I think the real question is whether or not people would rather pay in increments or pay the whole bill at once. It doesn't matter either way to people who have enough money for an unexpected multi-thousand dollar bill, but many people are not in that position.
I think a big bill is more likely than you think. I've heard plenty of stories, some recently. You've just been lucky.
If you don't have the cash to cover a normal emergency vet bill, you probably shouldn't be in charge of taking care of another life... Just sayin'.
Find a vet in a rural area. Farmers expect their animals to get patched up without a lot of fuss for not a lot of money and these practices cater to that. The fancy in town place with all the high end diagnostic gear cost about 4-8x more for an average visit and they managed to find something that needed taken care of every checkup. Gotta justify all those machines.
So true. Our favorite vet is the country guy who works out of his house and has a clinic in his basement and a pickup truck insert for working large animals. He's easily 1/3 the cost of any vet we've ever visited in town.
That said, he's out working on large animals a lot and if your schedule is tight or you have an emergency, you may not reach him.
We've had to mix our use of him with a more traditional "in town" vet clinic because he's been out when emergencies came up. But we try to do the majority of business with him.
I'm pretty sure if you paid him in cash, there would be a significant discount if he liked you.
Well, at the $30/month the insurance costs you'd probably die before paying off the credit card. Just saying, if you can't afford a lump sum payment for a major vet issue, credit card is a way worse option than the insurance.
Big time.
We spent another $330 on X-rays for the big doggy boy this week. He somehow managed to hit his leg hard enough on the inside to crack the "cap" on the bone that protrudes a little on the inside of the ankle joint, and knock it clean off.
His lower leg swelled up and his paw for a day, and after X-rays and a consult confirmed he did it to himself and it wasn't a bony tumor or something making the bone weak there, he's on good doggie drugs to basically just slow him down a bit for a week to ten days. The "cap" was floating around in the swollen area and the anti-inflammatory drug seems to have taken care of that. He'll have a big lump there on his ankle the rest of his life, apparently. (Although one vet said if that "bothered" us, we could have laser therapy to slowly "melt" it away. If it's not bothering him, I have no idea why anyone would do that, but anyway...
He's already pretty much over it already, but he seems to like being a stoner dog. (Our Husky hated narcotic type drugs and we always suspected she was hallucinating. She'd whine and whine and stare at us or the wall.) The big guy just walks over kinda sideways like he's a little dizzy and stares at you if he thinks there's munchies to be had, and if not, he's asleep somewhere or running around outside flat out like he didn't break anything at all, and little in the way of in-between speeds. He's extremely into belly rubs right now. Ha.
A few months ago he had multiple X-rays for possibly ingesting something which never led to anything conclusive and he went back to eating after about three and a half to four days.
So yeah, about $800 so far this year on klutz boy. He must have whacked himself pretty good to knock the end of that bone off. He's so play motivated, when he did it, the folks at his doggy daytime play place didn't see him do it, but they realized something was wrong when he went inside and laid down covering his leg with his head and quietly growled at any other dogs that looked like they would come close enough to jostle him. Guarding the ankle. Which isn't his personality at all.
Wonder how he did it. Pretty impressive really.
