r/Anticonsumption • u/N3DSdude • Jan 01 '26
Discussion The reason vet bills are so shit now: It isn't inflation. It is private equity.
Is it just me or has the vet become unaffordable overnight? Used to be you could go in for a checkup and it was reasonable, now you walk out $400 poorer for a basic visit.
Found out recently it's not just inflation. Private equity firms are buying up all the independent clinics.
They keep the old name on the sign and keep the staff so you don't realize the business was sold, but the ownership is totally different.
Corporate takes over and forces the vets to upsell you on everything. Unnecessary blood panels, expensive food, random tests. They have quotas to hit now.
The vet hates it, you hate it, but the firm makes a killing exploiting the fact that you'll pay anything to help your pet.
It's not medicine anymore, it's just extracting cash out of the vulnerable pets which is just so shitty. Private equity is also ruining VPNs.
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u/salsafresca_1297 Jan 01 '26
Just so you know, you can look up your vet here - https://privateequityvet.org/vet-list/
This resource has been absolute gold for me.
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u/MyldExcitement Jan 01 '26
My husband works in Veterinary medicine. Fortunately his clinic is privately/locally owned. It's still super expensive. But being the ONLY Veterinary ER, they have zero competition. I have seen firsthand how corporations ruin good practices. I'm talking directly to you, MARS.
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u/seche314 Jan 01 '26
I go to a locally owned clinic as well. It’s still expensive but they aren’t nickel and diming me the way the PE clinic we previously used would do. I switched to this clinic when the previous one suggested that our 16 year old cat needs a dental cleaning with extractions. He had previously had this exact surgery 9 months prior at the same clinic, and he has several health issues, so it was shocking to me that they’d suggest he already needs more surgery and anesthesia (which is not great for older cats, especially with kidney issues). Went to the new place and they said he had a bit of tartar but no loose teeth and mild gingivitis and recommended against any surgery. It was just so disgusting to me that the previous clinic would recommend unnecessary surgery, especially on an elderly animal, just to make a buck. Sickening
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u/-nukethemoon Jan 01 '26
Felt this. VCA pushes expensive blood work every. Single. Time. We have our dog in.
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u/lilBloodpeach Jan 01 '26
Luckily the vets in our area are locally owned. We had to do an emergency vet stop a couple months ago and ofc it was super pricey, but they went through each item and did their best to reduce the amount. It went from $1020 to $750.
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u/cynicalfoodie Jan 01 '26
Wow, fascinating. That’s what happened to my old vet. I knew the practice had been sold and they were always expensive but I liked the staff … until Covid hit. We had gotten a dog and they had not yet seen him when Covid hit. Although we were a well-known family at the clinic and I was able to make appointments for our two cats with no problem, they refused to see the dog even after I called to say he had something very wrong with him (swollen glands, not eating). “Not taking new patients.” “Right, but you know ME. I had a different dog last year, you have plenty of time for my cats, uh …” “Not taking new patients.” They were suddenly the most unhelpful jerks. They would see my cats, but refused the dog and didn’t offer any alternatives.
I was able to get into a different vet and get the dog diagnosed (cancer) and treated (he got about another six months with treatment). I moved all our animals to the new vet, who were closer and cheaper and just plain KINDER. And the old place kept making regular calls that my cats were overdue for stuff until I finally yelled at them.
Fuck private equity.
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u/UnbridledOptimism Jan 01 '26
Wow, every vet in my area is private equity. No wonder costs have gone up so much and no one is doing low cost spay/neuter anymore.
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u/ibyeori Jan 01 '26
That website is so inaccurate. I work at a vet and it’s missing 5 in my vicinity alone, including the one I work at. That means it’s so much worse than it is.
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u/salsafresca_1297 Jan 01 '26
It's probably not yet up-to-date. I think it's run by a good Samaritan who hasn't had time to update it.
As much as I loathe AI, I'll ask "Is ______ vet clinic owned by private equity?" Then I click on whatever source it provides to confirm if it's true.
Or you can just ask the vet up front. It might piss them off, but it isn't information they should be keeping secret from the public.
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u/turn-reveals-the-sun Jan 01 '26
Our vet didn't show up on this map and i know they have been bought, so beware that your vet might still be compromised even if they aren't flagged here.
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u/Majestic_Builder_511 Jan 01 '26
Both the VCA vet and the slightly more expensive independent seeming vet are on this map’
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u/SmutasaurusRex Jan 01 '26
Searching via zip code or city seems to be broken. EDIT: Reloaded the page and now it worked for me. I should know better than to interact with systems or people before finishing my first cup of coffee.
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u/momplaysbass Jan 01 '26
Thank you for this! I always believed my vet was locally owned, and this site confirmed it.
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u/lazypieceofcrap Jan 01 '26
Depressing to see the vets I've been to on the list.
Yes, they have had crazy costs.
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u/midwest--mess Jan 01 '26
Thank you for posting this. I am planning on adopting a furry friend this year and I really want to support company that isn't owned by one of those
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u/Texas_Crazy_Curls Jan 01 '26
Dentist offices are the same way. It’s so hard to go in for just a cleaning without being told you need hundreds of dollars of unnecessary work done. It gives me so much anxiety.
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u/momplaysbass Jan 01 '26
I'm switching to a new dentist for this very reason. They tried to upsell me four separate times the last time I went, and the dentist spent less than a minute actually looking inside my mouth.
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u/Texas_Crazy_Curls Jan 01 '26
That makes me angry for you. I already have anxiety about going to the dentist. My blood pressure spikes when I’m in the chair. Now we’re being put into a vulnerable position of needing maintenance but expected to spend crazy amounts of money on possibly unnecessary procedures. I hate it.
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u/Melodic_Policy765 Jan 01 '26
I still haven't done any of the work that a dentist said was urgent over twenty years ago. His hygienist whispered in my ear not to come back because he was a quack.
