a couple of weeks ago, while the vet was at my barn seeing 2 other horses, i asked if she had any extra dewormer with her.  which she did.  i bought 2 boxes.  when i received the bill, i was charged for the 2 boxes and a $10 barn call fee.

now, the fee is $60 and when she sees more than 1 horse, the fee is split between owners.  so, it was $30 each for these owners who had appts. and now that she charged me $10, they saved 5 bucks.

i have spent well over $1000 for the vet this year, so far.  and, she didn't have to go a single step out of her way.  i just walked up to her and she had 2 boxes of dewormer in her hand and i asked her if she had any more and she said sure and handed them to me.

do you think i'm being fussy for thinking that was kind of not right?  i mean it's not like i asked her to take a look at my horse at all.  and i've certainly given her lots of business this year with more to come.  i love her, she's a sweetie, but, i'm a bit bugged, obviously.

 

--gail

I'm sure the time and money spent by the vet staff when ordering dewormer is worked into the cost of the dewormer as a vet visit. Since your visit fee was $10, that was $5 per tube. Although $5 seems a bit high, somebody did have to spend time in getting the dewormer. You're not going to get their time for free. If you like your vet, I'd just suck it up. It's only $10. If you had actually split the barn fee 3 ways it would have been $20 per owner, and I suspect that the other owners did not get a break on the fee and your visit fee was separate. It was a vet visit fee by name only.

A can of ravioli at Walmart is $0.98. Walmart is 13 miles from me. The convenience store is just 4 miles from here and the same can of ravioli is $2.69. So "convenience" has a markup of about 150%... at least when you MUST have some ravioli.

 really?  ok. 

i'd like to mention that the dewormer was already quite a bit more than it is at the tack shop.  i didn't care about that.  i was just surprised that she would charge extra when she was there and didn't even have move from her vehicle.

You're not paying for HER time, you're paying for the time of the staff member who did the ordering. Like I said, the $10 fee was a barn call by name only. Meds are ALWAYS more expensive to buy from the vet. You learned that the hard way: never buy anything from the vet that you can get yourself. Why didn't you say that you didn't need the dewormer urgently after all when she wrote up your bill? You didn't have to get it from her. With 5 equines, I always order things like dewormer on-line to get a much more competitive price. Thinking ahead pays for itself.

 she doesn't write up the bill there.  it gets emailed to you a few days later.  i knew it would be more expensive than the tack shop which it was.  it's just the barn call fee that i didn't expect. probably if each box had been $5 more than it already was instead of a separate fee, i wouldn't have noticed.  ok, i would have noticed.............

my neighbor had gone to the tack shop (1.5 hours away) the day before and i had given her a little shopping list that included the dewormer (same brand too) but she forgot it.  so, it was a convenient happenstance that the next day there was a vet standing there with the same box in her hand.

i don't care that much.  i just wondered if that would've been a surprise fee to anybody else.  obviously not. =^)

ps:  i don't think you're paying for the time of the person who ordered the product.  when i go into the vet's office to buy anything there is not a separate charge.  so, you are paying for the convenience that it came to the barn.  i have even had medicine for the horses called in by the equine vet and sent to my small animal vet's office and there hasn't been additional charges for that convenience.