7 ms·

Could you explain this more? If the corp vets are price gouging, why are consumers choosing them over the smaller vets?

by ensignavenger 4y ago

elteto 4y ago
Because there are no smaller vets. Or they suck equally hard, there’s no guarantee that being smaller == better.
- ensignavenger 4y ago
  Well, the above post said the cop vets were price gouging. If the local vets are price gouging too, then it seems to have nothing to do with corporate ownership.
  - AlotOfReading 4y ago
    Local clinics pay higher rates for supplies (few economies of scale) and depending on the practice, often do quite a lot of charity on the side. There are private practices that compete with the corps on margin, but they're relatively rare to my knowledge.
jollybean 4y ago
Locality / scarcity. There are just not that-that many vets around. Also specialized services, 'gotcha' billing etc..
samstave 4y ago
Because one typically only uses the Vet closest to the pet. If your only options are the guy(s) down the street(s) in any direction are "which vet is closest to me" and they ALL happen to be the same corporate entity who can grid the community with vets... you'll get gouged. 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.
AlotOfReading 4y ago
Clinics are facing severe labor shortages. It doesn't matter what the demand is, because they have a limited supply of veterinary care to give. My partner's clinic recently became corporate-owned because they simply could not hire new vets to be able to take new clients. Any days off any vet took had to be covered by one of the others on their "weekend" or the clinic would be forced to shut down. 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.
- jacksnipe 4y ago
  But why can’t local clinics get new vets? Because they can’t pay them enough, because they don’t price gouge?
  - bombcar 4y ago
    I'd assume it ends up being that once the company owns all of them it can assign vets to whichever office needs "coverage", jack prices, and raise salary somewhat, too. 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.
  - snapetom 4y ago
    It's not as simple as hiriing vets. It's having techs to support the vets. Minimum, you need two techs to support a vet, ideally three. Many states require techs to be licensed and have at least AA degrees, so you're paying for an additional 2-3 educated people plus the vet. Of course, the "ideal" rarely happens, the point is, with every vet you add, issues of juggling staff, scheduling, and turnover skyrocket
  - AlotOfReading 4y ago
    In addition to what snapetom said, there are about 4400 annual vet jobs and 3200 new grads. Someone is going to miss out. 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.
jrochkind1 4y ago
I go to a smaller vet with good prices and good care. They are not currently taking new customers/patients.
- sokoloff 4y ago
  We're in a similar boat. We only got our new dog into the practice because they'd cared for our previous dog for 13 years. The prices aren't great, but they're bearable and the staff there are absolutely first-rate animal lovers.
- akamia 4y ago
  We had this challenge when we moved into our house. Our current vet was over 30 minutes away and we have to take our dog in 3x/week for fluids. Our new neighborhood has five vet clinics. Four were not taking any new patients. Luckily we were able to get into the fifth clinic because they were brand new and were building up their client list. That wasn't unique to our area either. We've heard from several friends that they've had similar issues getting into vets.
eatsyourtacos 4y ago
>why are consumers choosing them 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.
- bombcar 4y ago
  Yep, and even the places where you have two vets, you dig in and find they're both owned/employed by the same company. 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.
- whimsicalism 4y ago
  Most people are faced by more than one choice of vet. Most people do not live in rural areas. 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.
  - asdff 4y ago
    These markets really are tiny and vets have been closing down over the years. Even in suburban areas you might only have a single vet within a reasonable distance of your home. People in this thread are even saying their entire local vet markets have been taken over already by these corporations.
  - MrFantastic 4y ago
    Most people would not know how to identify the most skilled vet clinics. 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?
- 4y ago
jakear 4y ago
There’s no element of choice. Calling around my local vets every one is 3+ month wait for new patients. Even existing patients have week or longer lead times. 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.
- SkyBelow 4y ago
  Where is the market for the vets who are a bit more expensive but only have a wait time of a few days, with emergency services available at a premium comparable to the PE's but with better treatment? 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?
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - jakear 4y ago
    That’s probably the emergency animal hospital. Sees the pet same day 24/7, pet waits with you in parking lot until they’re ready, and is taken immediately back to you when they’re done. Prices are high, and non-emergency services aren’t available. For instance vaccines/microchipping. 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.
  - AlotOfReading 4y ago
    Boutique practices exist, they're just a relatively new business model and targeted to wealthy urbanites. Take a look at Modern Animal [1] or Small Door vet [2]. Traditionally, the answer has been to just go to an emergency vet if you need rapid treatment. [1] https://www.modernanimal.com/ https://www.modernanimal.com/ [2] https://www.smalldoorvet.com/ https://www.smalldoorvet.com/
snapetom 4y ago
Most of the corporations don't make it known that the clinic is corporate owned. They sweep in, buy the clinic, and keep the owner in charge. Marketing and branding is kept as-is to keep the small, neighborhood clinic feel. 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.
- ensignavenger 4y ago
  If nothing changes for the customer, then why is it a bad thing? Why should consumer care who owns the clinic?
  - snapetom 4y ago
    Ideally they shouldn't care. I was giving an example of why consumers would choose to go to a corp clinic over independent - they simply don't know it's corporate owned. 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.
bmj 4y ago
I think this is a bigger issue among emergency clinics. There used to be a few private emergency clinics in my area, but they are, to my knowledge, gone, and replaced by larger corporate operations.