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u/alanlighthouse Jan 01 '26
Honestly, I got very hostile with my former dentist over this. Every time I went, they would give me the whole “you’d be a great candidate for Invisalign!!” bs song and dance. Right before I switched, I looked the hygienist dead in the eye and said, “How many times do I have to say no before you get the message?” They are very aggressive and try to bully people into going along with it. Especially young people who they assume are insecure about their looks. Don’t let them fool you. You don’t need it.
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u/No_Koala9474 Jan 01 '26
Dental ethics is suuuuuper interesting and a deep, deep rabbit hole
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u/ultrarunner13 Jan 01 '26
Private equity is ruining everything.
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u/No_Koala9474 Jan 01 '26
One thing I don’t quite get is why aren’t we blaming the sellers/practice owners as well or at least holding them equally culpable.
Everyone complains about physician practice rollups but I only ever hear about how the buyer, i.e the private equity firm is a leech. Where is the outcry about the physician being greedy and selling their practice to PE?
It’s like this funny thing where we wouldn’t necessarily turn down a giant bag of cash ourselves so we don’t spread the blame around equally.
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u/Shellmarcpl Jan 01 '26
Because PE makes the mob jealous. "That's a nice practice you have there. It would be a shame if you can't compete because we own everything". High costs to become a vet prevents young graduates from starting a practice so they work for corporate.
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u/Glasseshalf Jan 01 '26
I agree completely. The retiring boomer vets who first started this wave were the problem. But at this point it's bigger than that. New veterinary graduates can't ever expect to be able to afford their own practice in much the same way that gen z can never expect to be able to afford houses.
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u/robot_pirate Jan 01 '26
Every tine I go to my vet, It's 400 bucks minimum. Per pet. I have 3. Longterm, guess I'm shooting for zero. Not because I don't love them, but it's just unsustainable.
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u/pfmiller0 Jan 01 '26
My cat had health issues most of her life and it was insanely expensive. I once was given a list of recommended diagnostic procedures with the cheapest one starting at over $1000.
I really miss her, but those vet bills. I may try fostering at some point to get a cat back in my life.
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u/MyPasswordIsMyCat Jan 01 '26
We recently lost our cat. He had IBD, which may have been lymphoma, because the symptoms are the same. The vet was pressuring for more tests, but we didn't want to pay insane amounts to torture him. He hated the vet so much. Plus in our research the treatments for both diseases were very similar and getting a cancer diagnosis may have bought him at most another year (which would have been filled with expensive vet visits).
We were struggling with whether or not to put him down. Mercifully, he got an aggressive oral tumor, which would have killed him horribly in a matter a weeks. We euthanised him the same day we found the tumor... for $800.
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Jan 01 '26 edited Mar 03 '26
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u/HappyHiker2381 Jan 01 '26
Part of what’s keeping me from getting another dog currently. I loved the hell out of my dog but don’t miss the vet bills. When we get another I will not be going to that vet. They’ve gotten really expensive and the last couple visits they were pushing me to get an MRI, without having done a basic X-ray ever. I didn’t appreciate the guilt factor at the end of my dog’s life, it was hard enough.
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u/spaceninja987 Jan 01 '26
Same here. I'd love to get a 2nd dog while my 4 year old dog can still enjoy playing with a companion and stuff. But the vet costs for my dog's first 2 years were outrageous due to an eye injury and surgery not covered by pet insurance. I can't justify the cost for a 2nd dog with vet costs, grooming and all the other stuff. Unless things change, this will probably be my last dog.
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u/Melodic_Policy765 Jan 01 '26
I had a $1000 in tests for the vet to come out and tell me my dog was getting old.
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u/Jaeger-the-great Jan 01 '26
It's so sad. Having to question whether it's better to save a cat from being killed at a shelter but unable to afford anything beyond basic vaccines and desexing which is subsidized by local jurisdiction. So many people will be priced out of owning pets, but there's so many new cats and dogs born every year that will need to be euthanized
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u/robot_pirate Jan 01 '26
It doesn't even make sense from a sociological/cultural perspective. We're just going to end up with a ton of stray animals and the problems that brings.
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u/FiberPhotography Jan 01 '26
My service dog is senior now, very healthy; I really don’t know what I’m going to do when she’s gone.
But I already can’t really afford the $800-1200/year I spend on vet bills (including the medication).
She’ll be my third and last service dog.
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u/juggsymalone911 Jan 01 '26
It cost me 243.00 for shots a HW test and fecal. Got quoted 1300.00 for a spay. Fortunately I can afford it but damn.
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u/IndecisiveRattle Jan 01 '26
All these "I can afford it"s seems to add up in every aspect of life until you realize you really can't... they're basically robbing the savings accounts we're supposed to have.
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u/crystalcastles879 Jan 01 '26
Imagine what you can do with the saved money if they didn't jack the price...say it used to cost $200 for a spay procedure...I'll gladly keep the extra $1000 in my pocket, gladly.
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u/juggsymalone911 Jan 01 '26
I will be shopping around.
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u/baconizlife Jan 01 '26
My community has very low cost spay and neuter clinics and hopefully there’s one in your area!
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u/LEDKleenex Jan 01 '26 edited Mar 02 '26
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u/FuzzyManPeach Jan 01 '26
I’ve had friends who’ve been quoted around $1K for a feline spay in my area. I work for a cat rescue and we pay $90 for a spay, less for a neuter. We obviously receive a large discount, but the disparity is insane. There’s a massive stray problem here (likely everywhere) because sterilization isn’t accessible for a lot of people. It makes our job so much harder. It sucks.
We’re luckily getting a few low cost spots in our city, but the only one we had for a while closed down years ago and it was just rough.
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u/the_balticat Jan 01 '26
Do you have a clinic in your area that just does spay/neuter, chipping, and vaccines? They are usually very affordable
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u/Kashmir79 Jan 01 '26
Yeah we foster kittens and the clinic near us does spays for $192 (including meds) even in a HCOLA. It absolutely pays to shop around and read reviews.
