Mordax et al

drferox:

Fridays were a mad house at my first job. Not only was the main clinic super busy between people who had let problems fester all week because they wanted to see if it would get better, but now wanted it fixed for the weekend, and people who simply preferred their pet’s elective surgery performed on a Friday so they could have two whole days to supervise them immediately afterwards, but we also had all the sick cases transferred to us from the branch practices. All the sick cases needed something done, whether it was treatment or diagnostics, and since they all arrived at the same time after 6 in the evening, things got hectic.

There is a phenomenon in veterinary medicine called the ‘Friday Night Specials’. These are the cases that present on a Friday night, usually at the last possible moment, that need a huge amount of workup to treatment, and there goes your evening/weekend plans out the window. Often they are something that should have been dealt with a day or more before, like a diabetic in ketoacidosis or a cat with a urethral blockage.

Tonight, it sounded like an emergency caesarian case was on the phone and had no money.

It might seem heartless, but the reality of veterinary medicine is that most people who get payment plans through the clinic simply don’t pay. A vet clinic runs as a small business, it has large overheads and constant downward price pressure because we’re all softies and genuinely do want to save animals, but the practice at the time had over $100k owed to it by people who were all promising to pay on payday, and had been for weeks, months or years.

So it is vital that we establish, before treatment begins, that yes there will be a bill and it is expected to be paid. I was given the phone to explain this, and quickly ascertained the situation.

• This was a bull mastiff cross’s first litter and there was at least ten puppies in there.
• She’d been pushing for hours and was becoming distressed.
• This was a planned pregnancy, to let the dog ‘experience motherhood’.
• Their usual vet had performed an ultrasound in early pregnancy, and an Xray to count the puppies last week.
• But, they would not perform a caesarian without payment on the day.
• They had not mentioned at any point what a caesarian was likely to cost
• The other vet clinic had sent her to us under the pretense that ‘we do payment plans’.
• She now had the dog in our carpark and was bringing her in.

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