Could you explain this more? If the corp vets are price gouging, why are consumers choosing them over the smaller vets?
But of course if you choose Banfield (PE shitshow), they’ll see them same day (drop off in the morning, pet waits in kennel surrounded by other sick dogs all day until a vet is free, pet goes back to kennel to wait until end of day). The charge is significant, but the pets waiting around locked up all day is what bothers me more. At checkout they’ll of course hit you with the “wasn’t this so expensive? You should buy our health insurance plan!”
Compare this to the vet in my parents town that will also see same day, but I walk into the exam room with the pet, meet face to face with the vet, and stay with the pet for the majority of the operation. And pay less in the end.
Are we saying that vets would rather be unemployed than to work such a market or is something preventing them from serving that market or does the actual demand for such services not exist?
I do not know why such places don’t offer standard services. The one by my house was nearly always empty, but still would not give my dog vaccines.
It's interesting that most people who like to defend the free market act as if consumers actually have choices most of the time.
That's just simply not the case nearly all the time.. or it's a complete illusion of choice.
Especially in any rural/smaller suburban area (of which the US predominantly is). It's not as if you have 1000 choices for everything around. That's only in large urban areas. The US is so spread out that it can't cram tons of competition in most of it's areas. And that is probably what is being exploited here.
In really rural areas, you find vets who will "work off the clock" for cash payments if they know you well, to cut out the company.
If vets are able to charge high prices and people will still pay them, maybe more vets will enter the market to provide services to the underserved market.
For consumers to make informed choices, they need to have some understanding of the domain.
If a Vet says Rover needs a XYZ procedure, how would the pet owner understand what a fair price is or what other treatment options are?
That wasn't unique to our area either. We've heard from several friends that they've had similar issues getting into vets.
What will be interesting is when they go buying up all the farm vets -- and then hiking THOSE prices up, which will put further costs on farms and animals, food and crops... and then that translates into an ADDITIONAL increase in costs of food/collapse of independent farmers and further control of the price-supply-line of all foods...
They alread did this in conjunct with pharma and agri-fertilizer bullshit...
I wouldnt be surprised if Monsanto is behind this...
Do these funds mandate the vendors from whom the vets can buy medicines and supplies from, likely the other companies they own.
This is "Serious Business" -- and these people are EVIL.
They dont give a fuck about anything, but have paid a bunch of quants to maths death into profits.
Like other forms of healthcare, people want to take care of their pets properly and that makes demand relatively inelastic. If one clinic isn't taking appointments, they'll go to another even if the prices are 20% or more higher, especially if that one is more convenient to access. Once they're there, they'll usually stay for a long time.
To be fair to the companies, they do usually work to "maximize vet time" where they hire or outsource the other stuff the office does so the vet is spending most of their time vetting instead of paperwork and office work.
Of course, the "ideal" rarely happens, the point is, with every vet you add, issues of juggling staff, scheduling, and turnover skyrocket
Graduates who want to make money will go to commercial or fisheries operations, which pay better overall. We're in the bay area, one of the highest-demand regions in the highest-demand state. There aren't many people left to compete over. Corps are currently offering 5-6 figure sign-ons and bonuses in our area. Even if the salary can be matched and they accept, there's still the tech shortage snapetom mentioned. Those people are often commuting from places like Tracy to have reasonable housing costs and many have simply left the industry entirely. You can raise salaries, but there's still only a limited number of people with RVT licenses.
They simply are not offering enough money. If 5 to 6 figure bonuses do not work, then they should be increasing pay to high 6 figures or 7 figures. I would be surprised if 7 figures does not solve their supply issue.
So why isn't supply increasing to meet demand?
This is an emotionally charged industry where 99.9% of the customers have no clue what goes on business-wise behind the scenes. Yelp has been a curse, giving voice to these people.
As an example, prior to certain surgeries, my wife offers drug A to the clients. It adds to the cost but increase the chance of survival. However, drug B is not an option because studies have shown in increases survivorship by 50%. She bakes it into the cost of the surgery and refuses to do the surgery without it. Clinic down the street offers both drugs as options, bringing the base cost of the surgery down.
So now she has a reputation of being expensive vet. If she offers drug b as an option, patients die more frequently and she has a reputation as a bad vet.
She'd much rather have the reputation as an expensive vet.
Some of that is changing depending on the corporation. Sometimes you'll see "Main Street Vet Hospital, a Megacorp Vet Clinic" or they'll rebrand speciality clinics and large hospitals with the corporation branding. However, a lot of small general practice clinics still make no mention of corporate ownership and clients would never know unless they ask. And they never ask.
I'm not going to argue whether it's bad. I've met plenty of good independent vets, plenty of bad ones. Plenty of good corporate vets, plenty of bad ones.