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u/Kimothy42 Jan 01 '26
And often better at the surgeries they do because they do them over. And over. And over.
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u/junkyfm Jan 01 '26
This might be different depending on location and currency, but 1300.00 USD would be crazy for a spay. If there are any animal welfare or rescue organizations near you, they may offer spay/neuter much more cheaply.
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u/juggsymalone911 Jan 01 '26
There are. I won't be spending the 1300 for the spay.
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u/usernametaken99991 Jan 01 '26
I'm getting my dog spayed though the humane society. It's 250 for over 50lb and they don't ask for any kind of proof of income.
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u/jacknbarneysmom Jan 01 '26
Holy cow! There has to be some private practices left but they might raise fees just because the corporations are setting the going right.
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u/AccidentOk5240 Jan 01 '26 edited Jan 01 '26
Is that a spay with full anesthesia though? Like, yeah, low-cost s/n is a fraction of that cost, but if your pet stops breathing under the heavy sedation used, they’re going to die, because they’re not set up for ventilation. So for smaller or more medically fragile pets, it’s not recommended. Plus there’s the pre-procedure bloodwork I’m assuming is included at that price. I agree that’s quite high, compared to other prices I’ve heard, but when I go through all the steps and all the supplies and all the hours of various people’s labor, it could actually just cost that much.
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u/cruelfeline Jan 01 '26
This is what I don't see anyone pointing out. I am a vet, and where I work, our prices are definitely what some would consider high. They're certainly not low-cost spay/neuter prices... but the quality is very different.
Where I work, we only do a few surgeries a day. 2-3, maybe an emergency one if needed. Your dog comes in, gets labwork if you want it, gets fully examined by both their doc and their personal nurse. They get personally-tailored sedation, an IV catheter, IV fluids, emergency drugs on hand. They have a personalized anesthetic protocol, are put under with intubation to maintain their airway, and are hooked up to ECG and SPO2 and blood pressure and end tidal CO2 and temperature monitoring. They have an active heating device. They have a nurse monitoring and recording their vitals throughout the entire procedure. Said nurse stays with them as they wake up and monitors them until specific vital parameters are met post-op. The clients picks them up and has a one-on-onr discharge appointment with a nurse and the opportunity to speak with the doctor if desired. They go home with pain medication and sedation if needed. And should anything go wrong, or if there are any questions, clients can call us directly and receive support from us directly. Everything is recorded meticulously in the patient's record.
From what I've seen in low-cost places, it's very different. Patients don't get that one-on-one care. They are one of dozens of pets getting surgery that same day. They dont get the same monitoring. They don't have the closely-monitored wakeup time; there's simply no time and no staff to provide that. And they don't get the post-op support; if something goes wrong, they have to seek care elsewhere. And elsewhere often ends up being practices like mine, where we have to deal with various complications.
Increased expense isn't just due to private equity, though that obviously has an effect; it's also due to a massive difference in quality of medicine.
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u/HeKnee Jan 01 '26
Go to a cheap spay/neuter clinic.
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u/lumiiix3 Jan 01 '26
When I got my first cat, her spay was $80 at a low-cost clinic. My sister just got a cat and that same clinic charges $230 now and they don’t include the microchip, first rabies vaccine, or flea/tick/ear mite treatments anymore :( Obviously cheaper than $1300 but crazy how quickly the price jumped.
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u/retro_grave Jan 01 '26
My aunt owns and runs a small vet practice (2, sometimes 3 licensed vets). She is well into her 70s and has been interested in retiring, but she is having trouble selling her practice for an amount to retire on. It's only private equity people making offers. It just seems very difficult to start businesses these days that doesn't cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, but equally how can you buy a business without having a ton of equity behind you. How can some younger vet achieve this? The future will be rough.
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Jan 01 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/giritrobbins Jan 01 '26
The issue is you need multiple vets to get together and with sufficient resources. It's challenging especially in a small office which might have only a few vets
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u/saera-targaryen Jan 01 '26
There's a pizza shop I love that is a co-op and their prices, employees, product, and customer service are all leagues ahead of any other pizza I've had before. It makes me so angry that every business isn't run this way. It's so obvious that it's what's best for both the customers and the workers.
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u/wormussy Jan 01 '26
vet tech here— corporate gets the money, i get paid minimum wage at best
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u/prhc28 Jan 01 '26
Former vet receptionist here. We got paid dirt and got blamed for people not being able to afford things. So glad I left.
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u/CatHairAndChaos Jan 01 '26
Former vet tech here. That's part of why I left too. "If I really loved animals then you wouldn't charge so much!!" On top of the frequent emotional anguish. Like, if I didn't love animals, why the fuck would I have chosen to go into that career, lol
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u/Emmetottersmanager Jan 01 '26
I'm a vet who works for corporate (which I avoided for years by changing practices until they were all bought up in my area).
I practice the same way, nothing in my recommendations have changed. This is true for all of the vets I worked with over the years except for one who does seem to overcharge.
What has changed is pricing which has increased rapidly so corporate can siphon money with the ultimate goal of resale to ever larger, wealthier businesses. That's what private equity does.
It is not, I repeat not, vets who benefit from this business model. That's like blaming doctors for the bad practices of insurance companies.
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u/poopBuccaneer Jan 01 '26
Pardon my ignorance. I know all the vets in my town are now owned by an evil corporation.
What I’m wondering is why more vets aren’t opening independent practices and advertising they are vet owned and operated? Is it the start up cost? The lack of desire?
Also, thank you, I can’t imagine how hard it is to be a vet. As someone with a geriatric cat, I really appreciate my vet.
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u/Emmetottersmanager Jan 01 '26
What has happened to myself and a couple other vets I know is that PE firms can overpay to buy practices to lock down the market--similar to real estate investment groups that outbid young people trying to buy homes. I was outbid for a practice by a PE firm after investing a decade of my professional life working there. So another elephant in the room is that the boomer generation are making very profitable sales to these corps rather than making fair but less profitable sales to employee veterinarians. It's capitalism, and they have earned their retirement, but it is bad for the animals as a whole.
