How much you spend on your pet's health care will vary greatly depending on the veterinarian you choose, but you don't have to pay more to get top-quality care, according to a report in Bay Area Consumers' Checkbook magazine and at Checkbook.org..
Checkbook evaluated 192 veterinary practices for quality and price. In collecting price quotes from each practice for typical services, Checkbook's shopper-researchers found dramatic differences. For example: -- To neuter a 6-month-old, 30-pound dog, prices ranged from $84 to $862, with an average price of $317. -- To spay a 6-month-old cat, prices ranged from $70 to $648, with an average price of $285. -- To clean the teeth of a 5-year-old, 65-pound dog, prices ranged from $189 to $755, with an average price of $420. Checkbook got more than 5,000 Bay Area pet owners to complete surveys about their experience with veterinary practices they had used. They rated their vets on how well they do on 10 aspects of care, including listening/communicating, arranging to see the pet quickly when needed, being easy to reach by phone, giving prevention/self-help advice, maintaining a pleasant office and staff, and overall care and advice.
Some vets received "superior" ratings on most aspects of care from at least 95 percent of their surveyed customers, while others received such favorable ratings from fewer than 65 percent.
Checkbook found no relationship between price and quality. In fact, the lowest-priced vets were more likely than other vets to get top ratings for quality.
Thursday, August 01, 2013
With Vets, Price and Quality Are Not Related
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2 comments:
This is one of the problems I have looking for a good vet, what I want out of a vet is to know their stuff, better than any of the other vets. That is what I care about, not their bedside. maner, not how polite their office staff is, I care about how well they know their stuff, and by the time you find out they don't it is too late.
I just had a 40lb bitch spayed this year. Yes, I saw a wide variation in price when I called around; however, there was also a wide variation in what was included. I went with a practice that gave a midrange quote. I wanted my dog kept warm during surgery, and I wanted her anesthesia monitored by an experienced tech who is in the room at all times. Not all clinics do that: vet surgery can be very different than human surgery. I went with a vet who is very well-regarded but not a board-certified surgeon. The quote there was about half what the board-certified place charged and twice what the cheapest places I called charged.
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