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Banfield Pet Hospital Said my cat had an absessed tooth, charged me $85.00 for amoxicilin, cream and elizabethian collar and I had to have my cat put to sleep because he didn't have an absessed tooth, it was more serious Northglenn Colorado
First off, our cat had a spot on the side of his face that we had been watching for a couple weeks but we thought he had just been bitten by something and that it itched so he scratched it. It would start to scab over and he would scratch at it and pull the scab off and we would start all over..... He didn't act like he was in pain, he was his normal, silly little self, ate and drank fine, etc. that is why we didn't jump and run him to the vet right away. We were using some antibiotic cream that we had but like even humans do, when something starts to scab over it itches so we itch it!
Our cat, that we have had since he was a kitten and has never been sick, started acting weird on new years day, drooling then meowing really loudly like he was in pain. I called Banfield and told them what he was doing and they told me to bring him right over. The nurse checked his temp, heart, etc and said that everything looked and sounded good. The vet comes in and looks in his mouth, nothing else, not even the spot on the side of his face, and tells me that he has an absessed tooth that had exploded out the side of his mouth..........They start with a bill for $120.00 and I guess they felt sorry for us because they went ahead and waved the $34.95 office visit fee which brought our bill to $85.00. They sent us home with amoxicilin that we were to give the cat twice a day, cream to be put on the spot on his face twice a day and an elizabethen collar. Now mind you the $85.00 was for those 3 things, nothing else!
So we go home and for 4 days I do everything that I was supposed to do. Well this morning my husband says that he thought the cat was having siezures because he was standing there and just started drooling, tensed up, and his eyes got huge and he just stood there, not moving at all for a couple minutes. My husband called Banfield and told them what happened and they said to get him over there right away. So my husband leaves work and takes him over. We are not rich people, we both work and we live paycheck to paycheck so my husband asked them if they could bill us for the charges because we didn't have the money after paying $85.00 5 days ago and he was told no, they had to have payment after services had been rendered and sent my husband out the door with our poor cat who was very clearly in pain and needing medical attention.
My husband takes the cat home and is doing some research trying to find a vet clinic that would take payments and the cat has another one of these siezure like things and has an accident on the kitchen floor. He calls the Denver Dumb Friends League and talks to someone there and they told him that it sounds like there is something seriously wrong and that it sounds like he is going to have to be put to sleep. My husband calls me from his boss' office (he works at the apartment complex we live at) and can't even get the sentence out before he looses it and starts crying. His boss gets on the phone and talks to me and tells me what they said at The Denver Dumb Friends League which of course starts me crying! As I am crying, the 22 month old little girl that I take care of says, "sad, sad, sad!" I hug her and tell her that I am sad because my kitty is sick! So my brother-in-law (who does not have a driver's license) drives my husband to The Denver Dumb Friends League because he is so emotional he can't even drive to have our little 1 1/2 year old kitty put to sleep because he DIDN'T have an absessed tooth, there was something else wrong with him. So we paid $85.00 to Banfield Pet Hospital to have him misdiagonised (sp). If I had known they were so imcompetent (sp) I would of taken him someplace else, maybe he wouldn't of suffered and he wouldn't be gone today :-(
Dmmckit
Northglenn, Colorado
U.S.A.
1 Updates & Rebuttals
Girliniowa
Dubuque,Iowa,
U.S.A.
wondering
#2UPDATE EX-employee responds
Fri, May 29, 2009
First off I am so sorry that this happened to you and your kitty... I hate to hear of any animal suffering... and know it hurts the families of the pets too.
I wonder what they offered to you when you originally brought your kitty in. Did the cat have a history at that hospital already? Did they get vax there as a kitten? Did they have all the vax at the time of the illness? Was it an indoor/outdoor kitty?
I used to work for them (and I am DEFINITELY ***NOT*** a lover of them by any means *at all*!!). I ask because most all vets (including others not practicing for Banfield) would have likely suggested more services to you when you originally brought the cat in. I would have guessed they may have offered bloodwork among other things. All they did was treat a problem that was already present. It was likely a SYMPTOM of something that was already going on. Your pet was treated fairly minimally for something that sounded pretty gnarly. You said yourself it had been going on for some time, but chose to wait for things to become more serious.
There are a million things that could have been going on. Your cat could have had an existing illness that caused it to go the direction it did. Something like Feline Leukemia or any of the other illnesses that might cause oral lesions. The thing about the cat having an abscessed tooth is just NOT normal for a cat that age. Did they suggest a Fel Leukemia test? Did they offer bloodwork? Did they offer ANY kind of diagnostic testing? I have not known one Banfield vet that would NOT offer SOME kind of diagnostic testing when a pet presents with an illness. Ever. I havent ever heard of anyone in private practice doing it either unless its something SO entirely obvious that it would be ludicrous to offer diagnostics (not the case in what was going on with your pet I would think)
Vets are NOT fortune tellers. They cannot read pets minds. They have to go by what the owner tells them and cant ask the pet what their symptoms have been, or even ask "does this hurt" when performing exams. A lot of it IS guesswork and a process of elimination. Elimination happens when testing is allowed and/or history of the pet is accurately asked for and given. Not all vets are fabulous at eliciting history, but I would say 99% of them know how to do the bare minimum. Banfield vets are in fact urged to suggest diagnostics as they are both good for the pets, and good for the hospital. Not so good on the pocketbook sad to say.
Banfield is NOT cheap like some people might think. I would say they are in the top 20% so far as what vet hospitals charge. Sadly the thing that most people want to skip is the diagnostics... and just go with the treatments. Too many times its a shot in the dark. Its the vet doing their best to treat what they think is the likely problem.
Anyway... once again I am sorry this happened to you. I suggest to everyone to get yourself one of those credit cards that you get offers for that might even have a high interest rate, DONT USE IT.. put it in your freezer frozen in a bowl of water. If something happens to your pet and you MUST have money to treat it, USE THAT in case of emergency with your pet ONLY. Its like insurance, but cheaper than any of them out there comparing the prices versus the interest rates. Thats the best advice I have for anyone who has pets and not the cash in savings to treat things that come up (I tell people that have pets to have at least 2k bucks per pet on hand for emergencies, minimum).