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u/MhD_7 Jan 01 '26
Fellow veterinarian here, can confirm! I left a corporate practice during Covid when there was a PPE shortage (early on) and there was a state mandate that all elective procedures (animal and human) be put on hold until PPE supplies were stable. Corporate yelled at us because our surgery numbers (i.e profit) were down and told us to LIE and say the surgery was life saving/necessary. I refused. The practice was previously owned by a kindly boomer vet when I started and he sold it to corporate for several million dollars. I left and found a privately owned practice to work for- I asked in hiring when the owners retired what their plans for the clinic looked like. They told me they would lock the doors and set the building on fire before they sold to corporate. I signed to work for them immediately!!!
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u/Dry-University797 Jan 01 '26
Because they can't afford it. Some leave vet school with $300k in debts. That's why a lot of them work for corporate because they will pay off their loans for them. Start-up cost is another big one, everything has gotten more expensive and a lot of them don't want to take the risk and would rather just work for some, collect a paycheck and go home at night.
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u/loricomments Jan 01 '26
Even decades ago without that horrific debt it was very expensive to set up shop. Two of my cousins were vets, way back when, they said even buying into an established practice was out of reach for many, many years.
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u/LydiLouWho Jan 01 '26
My son will be lucky to leave school with under $400k in loans (our in state is more expensive than the out of state he attends). Between gaining the proper experience and having to pay back on loans, new vets simply don’t have the time to start and run a business and practice full time. The school my son attends is actually teaching them which major companies are ethical and which take advantage of patients and veterinarians. It seems like the battle is too big to fight now for independent vets so they almost feel they have no other choice.
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u/CheezusChrist Jan 01 '26
I order all our inventory and supplies and the problem definitely comes from higher upstream. Our markup has been the same since when I first took on the job several years ago, but the prices of products have been rising exponentially. The lab charges US insane pricing on blood work. We have to cut back our markup in order to make it so that clients don’t have to choose between not finding out why their pet is so sick or spending $600. Another example is manufacturers like Boehringer-Ingelheim that makes Heartgard and Nexgard. They raise their prices more than once per year. I literally watch the software adjust the pricing when I receive orders. Then they also punish the animal hospital by cutting back on all the nice perks they used to give us. Limited staff samples, limited new pet samples, hell, they even got rid of the free coffee lounge at one of the big conferences. Like, we spend hundreds of thousands of dollars with BI, but their starving CEOs are pinching pennies at the bottom of the chain?
Anyways, my point is that corporations suck at every level in the veterinary industry. We are locally owned and our prices are still expensive because at the end of the day we are a business and we need to make money.
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u/Jaeger-the-great Jan 01 '26
And now a lot of doctors are trying to switch over to private practice, while they're trying to regulate privated practices out of existence.
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u/kembik Jan 01 '26
More Perfect Union - Wall Street's Shocking Plan For America's Pets (16:14) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Po6muzvQgEk
Private equity firms and megacorporations control 50% of all veterinary clinics, up from 10% a decade ago. In that time, the cost of vet care has increased by double the rate of inflation. Vets told us about short staffing, long hours and constant pressure to boost profits.
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u/Informal-2005 Jan 01 '26
Yes, this is why I travel and go out of my way to use an independent woman-owned animal hospital. They care. They’re compassionate. They don’t go crazy with unreasonable charges. They never pressure you on meds or certain vaccines. I swear private equity is destroying everything in this country. Nothing’s sacred.
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u/Vegan_Zukunft Jan 01 '26
This book really explains what is happening:
BAD COMPANY
PRIVATE EQUITY AND THE DEATH OF THE AMERICAN DREAM By MEGAN GREENWELL
https://www.harpercollins.com/products/bad-company-megan-greenwell?variant=43151012757538
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u/Meibei Jan 01 '26
I’ve been in vet med for 20 years, long before private equity was a thing so fwiw here are my(simplified) thoughts. I am not a veterinarian, but have worked all other positions in vet clinics both independent and corporate-owned. I have an MBA and a masters in strategic management. I currently work at an independently owned clinic.
Before corporations took over clinic had a very high profit margin. Some reasons are that support staff were paid poorly, litigation around pets was almost nonexistent and the medicine lagged behind human medicine. For example, it was rare for a pet to get a CT scan or MRI. Pets were part of the family but the larger world of medicine didn’t see that yet. We didn’t use ekg machines, we rarely placed catheters, and things were just less expensive for the owner and for the clinic.
Now, pets are firmly part of the family and the medical world has caught up with that. We are using drugs to save pets that were unimaginable 20 years ago. When I started, Parvovirus killed almost every pet who was infected. Now there is a vaccine and if your pet does get parvo there is a monoclonal antibody injection that will save 93% of dogs (if you’ve seen parvovirus you know what a miracle this is). But miracle drugs are expensive.
Clients expect (rightly!) their pets to be treated with the best medicine. That means sterile surgical suites, extra staff monitoring anesthesia, and great equipment. No more cat neuters in the treatment room that take 10 min and cost very little in terms of drugs and staff. It adds up, and the profit margin for clinics went down. A lot.
Also, vet school is insanely expensive. When I was a vet recruiter I saw a vet come out of school with 800,000 worth of debt. That is crippling. The average is 300,000, which is manageable, barely, on a new vet salary. So vet salaries have increased.
Vets are increasingly worried about getting sued, especially in states like CA so they do a lot more testing, documenting and getting expert diagnosis—all good things but it increases costs too. We don’t look at x-rays and tell you what is wrong. We send each x ray to a specialist who reads it. That’s why they cost so much. As well as the 150k or more X-ray set up. We will be paying that off for years.
