Complaint Review: VCA Animal Hospital Companies

 I had no idea that vca was only a money maker until i recently took my cat to them...i learned the hard way, the h**l I had to go through for a simple eye infection....I had a bad feeling for some reason they would try to charge for unnecessary tests....but it was just the bad treatment me and my cat received there that was the worst. They advertise free coupons for first time exams....and they punish and abuse the people that go in there to use them. I went to the VCA on howell branch road in winter park, fl and went through h**l....I dont even think my cat's issue was resolved and I tried leaving with the lowest bill possible knowing these corporate lunatics try to price gouge and rip people off....the same procedure done at other places, costs more with VCA....they also claim to do an "internal anal gland expression" which is more expensive but the way she described it-- for some reason I didn't trust them at all to do any of it and thankfully didn't have it done....the doctors there are horrible and the vet I had was mean cruel and abusive towards me and could care less about my pet....and they inform patients that the animal next door is being 'euthanized'...thanks....they like to make your experience as traumatic as possible it seems while giving no care to your pet....they tried charging me 60.00 for a medication that wal-mart sold to me for 4.00 or publix for free... overall the cat still has the infection...the doctor didn't even do a proper diagnosis or test on the cat and did it in BETWEEN euthanizing an animal....not washing her hands and coming and doing a test on my cat---horrid....then the nasty vet yelled at me when I asked for a prescription and refused to give one right away and tried making me wait longer though I had already waited 2 hours...for nothing....this was the WORST clinic experience with a vet ive ever had....and urge people to beware of this awful company but especially this clinic in general at howell branch....

I have been a vet tech for 9 yeas and have worked for VCA for almost 3 years. I am not here to defend VCA in any way, but would like to clarify for consumers the topic at hand.

VCA is a huge company who buys out already established hopital and usually keeps the "pre-VCA" staff. Just because a doctor/ receptionist works for VCA does not mean that they are out to get your money. Veterinary medicine is hard because our patients cant tell us what is wrong, therefor we must run several diagnostics to rule out other options. This is not only to get the best and correct diagnoisis but also to cover their butts. If they do not preform a full work up to cover all possibilities and they miss something, their liscense is at risk because consumers like to sue. So even though it may seem like the tests were not necessary because they did not provide a diagnosis, they do help to rule out the "testable" ailments.

Having said that there are good doctors and bad doctors at every practice and this is true of VCA as well. Just because you had poor experiance with one doctor this should not set your opinion of the other Veterinarian in that practice or any other VCA practice for that matter. It is true that they do earn a precentage of their clients charges, but it is my experiance that this is how almost all multidoctor practices run their business.

Now that I have defended my position as a Veterinary Technician may I vent about VCA also...

This is a horrible company to work for. Our prices are so high that our clients cant afford to keep their pets healthy. In my emergancy practice we are doing more euthanasias than ever because our clients cant afford to treat their pets. Our benifits suck, 401K sucks, most of all PAY sucks. I am liscesed by the state, I went to shool and took a state exam. I am an ICU and critical care nures. Why do I make less than $16 per hour. Many general practice vet hospitals pay more than that for an RVT who only know how to give vaccines and do toe nail trims. Whats up with that!

The first time I've been to a VCA hospital, the strong feeling I have is their super profit driven practice.

4 years later, I went to another VCA hospital, it is the same, very aggressive profit and money grabbing veterinaries.

The made serious mistake causing my dog's problem fail again and upon undeniable evidence, the only response they give is, no matter what, I won't pay to fix them. They tried to sweep my dog out of the hospital because they don't want to be responsible, literally for their mistakes.

Unfortunately the universe is always a balance. If you take something from one place, you have to give back in another place. Many people have seen this happen always. Here is what happened, upon a special occasion I get to know a top executive of VCA. Though this executive might just be the same as the rest of the VCA, as he lead the company. I still will turn over the director at that VCA hospital to this executive, and let him know how such behavior can cause bad PRs and eventually limitless amount of money loss compared to if they are responsible and fix their mistakes.

Thanks I know this would happen, the universal rule of balance.

My dogs ate biscuits that contained vermin, and came down with a severe case of diarrhea. They were treated with various medications during a three month period, and I was told to change their food several times. All of these sudden changes only furthered the problem. They should have been kept on one type of food and one medication for the diarrhea.

The vet also suggested a colonoscopy on the dog, and I found out later on from a specialist that if I allowed this to be done that my dog would have had further damage done to the colon and could have died from this.

I was told by the specialist that the diarrhea shouldn't have taken this long to get under control. Now the dogs have irritable bowels due to this vet's treatment of them. The VCA vet also ran a battery of non-invasive tests which all came back negative, and neglected to run some simple ones that could have told him more. During those three months I paid out a small fortune for the treatment of these dogs, and it was all wasted.

My dogs ate biscuits that contained vermin, and came down with a severe case of diarrhea. They were treated with various medications during a three month period, and I was told to change their food several times. All of these sudden changes only furthered the problem. They should have been kept on one type of food and one medication for the diarrhea.

The vet also suggested a colonoscopy on the dog, and I found out later on from a specialist that if I allowed this to be done that my dog would have had further damage done to the colon and could have died from this.

I was told by the specialist that the diarrhea shouldn't have taken this long to get under control. Now the dogs have irritable bowels due to this vet's treatment of them. The VCA vet also ran a battery of non-invasive tests which all came back negative, and neglected to run some simple ones that could have told him more. During those three months I paid out a small fortune for the treatment of these dogs, and it was all wasted.

My dogs ate biscuits that contained vermin, and came down with a severe case of diarrhea. They were treated with various medications during a three month period, and I was told to change their food several times. All of these sudden changes only furthered the problem. They should have been kept on one type of food and one medication for the diarrhea.

The vet also suggested a colonoscopy on the dog, and I found out later on from a specialist that if I allowed this to be done that my dog would have had further damage done to the colon and could have died from this.

I was told by the specialist that the diarrhea shouldn't have taken this long to get under control. Now the dogs have irritable bowels due to this vet's treatment of them. The VCA vet also ran a battery of non-invasive tests which all came back negative, and neglected to run some simple ones that could have told him more. During those three months I paid out a small fortune for the treatment of these dogs, and it was all wasted.

My dogs ate biscuits that contained vermin, and came down with a severe case of diarrhea. They were treated with various medications during a three month period, and I was told to change their food several times. All of these sudden changes only furthered the problem. They should have been kept on one type of food and one medication for the diarrhea.

The vet also suggested a colonoscopy on the dog, and I found out later on from a specialist that if I allowed this to be done that my dog would have had further damage done to the colon and could have died from this.

I was told by the specialist that the diarrhea shouldn't have taken this long to get under control. Now the dogs have irritable bowels due to this vet's treatment of them. The VCA vet also ran a battery of non-invasive tests which all came back negative, and neglected to run some simple ones that could have told him more. During those three months I paid out a small fortune for the treatment of these dogs, and it was all wasted.

F.T.
Your report was very vague and it would be hard to comment on it not knowing what your dog was diagnosed with and the kind of medication given and types of tests performed.

Can you please clarify so that I can give you some insight on what might have gone wrong?

Thank You,
Jamie
Pueblo West, CO