Rescue Group Vet Discounts

Hi,

I work with a small pet rescue group. The vets in our area are talking
about making changes to the way they discount our bills. Currently
they offer 25% off the price of services like spay/neuter, surgery,
office visits, etc. No discounts on RX food, medication or tests.

May I ask some of the members what they are offered by their local
vet clinics?

All comments would be gratefully received and would really help us
when it comes to the negotiations.

Thanks,
Diana

"EzySpirit" <biz2.RemoveThis@post.com> wrote in message
news:gec%d.732824$Xk.400374@pd7tw3no...
> Hi,
>
> I work with a small pet rescue group. The vets in our area are talking
> about making changes to the way they discount our bills. Currently
> they offer 25% off the price of services like spay/neuter, surgery,
> office visits, etc. No discounts on RX food, medication or tests.
>
> May I ask some of the members what they are offered by their local
> vet clinics?
>
> All comments would be gratefully received and would really help us
> when it comes to the negotiations.

It varies vet by vet. The group I used to run covered two states. We only
had a handful of vets, combined, who would give us a discount of more than 5
or 10%. Many wouldn't give us any discounts at all.

We had 2 vets within 2 hours of each other, and in the same state, where one
would do our hw treatments for $200 but the other $400, spays & neuters from
$75-$125, all other services were regular price at the former and discounted
10% at the latter. Two vets on the other side of the state, only about 45
minutes apart, had similar discrepancies.

In my area, I'd called every vet listed in two counties (which means *alot*
of vets because these are large, highly populated counties) and only 2
offered discounts. The one offered a 20% discount across the board,
including medications. The other offered, and I love the man to this day,
everything at cost, all inclusive.

Take what you can get, don't complain to the vet about it, but always be
looking for more vets to help you out. Rescues are becoming problematic for
vets because there are so many in existence and the number climbs daily.
When rescues start comprising a significant chunk of a vet's montly patient
load then the vet is losing a significant chunk of money. Hence I've seen a
trend of more & more vets refusing to give any discounts at all because they
then get bombarded with calls from other rescues who found out about the
discount to one rescue.

Unlike human doctors vets generally aren't loaded and need the money they
make on mark-ups of medications & foods to make up the bulk of their profit
margin.

--
Tara