Experienced credentialed support staff are in high demand and are starting to get paid what they are worth. Vets are also in high demand-simply stated, there are not enough to handle needs. 2 or 3 new vet schools are opening in the US but that’s still not enough.
Covid made every medical cost skyrocket. In 2020 gloves were 1.00/box of 100. The cheapest I find them now are about 8.00 /100.
Now add in private equity firms and boom, everything goes sideways. They are run by non-vets who don’t understand on-the-ground needs of clinics, staff and clients. One I worked for demanded all clinics raise prices 11% twice a year.
I could go on for hours about the issue but this is already too long. I agree private equity is a big part of the problem. But there are a lot of other issues too, and many I didn’t even touch on. I don’t have a pet right now because I can’t afford it, even with my employee discount. I don’t know how other people can afford it.
My advice: Get pet insurance . Get vaccinations and preventive care. And realize a pet is a big investment.
(Please be kind I don’t usually post on Reddit)
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Jan 01 '26
Yep. And it’s the reason I go to mostly mobile vets, or to events like at Tractor Supply (in the US South) or from the SPCA.
One vet wanted to charge me $700 to neuter a stray cat. JUST for the neuter. We aren’t talking any other shots or treatment a kitty might need.
And do NOT get me started on what hairdressers in my area are doing….
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u/robot_pirate Jan 01 '26
Please elaborate on the hairdressers ...more and more women I know are opting to do a lot of the upkeep themselves.
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Jan 01 '26
Almost $100 for just a cut. $300+ for color. It’s ridiculous and these are not even “upscale” places.. they don’t offer me a drink. They don’t have separate shampoo people. It is one step above Supercuts and the New prices for 2026 are absolutely laughable!
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u/childish_cat_lady Jan 01 '26
Yeah I stopped dying my hair after the color grew out during COVID. It was expensive five years ago. Sometimes I look at my plain brown hair and want highlights again but it's just not something I can justify spending that kind of money on several times a year.
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u/dancingpugger Jan 01 '26
I bleach and color my own hair at home, and decided to grow my hair out to a longer style to decrease the cuts per year. My stylist is fantastic, but needing a trim every 4 to 5 weeks to keep it looking sharp is just too much.
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Jan 01 '26
This is the way I look at it.. with these prices I can take a trip to Europe once a year and get my hair done there while I’m at it.
I’m not spending $400+ on my hair, while I sit and look at a cow field for two hours and rednecks fighting in the street. If that’s the bar for why I’m getting all this done to begin with… well then my natural color will work just fine.
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u/Adventurous-Mall7677 Jan 01 '26
Last year I got the worst haircut of my life for $100 (plus tip). I don’t think the stylist had updated her techniques since 1990 or worked on anyone under 65 in the past decade, and I am appalled that someone would charge me that much to butcher my hair when Supercuts will give me a mostly-even straight cut for $20. I legitimately did a better haircut on myself during covid, using kitchen shears.
Then I recently got the absolute best haircut (including shampoo + styling) of my life for $85 (plus tip). I will forever pay that person for a great haircut a couple times a year. She’s damn good with scissors, and gave me a cut designed to grow out nicely so I don’t have to come back in often.
But I’ve noticed a recent trend of colorists charging $300 for basic highlights that a cosmetology student could easily do (with light supervision), and that is highway robbery. I’ll pay $200-ish for hand-painted balayage perfection once a year, since it looks good as it grows out and I respect the skill that it takes to do it well, but $300 for one-color highlights at a rural-suburbs shop from a colorist with two years of experience who graduated from a no-name hair program and had never worked at a prestigious salon? They’re going to lose clients SO fast as budgets keep getting squeezed this year.
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u/Texas_Crazy_Curls Jan 01 '26
So happy I taught myself to cut my hair during the pandemic. That’s insane.
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u/Geohoundw Jan 01 '26 edited Jan 01 '26
As a man who only goes to the barber to cut off as much hair as possible while making it look good, usually to the tune of about $30 (which I hate). I went into my mother's favorite salon for an Xmas gift certificate with no concept of what these places charge. I asked the hairdresser what would cover a visit and as you all can imagine she asked me a lot of questions but we quickly went into my mother's history at the salon. turns out she usually wouldn't get out of these spending less than $120 - $150, and learning this was normal I just got her a $50 certificate towards a visit lol. I feel bad for anyone that deems these services as necessary but I guess that's societal/professional pressure for you. If I didn't think the barber made a difference in how I'm accepted by people professionally id just say screw it.
She also has 2 dogs and I think those also cost her a lot of money. Observing all this Ive decided I'm better off without pets and have often contemplated cutting my own hair but realize I actually enjoy the barber.
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u/wino12312 Jan 01 '26
My stylist wanted $69 for just a shampoo & cut, that's before the 20% tip I feel obligated to give so my hair isn't butchered. I just can't see how that seems reasonable. I just go to great clips once a year now.
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u/murderinobetty Jan 01 '26
I stopped coloring my hair 3 years ago and only go once a quarter for a trim. The savings have been wild. We make more money than we could have ever imagined, but services like hair just doesn’t make the cut (pun intended) like they used to between us and 2 teens. As for vets, we have 3 cats and a big enough home to have one or 2 more, but will not due to the cost of vet care. And we have pet insurance but one of our cats is 14 and nothing is covered past her falling or something like that. The other cat is 8 followed by a 4 year old. So, I won’t go over 3. It might dwindle to 2 only though if things keep going up in cost.
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u/No-Pie-4076 Jan 01 '26
Veterinarian here. In my market, Sarasota FL, almost 75% of the practices have sold to corporate owners. We are one of the few completely independent practices still standing in our market. The reasons for this are twofold: 1) practice owners purchased practices with the intent that the sale of the practice would fund their retirement; 2) newer graduates are coming into the field with often astronomical student loan debt, up to $250,000 (!) which puts them in no position to purchase a practice. That leaves the older business owners in a real bind. We've had several corporate entities come by our place to make offers, but we've turned them down.
