This tip may not work for everyone, but again it is worth a try. Are you having bloodwork done on your pet? If it is not an urgent situation, you can ask your vet if there is any way you can save money by sending blood to an outside lab.
Often vets will run bloodwork on their own in house machines. The benefit is that you get results within minutes. However, many times this is more expensive than sending the blood out to an external lab.
Similarly, there are some labs that will charge more to send bloodwork results that day. If you are ok to wait you can sometimes save money by telling the lab that you donʼt need “rush” results.
Is your pet being referred to a specialist?
Are you being referred to see a veterinary internal medicine specialist, surgeon, dermatologist, ophthalmologist, behavioral specialist or other veterinary specialist?
Quite often these specialized vets will want to run a number of tests on your pet such as xrays, bloodwork or urine tests. Quite often the specialist will charge a much higher fee for these tests than your vet will charge. In many cases you can have your vet run the tests and save yourself quite a bit of money.
Followups after specialist visits.
Many times after seeing a veterinary specialist such as an internal medicine specialist, surgeon, dermatologist, ophthalmologist or other veterinary specialist there will be repeat visits that will be necessary.
For example, if your dog recently saw a veterinary ophthalmologist and obtained a diagnosis of keratoconjuncitivits sicca (KCS) she may need to have a tear test done every few months. Your regular vet can very easily do this test and interpret the results. It will usually cost less for a regular vet to do this as compared to a specialist. I have several cases where I see pets for followup visits and then do occasional phone consults with the specialist and together we decide on what treatment to do next.
Article by Dr. Marie
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