Just as you carefully choose physicians to treat the humans near and dear to you, you want top-notch health care for your pets. As with choosing a physician, while you can't assess all aspects of a veterinarian's technical skills and expertise, you can judge many factors central to good medical care: Can you arrange to quickly get an appointment? Does the vet listen to you and communicate well? Spend enough time with you? Give useful advice on preventing diseases, warning signs, and treatments you can administer on your own? Seem competent and thorough?
To help you find a veterinarian who provides the care and service your critter deserves without wrecking your treat budget, nonprofit consumer group Twin Cities Consumers' Checkbook magazine and Checkbook.org have evaluated area veterinary clinics and hospitals. Until Sept. 7, Checkbook is offering free access to its ratings of area veterinarians to StarTribune readers via checkbook.org/startribune/vets.
To evaluate the vets for quality, Checkbook surveyed its members and Consumer Reports subscribers. Most of the feedback Checkbook gets for vets is favorable, but some practices received low scores on many survey questions.
Veterinary hospitals can become accredited by the American Animal Hospital Association (AAHA) by meeting certain minimum standards: maintaining adequate medical records and providing complete diagnostic, pharmacy, anesthetic, surgical, nursing, dental and emergency service facilities.
Interestingly, among the veterinary practices evaluated by Checkbook, AAHA accreditation seems to have little relationship to service quality.
Although you want the best possible care for your pet, you don't want it to cost you your life savings. Unfortunately, this is an area where consumers are often dissatisfied. The most common complaints Checkbook receives from vet customers concern excessive and unexpectedly high bills. Many commented that vets not only failed to consider and discuss lower cost treatment alternatives but also pushed costly treatments of little value to the pet and owner.
To compare vets for price, Checkbook's mystery shoppers called to collect prices for six different procedures. There are astoundingly big price differences. To spay a seven-month-old, 25-pound dog, area practices charge fees ranging from $168 to $712. And to clean the teeth of a four-year-old, 65-pound dog, fees ranged from $69 to $700. Fortunately, Checkbook found that many of the lowest-priced vets received very high ratings from their surveyed customers.
Because veterinary treatment can be expensive, an increasing number of consumers buy health insurance for their pets. But before springing for insurance for your spaniel, carefully review the provisions and limitations of the policy.