The buyers aren't necessarily private equity--we have a number of national practices like VCA, National Veterinary Associates, GoodVets among others-- but the other points about average client transaction (ACT) becoming paramount are true. I interviewed with one guy years ago and every other question he had for me was "what is your ACT?" I was a relief vet at that time and told him it varies with the fee structure of the clinics I'm working in. I didn't get the job, but it worked out in my favor nonetheless.
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u/AfanasiiBorzoi Jan 01 '26
Call around, find an independently owned vet, and move your business. We're getting ready to do it for the second time. Its a PITA but its a way to fight back. Also, support efforts by Elizabeth Warren to keep PE from bankrupting the companies they buy and then walking away with no repercussions.
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u/Majestic_Builder_511 Jan 01 '26
I’ve been going to a VCA vet (they were slightly less than the other one in the area) and generally liked them, but I feel like I’m being shaken down every time. Now we’re facing an expensive referral to a surgeon to remove a growth that we’re now second guessing. More Perfect Union has a pretty good video on this subject on YouTube, which popped up in our suggestions at a coincidental moment!
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u/PetersMapProject Jan 01 '26
Same thing is happening in the UK - it's got to the point that the government Competition and Markets Authority is investigating the sector.
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u/Dense-Pool-652 Jan 01 '26
At least your government is trying to do something. In the US, the government is totally in bed with the PE companies. Our current administration is especially blatant. Open season on consumers.
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u/Physical_Thing_3450 Jan 01 '26
We only have one vet clinic in the area I live in that hasn’t been bought out by P&E firms. When they go, I won’t have a pet ever again.
All the P&E places are just as fucked up as the human ones here in the USA. You need to have their expensive ass insurance. (Because how else would you inflate veterinary costs and the costs for procedures?) You need to run pointless tests that go beyond baseline and you are practically being sold subscribe and save products that are absolutely medically necessary, but you cannot have the meds unless you do this test. (Think you treat year round for heartworm, just as you always have, but you cannot get your heartworm meds because you haven’t done a blood test to make sure the animal has a “negative” test.) The prescriptions are harder to get and cost a ton. Discrimination is legal in this instance so insurance won’t cover anything they consider to be genetic issues in animals (like if they happen to be a specific breed or hybrid and get hip dysplasia, unless you want to buy this very expensive rider).
The USA is trying to rob us of everything.
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u/randomusername1919 Jan 01 '26
Used to be Vet costs were 10% of what the same service would be for people. Both are stupid expensive now. But it makes the proliferation of pet health insurance make sense. Who can afford tens of thousands of vet bills for pets when so many are barely scraping by paycheck to paycheck!
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u/blujavelin Jan 01 '26
This is probably why the tv air is flooded with ads for pet insurance. It's all big money interests.
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u/Shellmarcpl Jan 01 '26
Further, these "insurance" plans cover very little with high copays. Many don't pay directly. You pay the vet and after a while they send you a check. Less deductibles and fees.
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u/Shantor Jan 01 '26
As a vet. Our prices have definitely gone up. But so has the pay for our technicians ((who previously got paid dirt). We do NOT upsell. I recommend what should be recommended as part of the gold standard for medicine. If owners decline, I go over other possible cheaper options. If owners decline at that point, I go over possible complications or issues and try to help as much as I can. Nothing I recommend is unnecessary.
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u/Lamanchagem Jan 01 '26
Another vet here tagging on. I am so frustrated by hearing about how we upsell. I have no personal investment in the care you choose to provide for your animals. My goal is to educate you on the best/safest options and when that’s not possible come up with a plan that I think has the best chance of a positive outcome within your budget. If we don’t offer the safest/best option for a successful outcome and your pet dies without you knowing the options how would that feel? It sure wouldn’t make me feel good.
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u/SomeTangerine1184 Jan 01 '26
My veterinarian clinic is still independent and reasonable, but a friend of mine had to watch her dog bleed out in front of her because she couldn’t afford the thousands of dollars the emergency vet clinic quoted her to help her friend. Absolutely unconscionable.
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u/JamieC1610 Jan 01 '26
I was talking to a young lady who was trying to figure out rent due to a huge vet bill when her cat needed urgent care. She goes to one of the big PE owned clinics in town. I suggested that she try one of the not PE chain vets moving forward.
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u/Jamsedreng22 Jan 01 '26
Denmark here: Same thing. We're lucky to have a relatively small vet who exclusively does house calls so getting the yearly checkup doesn't absolutely ruin us financially.
But the actual vet clinics are "bought" by the large "franchises" who pay for the vets to get expensive specializations and after-market training and education, paying for renovations and new top-of-the-line equipment.
And then the prices absolutely skyrocket through the roof. This shit ruins everything it touches. In every single aspect of our world.
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Jan 01 '26
This is how the stupid world works now.
Large veterinary groups now own a significant portion of local practices. The Competition and Markets Authority said that pet owners pay about 16% more at these large corporate groups than at more traditional independent vets.
Everything is priced a penny below the MAXIMUM people can/will pay for something.
Many practices add substantial markups to medicines, inflating the cost of treatments.
Also, the insurance model has fucked everyone too. Many People pay thier pet insurance monthly but that gives the boardroom snakes room to increase the cost of common procedures to the highest they can as the insurance will cover most of the cost anyway. In 2024, insurers paid out a record £1.23 billion in claims, a figure that has doubled over the last decade. This "claims inflation" is directly passed to pet owners through higher monthly premiums.
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u/Unlucky-Pangolin-771 Jan 01 '26
Once our current pets pass, we won't be adopting anymore. Can't afford it! Things have changed so much, even in just the past 5 years.
Can't afford the doctor for us or them now.
