone. Said it was expensive because they don't stock it and they had to buy in just the one bottle for me. I can understand this HOWEVER its been the same with the last 4 or 5 bottles of things I've ordered - all of them more expensive than other local and not so local farmer friends.

 

[llamedos]

all of them more expensive than other local and not so local farmer friends.

Using the same vet?

 

[sjewart]

Using the same vet?

No not the same vet but I do know locals that use the same vet so I might make some discreet enquiries.

 

[YELROM]

Put some prices of the drugs you are using on here to compare
I did as @yellowbelly said and had a word with the vets, saying that i appreciated the service i got but thought there drugs were a bit steep on price,and they reduced the prices a bit
This reminds me it was a few years ago now so i might just have check again against on line prices

 

[Paddington]

Why can't all AB's come in plastic bottles ? I know there is a threat that a plastic bottle may end up thousands of miles away up the nose of a seal in the Bering Strait, but I've just dropped a new bottle bought for lambing on the floor and it has shattered !
Back to vets for a new one.

 

[yellowbelly]

I've just dropped a new bottle bought for lambing on the floor and it has shattered !
Back to vets for a new one.

Next time you use a little bottle of Dectomax save the blue plastic protector to put your AB bottle in.....

It must be tricky holding slippery glass bottles with paws

 

[bovine]

Too tired to give a full reply, but you have to look at this as an overall cost of provision of veterinary services. Some practices make more from drugs, some more from fees. If vets lose drug income, fee income has to go up. We're not talking about simple commodities that can be bought an sold by anyone - these are prescription medicines. Whatever the vets charging system, the overall cost will likely be very similar.

With us bigger users and those with contracts get better prices than the little guys. It sound mean, but it's the only way of being fair (buy toilet rolls in 2's from the corner shop or in bulk from the cash and carry - it's the same Andrex toilet roll).

We have dispensing fees we can add on (sort of invisibly as the price of the drug seems higher) that I do use, especially with people wanting lots of advice and talking lots of time. If you are a big dairy spending thousands per year, you already know the basics and can generally ask me questions when on farm anyway. This is not a dig at the OP, but you do have a lot of questions.......

 

[sjewart]

Too tired to give a full reply, but you have to look at this as an overall cost of provision of veterinary services. Some practices make more from drugs, some more from fees. If vets lose drug income, fee income has to go up. We're not talking about simple commodities that can be bought an sold by anyone - these are prescription medicines. Whatever the vets charging system, the overall cost will likely be very similar.

With us bigger users and those with contracts get better prices than the little guys. It sound mean, but it's the only way of being fair (buy toilet rolls in 2's from the corner shop or in bulk from the cash and carry - it's the same Andrex toilet roll).

We have dispensing fees we can add on (sort of invisibly as the price of the drug seems higher) that I do use, especially with people wanting lots of advice and talking lots of time. If you are a big dairy spending thousands per year, you already know the basics and can generally ask me questions when on farm anyway. This is not a dig at the OP, but you do have a lot of questions.......

Aye fair enough at @bovine, I can't argue with u there but I'd rather ask questions than let any of my animals suffer through lack of knowledge. And for the record my new vet practice is charging £20 more for a call out and £100 more for 2.5 hours on farm than my old vets so they seem to be winning on all counts.

 

[John Chance]

Ask them to quote for the year's work. Tell them you may go to alternative drug suppliers and that you might ask them for a prescription for that and that you expect to pay them an admin fee for writing the prescription. Vets understand business and this is normal business practice.

 

[Happy]

Thank you all for your comments. I changed vet practice last year and am happier with the vet care I am receiving but the meds costs are undoubtedly steep. Being pretty rural I don't have a large choice of vet practices I can use.

Yep paying for a prescription would cancel any savings to be made by buying online.

Looks like il have to suck it up but it leaves a sour taste in my mouth. I can't afford to be overcharged.

We had to change vet practice last year too.
New one offers quite a sizeable discount on meds if you pay on the day of collection.
Could it be that your vet does this too and no one has told you?

Bought 40 doses of Rotovec corona from Davidsons & 40 from the vet the other week. Not had the invoices yet but told by lady at vets reception there was 35% discount on that one so will be interesting to see what the difference is.

Would gladly buy more vet & med stuff through vet rather than merchant if they were competitive on price but last couple of practices weren't interested in farm animal work and gave up on it.