when I had dogs, I user Ivermectin for heart worm protection.

1 ml per 10 pounds per month. just added to their food.

never had heart worm problems.

I never went to the Vet and saw a Porsche in Dr Only Parking. Go to a medical office and you see Porsches strewn around like cigarette butts.

I give the vet a pass. Now the asshole charging me $7,000 for invisalign when it's smile direct with a lollipop that guy can kiss my ass.

Try petcaresupplies.com I've found it's the cheapest place to buy Simparica trio and usually buy a 6 or 12 month supply there. Much better than even Costco.

But Private equity has mostly made Veterinarians much more expensive which is probably why the base Vet is 90 days out. Make an appointment 90 days out, walk in there and nicely ask the person at the front desk if they'll extend your prescription in the mean time.

Then when it gets close and you have a conflict with your appointment, they'll usually shift it around to a different day somehow.

quote:

Originally posted by horsedoc:

Most of my colligues have retired and sold out to corporate groups. I don't know how they operate, us old school guys are cost plus 10-20 percent so we can make a living.

Tommy

This has happened here, my original Vet passed away suddenly, then his daughter came back from Colorado to run the place for a while, they replaced her with revolving Vets for a while and the practice costs doubled.

We could bring our basset in and he'd take a quick look at her and prescribe or administer what ever was needed, after he passed everything had to have a test done before providing medication, we spent more a month on tests and meds than the dog cost. Lucky after a year we found a solution to all the steroids, drugs, tests by changing her food through an online list of foods that mitigated a lot of allergies, and that list came from JeffY here on the forum.

Just echoing what you said, many sell out and the corporations take over and do whatever they can to jack revenue to recover the cost of purchase.

Not necessarily anyones fault it's just the way the industry works.

Otto, go look for an older vet that still owns their practice and find out how they work, meet with them, you might find someone that is better.

My vet, whom we absolutely love, owned the clinic when she started it.
Several years later, she sold it to Thrive.
I'm not sure why, but thankfully she remained there.
Perhaps the troubles of running the business got to be too much for her.

Anyway, it's time to order more Samprica for my 2 dogs.
It's $234 for 6 tablets, which lasts 3 months.
We get it from Chewy; it's a little cheaper than getting it from the vet.
We also get Maverick's Apoquel from Chewy, and it is $90 a month, but it works.
But that is $2K a year on just maintenance meds alone.

Maverick is now a $ 10K-plus dog.
2 TPLO surgeries, 3 separate mass removals, and a few deep teeth-cleaning surgeries.
So far, Milo has been fairly trouble-free.
But they're worth every penny to us.