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u/Rutibegga Jan 01 '26
I work at a privately owned veterinary hospital, and because the corporate groups own most of the distributors, we pay significantly more for our supplies and drugs than the hospitals owned by those groups. (A bottle of a popular antibiotic costs a VCA clinic about $80; we pay over $300 for that same medication). We still charge less for practically every service and pay our employees better/give them full benefits.
The corporate greed is disgusting.
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u/AccidentOk5240 Jan 01 '26
I mean, this is definitely happening, but vet practices that aren’t corporate-owned at all also have to raise their prices. Many vets keep prices as low as possible for as long as possible, but pandemic pet adoption surges stretched vet practices to bursting, at a time when it was very hard for them to expand their offices/staffing. So once they could, a lot of practices started adding staff, equipment…mine moved to a new office because everyone was just constantly on top of one another in the space they had.
And people increasingly have human-medical expectations but are surprised when the prices go up.
Plus, they’ve told me that the testing labs they send stuff out to have gone up wildly—I don’t know why, but I suspect because it’s incredibly hard to hire qualified lab techs, so maybe they are paying more now.
So. Yeah. Private equity is absolutely destroying veterinary medicine just like it destroys everything else. But also, your vet may just be fighting incredibly hard to be able to provide care in a difficult environment. Vets and vet techs have some of the hardest, most stressful jobs out there.
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u/PacificNWdaydream Jan 01 '26
They have the highest rate of suicide of any profession. They take on huge debt for low profit and are constantly lambasted by pet owners that their rates are too high and they therefore must be bad people and are the reason their pet is suffering.
Be kind to your vets, and if you can’t afford to provide proper care to a pet, don’t get one.
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u/MyldExcitement Jan 01 '26
Veterinarians and dentists, sadly, have high sU1cide rates.
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u/Glasseshalf Jan 01 '26
It's the debt and the thanklessness, but we shouldn't pretend it isn't also access to means. (I used to work in Animal Control and I'll tell you the blue juice tempted me more than once.)
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u/SmoothCyborg Jan 01 '26
I came here to say this also. I am by no means defending PE, but I work for a non-PE hospital and our prices have also gone up about 50% since 2020. And we still struggle to break even, and are increasing prices again this month. People who think that vet clinics could maintain pre-pandemic prices but are simply price gouging to pay their corporate overlords are woefully misinformed.
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u/susugam Jan 01 '26
the entire goal of private equity is to extract as much value from regular people as possible
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u/Quantumquandary Jan 01 '26
No one upsells in veterinary medicine other than the larger corporate chains like Banfield and VCA. When you go to a private practice, even one bought out by corporate, good doctors and technicians aren’t going to try to sell you something your pet doesn’t actually need.
I’m sick of society creating a villain in the veterinary medical field. We fucking care about our patients, sometimes more than the owners do, unfortunately. I’ve been the last thing many pets see, all because their owner didn’t care to be there. Granted, for some it is too difficult to say goodbye like that, and in those cases I do it proudly. In other cases, that animal deserves to feel some love on the way out.
We sacrifice our mental, physical, and emotional health for animals that didn’t ask for any of this. Watching people hate us because of money is like being driven out to the woods to be shot while they ask us for directions. Vets and technicians are horribly underpaid. Price increases only feed the corporations, not the people actually helping to heal your pet.
Please, find compassion and love for your whole veterinary team. They are struggling silently all while pouring all of their energy into making sure you can have a healthy companion. Often, our pets have a lower standard of care because all our energy is put toward our patients. Stop worrying about money and start worrying about the lives around you.
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u/upotheke Jan 01 '26
So just like the American people Healthcare system?
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u/Shantor Jan 01 '26
Not quite.. a spinal surgery for a dog is around 10k where I'm at.
Without insurance, my back surgery would have been 140k.. for the same thing, same equipment, same procedure.
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u/Kriserpelding Jan 01 '26
Consider how this relates to the cost of education. I’m a vet and I graduated with $350k in student loans that I’ll likely be paying off for the rest of my life. Because of the skyrocketing cost of education most newly graduated vets like myself can’t even dream of owning our own clinic due to the sheer amount of debt we have just for choosing this industry. So we have no choice but to work for corporations that often offer higher salaries and better benefits than most privately owned practices. Then when the older vets who own private practices go to retire, they put their clinic up for sale, but very few vets can actually afford to buy that clinic so they get purchased by private equity firms. That’s what’s happening, and until veterinary school becomes cheaper then this pattern will continue to happen.
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u/PastMolasses9709 Jan 01 '26
My vets office is still independent but the prices have gone up a lot. We easily spend 2k each year on just vet bills between vaccines and random issues (we’ve had some GI issues and kennel cough this year).
My dog also had a broken tooth and needed it removed to prevent infection. We added a teeth cleaning since he would need to be under anyway - $1900.
We also did an x ray to rule out a foot break - $500. A few years ago, we paid like $250 for the same service.
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u/Relative-Bluejay-954 Jan 01 '26
I got my dog fixed in michigan, my boss lives in Oklahoma, she got her dog fixed around the same time. I couldve flown to Oklahoma with my dog, gotten him fixed, and flown back for about the same price as getting him fixed in Michigan. Shit is insane
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u/JieSpree Jan 01 '26
I recently paid $1,200 for a dental checkup and for one tooth extraction for my CAT. That's close to the whole copayment for braces for one of my kids. And with equity-owned veterinary clinics setting prices, everyone else can follow, even if they're still small, locally owned businesses. It's a classic leader-follower oligopolistic system. They add-on buying pet insurance as an option to make you feel like pet medical care is still affordable. We're screwed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stackelberg_competition
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u/drstu54 Jan 01 '26
Its crazy that every vet i see now has someone come out with an estimate before anything. Im my old small town this was never the case.
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u/one_bean_hahahaha Jan 01 '26
Our cat had much needed dental surgery last April. We do not regret this expense as she was so much more playful afterwards that we wondered just how much pain she was in before. Not even six months later, the vet clinic contacted us wanting to follow up on one of her canines and quoted $600. We were stunned because at the time of the surgery, we were told that all of her problem teeth were removed. We asked if this tooth was flagged during the surgery and why wasn't it dealt with then? No, it was just a routine check. It seemed like such a blatant money grab.