Could you explain this more? If the corp vets are price gouging, why are consumers choosing them over the smaller vets?

elteto 4y ago

Because there are no smaller vets. Or they suck equally hard, there’s no guarantee that being smaller == better.

ensignavenger 4y ago
Well, the above post said the cop vets were price gouging. If the local vets are price gouging too, then it seems to have nothing to do with corporate ownership.
- AlotOfReading 4y ago
  Local clinics pay higher rates for supplies (few economies of scale) and depending on the practice, often do quite a lot of charity on the side. There are private practices that compete with the corps on margin, but they're relatively rare to my knowledge.

jollybean 4y ago

Locality / scarcity. There are just not that-that many vets around. Also specialized services, 'gotcha' billing etc..

samstave 4y ago

Because one typically only uses the Vet closest to the pet. If your only options are the guy(s) down the street(s) in any direction are "which vet is closest to me" and they ALL happen to be the same corporate entity who can grid the community with vets... you'll get gouged. 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.

AlotOfReading 4y ago

Clinics are facing severe labor shortages. It doesn't matter what the demand is, because they have a limited supply of veterinary care to give. My partner's clinic recently became corporate-owned because they simply could not hire new vets to be able to take new clients. Any days off any vet took had to be covered by one of the others on their "weekend" or the clinic would be forced to shut down. 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.

jacksnipe 4y ago
But why can’t local clinics get new vets? Because they can’t pay them enough, because they don’t price gouge?
- bombcar 4y ago
  I'd assume it ends up being that once the company owns all of them it can assign vets to whichever office needs "coverage", jack prices, and raise salary somewhat, too. 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.
- snapetom 4y ago
  It's not as simple as hiriing vets. It's having techs to support the vets. Minimum, you need two techs to support a vet, ideally three. Many states require techs to be licensed and have at least AA degrees, so you're paying for an additional 2-3 educated people plus the vet. Of course, the "ideal" rarely happens, the point is, with every vet you add, issues of juggling staff, scheduling, and turnover skyrocket
- AlotOfReading 4y ago
  In addition to what snapetom said, there are about 4400 annual vet jobs and 3200 new grads. Someone is going to miss out. 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.

jrochkind1 4y ago

I go to a smaller vet with good prices and good care. They are not currently taking new customers/patients.

sokoloff 4y ago
We're in a similar boat. We only got our new dog into the practice because they'd cared for our previous dog for 13 years. The prices aren't great, but they're bearable and the staff there are absolutely first-rate animal lovers.
akamia 4y ago
We had this challenge when we moved into our house. Our current vet was over 30 minutes away and we have to take our dog in 3x/week for fluids. Our new neighborhood has five vet clinics. Four were not taking any new patients. Luckily we were able to get into the fifth clinic because they were brand new and were building up their client list. That wasn't unique to our area either. We've heard from several friends that they've had similar issues getting into vets.

eatsyourtacos 4y ago

>why are consumers choosing them 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.

bombcar 4y ago
Yep, and even the places where you have two vets, you dig in and find they're both owned/employed by the same company. 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.
whimsicalism 4y ago
Most people are faced by more than one choice of vet. Most people do not live in rural areas. 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.
- asdff 4y ago
  These markets really are tiny and vets have been closing down over the years. Even in suburban areas you might only have a single vet within a reasonable distance of your home. People in this thread are even saying their entire local vet markets have been taken over already by these corporations.
- MrFantastic 4y ago
  Most people would not know how to identify the most skilled vet clinics. 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?
4y ago

jakear 4y ago

There’s no element of choice. Calling around my local vets every one is 3+ month wait for new patients. Even existing patients have week or longer lead times. 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.

SkyBelow 4y ago
Where is the market for the vets who are a bit more expensive but only have a wait time of a few days, with emergency services available at a premium comparable to the PE's but with better treatment? 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?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- jakear 4y ago
  That’s probably the emergency animal hospital. Sees the pet same day 24/7, pet waits with you in parking lot until they’re ready, and is taken immediately back to you when they’re done. Prices are high, and non-emergency services aren’t available. For instance vaccines/microchipping. 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.
- AlotOfReading 4y ago
  Boutique practices exist, they're just a relatively new business model and targeted to wealthy urbanites. Take a look at Modern Animal [1] or Small Door vet [2]. Traditionally, the answer has been to just go to an emergency vet if you need rapid treatment. [1] https://www.modernanimal.com/ https://www.modernanimal.com/ [2] https://www.smalldoorvet.com/ https://www.smalldoorvet.com/

snapetom 4y ago

Most of the corporations don't make it known that the clinic is corporate owned. They sweep in, buy the clinic, and keep the owner in charge. Marketing and branding is kept as-is to keep the small, neighborhood clinic feel. 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.

ensignavenger 4y ago
If nothing changes for the customer, then why is it a bad thing? Why should consumer care who owns the clinic?
- snapetom 4y ago
  Ideally they shouldn't care. I was giving an example of why consumers would choose to go to a corp clinic over independent - they simply don't know it's corporate owned. 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.

bmj 4y ago

I think this is a bigger issue among emergency clinics. There used to be a few private emergency clinics in my area, but they are, to my knowledge, gone, and replaced by larger corporate operations.