Quote Originally Posted by Vela
While I agree with your above long post, about the costs, etc., and I do understand it, and already understood it, I still think there is room for SOME provisions to be made. Doctors for people have those same types of bills, yet I know that in certain cases, when there is suffering going on, they do take payments. I also understand people who promise the moon and don't deliver, so I also understand that too. But they could work something out, but some flatly refuse to even try. There are many many vets who will, especially if an animal is suffering. They all have the same costs, yet some are willing to help and some aren't, it just depends on the vet.

I don't know about all vets, but my boss does give some occasional discounts and leeway with payments, but ONLY for regular clients and ONLY if they have a history of paying in full and taking reasonable care of their animals in the past to at least show they've been trying.

About 2 years ago about 5 minutes to closing time, a group of people rush in with a dog from a nearby agility competition that had severe heat stroke, the owners had kept the dog in a homeade plywood kennel in the 90 degree sun. The dog looked DOA but was breathing, barely. Apparently some of the people were the owners, one was a licensed vet from a far away hospital, and one was a vet tech. They burst in demanding to use our surgery room (we did allow them and promptly called the boss to let him know what was going on). Per the boss's request we got names and addresses on both the owners and the vet. Unfortunately the dog didn't make it and died on the table. The vet wrote down all the supplies they'd used in the attempt. We later billed the traveling vet (per her own request) and twice received back that she nor her hospital would pay as they said the owners were responsible. We attempted billing the owners but found the address as 'undeliverable' and the phone number non working. So in the end we invouluntarily ate a bill of almost $200, and that was just cost of supplies as the traveling vet had donated her own time.

If a vet were to do things like that on a regular basis it either causes fees to go up to cover the expenses (which means that less people can afford to come in) or the business would eventually go under. Neither option is preferable. And just because the every person doesn't recieve a discount or leeway in payments does NOT mean that NO ONE there does. There are just simply too many people with animals that are suffering who cry poverty to possibly help all of them.