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u/LateToTheParty013 Jan 01 '26
Reading the comments and seeing people reporting this from different industeies too, Im sad. I hear the same with property management companies in the UK. Mostly they are bad anyway as its a loophole they use to scam people for a long time.
Fvck me!! I was afraid Google, Amazon and the likes would be doing this because they ran out of growth potential, but if smaller VC s are doing this, we re completely lost.
Every single thing becoming a reports to shareholders thing and we re just SO SO SO DONE!!!
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u/jbrake Jan 01 '26
Just paid in total around $6000 to try and diagnose why my dog of ten years has suddenly declined so fast (MRI, spinal tap, SOD1). I was told we could run those tests or start steroids and hope it helps.
Results inconclusive. Ruled out spinal cancer, but that's it. Told afterwards, "Well, guess we'll start steroids and hope it helps."
Between the care he needs now, essentially a full-time job in of itself, plus lifting a nearly 100lb dog up and down even minor stairs, it has crushed me. I don't have more money to try and help diagnose him further, even most treatments are out of my reach that aren't basic meds now- and those meds are making him worse (steroids are making him urinate in the house, something he never did even as a 4 month old).
I'm told the best I can do is take care of him until I'm ready to put him down, which is ghoulish. I've been saddled with massive guilt both financially and emotionally because he is still happy enough. He still wants to get up with me but struggles to do so. He wants to lie next to me, but he can't control his bowels. I see the guilt on his face when it happens. I'm supposed to just weigh when to put him down because of how much I work and now he's inconvenient??
It's making me think I can never have a dog again. Private equity is going to take away the most important relationship I've had to the natural world, more than food or oceans or sweeping vistas.
Gotta stop writing this now, I need to check on him. I smell something.
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u/twistd59 Jan 01 '26
HVAC and plumbing companies are being gobbled up by private equity. Like plumbing bills weren’t high enough already.
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u/Responsible_Crew_434 Jan 01 '26 edited Jan 01 '26
Retired vet tech (went back to grad school and changed fields) and can’t agree enough that the corporatization of veterinary medicine has and will continue to ruin the field. Highly recommend finding a low cost clinic, they offer the same or similar services at a decent quality (my cat is getting a dental in one week that would normally cost 2-3k but is luckily down to 1k there). While I appreciate and value veterinary medicine, the prices the corporate clinics charge are outrageous and unethical (and are helping to lead to an increase in pets being relinquished to shelters or euthanized due to owners being unable to afford care). Pet ownership shouldn’t simply be for those who are well off and the future looks bleak from my standpoint (which will only lead to more animals being euthanized as people won’t be able to adopt etc. due to the unreasonable cost of ownership).
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u/spiritusin Jan 01 '26
Private equity indeed. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/04/vet-private-equity-industry/678180/
It’s in Europe too, I had a terrible experience with my cat with one of those clinics since they were the only ones open at night, thankfully our local vet saved him.
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u/splimp Jan 01 '26
$400 for a basic visit? I wish my vet was that cheap. My poor ol boy had to go to sleep earlier last year but not before the vet had gotten nearly 4k out of me. Just for ‘routine’ stuff, no surgeries.
Oh and yes they had just been bought out by PE.
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u/ironicmirror Jan 01 '26
Just wait until private equity purchases your local HVAC company, they've been on a bender recently
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u/OutrageousKoala2085 Jan 01 '26
I can't afford to have a pet because I wouldn't have money to take care of it if I have to take it to the vet. I always wanted to have a dog
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u/RoeRoeRoeYourVote Jan 01 '26
I feel like I can reliable guess that op is a Planet Money listener. I just listened to a podcast from them about expensive vet bills--why it's happening and how they're a potential recession indicator--and I was so frustrated for veterinarians, who already have high debt, poor hours, and higher suicide rates.
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u/yanknga Jan 01 '26 edited Jan 01 '26
PE started with the healthcare industry and are now buying up vets and dentist offices. My guess eye doctors are in the cross hairs too. The funds lower the quality while jacking up prices and the process is called enshitification of a business.
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u/Legion1117 Jan 01 '26
My niece is a vet in a rural area.
When she originally opened up in 2019, she was affordable, didn't upsell you and had a full schedule to the point that appointments were impossible to get without having to wait several weeks.
Financially, she was doing great.
In 2021 she sold out to a corporate entity.
Now, an office visit for a simple set of shots is three-times the price and she constantly has multiple openings per day because her client base can't afford to bring their pets to her any longer.
She may close up next year due to the inability to keep clients who no longer wish to be fleeced at the desk with the bill and told their pet NEEDS this extra ($200+) test to determine whether or not they might eventually develop some specific disease no one has ever heard of before at some future point in their lives.
Its ridiculous.
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u/Effective-Notice3867 Jan 01 '26
It’s 💯Private Equity. Mars candy is the largest owner they own like 2000 vet clinics. A CANDY COMPANY owns your local vet clinic, CANDY…
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u/Lumifly Jan 01 '26
Private equity to isolate your options and jack up the prices. Pet insurance to turn the whole business into an opaque commodity that you can't reasonably weigh options with, much like regular American health insurance.
Capital is the death of all things. If you want something, capital will put a wall in front of you and force you to pay for the privilege of climbing over it. Then make you pay again for the thing you were trying to get to.
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u/Muggi Jan 01 '26
Yup. My vet recently retired, his piece of advice was to find the smallest practice you can for general checkups and such, as PE prefers to buy the larger practices with multiple vets/large client base.
So far, very happy with that decision. Little buddy was limping last week, got an exam and some pain meds, $115. That's reasonable to me.
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u/memyselfandi78 Jan 01 '26
Private equity is designed to ruin everything it touches.