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I have yet to see evidence that it's out of whack. Vets are are doctors, have to employ staff, and have training, processes and tools analogous to human medicin

I have yet to see evidence that it's out of whack. Vets are are doctors, have to employ staff, and have training, processes and tools analogous to human medicine. There's no vet industrial complex, so no administrative/insurance/legal parasitic overhead like in human medicine (in the US).

wing-_-nuts 3y ago
>There's no vet industrial complex, so no administrative/insurance/legal parasitic overhead like in human medicine (in the US). You obviously haven't seen where private equity has been buying up private vet practices
freedomben 3y ago
No, but costs are artificially higher than they need to be because the government restricts who can go into business by requiring advanced degrees, and the schools that provide those degrees make a lot of money doing so. It's certainly not an industrial complex anywhere near that of people medicine, but it's definitely out of whack thanks to regulatory burdens.
- neuronerdgirl 3y ago
  I personally agree with the government that you should probably have an advanced degree before being allowed to cut into or administer drugs to a living creature.
  - freedomben 3y ago
    I'm by no means advocating a YOLO approach of no requirements, but there's definitely unnecessary bloat in the requirements. Just looking at the incentives, the people who make the rules benefit financially from making those rules as arduous and all-encompassing as they can get away with, and in order to become a rule maker you have to be fully in the system, so it's a positive feedback loop. The same mechanism can be seen with licensing rules on haircutters and stylists.
  - ndriscoll 3y ago
    Why? The effect of that is that it becomes too expensive to treat that living creature, so it gets euthanized instead. Or just let the creature suffer until it dies on its own.
    - KittenInABox 3y ago
      I would rather euthpanize my dog than subject it to quack vets.
      - ndriscoll 3y ago
        And you think everyone should have to make that choice? And that e.g. 4 years for an undergraduate degree isn't enough to become proficient in treating cats (at least for the stuff that's worth treating)?
        NegativeK 3y ago
        This thread has become casually dismissive and insulting to the actual work that vets do. Techs (for states that require technician certification, it's a two year degree) do a lot of the work with pets. There's often more than one technician per doctor. That reduces costs. Doctors are still needed because, unsurprisingly, cases can have a lot of nuance that requires significant training to see.
        ndriscoll 3y ago
        That's fine if people want the best care for their pet, but not everyone is going to care about getting that level of service. I've taken in multiple strays over the years that found their way to me. Shelters where I lived were already overcrowded. The counterfactual was likely that they get hit by a car or caught by the city and euthanized. I'm sympathetic toward animals, but there's a lot of them that are lucky to have anyone take them in at all, and a lot that aren't that lucky. If someone wants to get an animal some level of care without there being someone with a postgraduate degree to supervise (instead of no care), that sounds like a good thing. They could always be referred to a more qualified vet if needed.
CommieBobDole 3y ago
I would question that second assertion; given the rise of pet insurance, private equity buying up clinics, and the increases in cost of veterinary care entirely out of line with inflation, my suspicion is that we're in fact in the early stages of the buildout of a vet industrial complex. Seems like the usual suspects have realized that there's a ton of money to be extracted by the veterinary industry and we're seeing the direct (hey, our CFO did some analysis and we can raise prices 500% and only impact sales 20%!) and indirect (hey, since there's a lot of money in this industry now, we've developed a new veterinary surgical instrument that improves outcomes 10% for only 20x the cost!) effects of that process. And in this case, veterinarians are caught in the middle since they don't have a powerful cartel to protect them like human doctors; they end up with all of the stress and none of the profits.
- rqtwteye 3y ago
  "given the rise of pet insurance, private equity buying up clinics, and the increases in cost of veterinary care entirely out of line with inflation, my suspicion is that we're in fact in the early stages of the buildout of a vet industrial complex. " In the last few years have seen several times how things go when private equity buys a dental or vet practice (or even plumbing) . The workers there are suddenly under a quota to make money, have less time but more stress, costs to the customer go up. The only beneficiaries are the private equity company. Everybody else loses big time.
- _ea1k 3y ago
  It is worth adding the drug companies and their lobbying groups to that list.
_ea1k 3y ago
As much as I wish that were true, it isn't really true. There is definitely a complex of businesses behind veterinarian offices with the intent of driving up prices.

wing-_-nuts 3y ago

>There's no vet industrial complex, so no administrative/insurance/legal parasitic overhead like in human medicine (in the US). You obviously haven't seen where private equity has been buying up private vet practices

freedomben 3y ago

No, but costs are artificially higher than they need to be because the government restricts who can go into business by requiring advanced degrees, and the schools that provide those degrees make a lot of money doing so. It's certainly not an industrial complex anywhere near that of people medicine, but it's definitely out of whack thanks to regulatory burdens.

neuronerdgirl 3y ago
I personally agree with the government that you should probably have an advanced degree before being allowed to cut into or administer drugs to a living creature.
- freedomben 3y ago
  I'm by no means advocating a YOLO approach of no requirements, but there's definitely unnecessary bloat in the requirements. Just looking at the incentives, the people who make the rules benefit financially from making those rules as arduous and all-encompassing as they can get away with, and in order to become a rule maker you have to be fully in the system, so it's a positive feedback loop. The same mechanism can be seen with licensing rules on haircutters and stylists.
- ndriscoll 3y ago
  Why? The effect of that is that it becomes too expensive to treat that living creature, so it gets euthanized instead. Or just let the creature suffer until it dies on its own.
  - KittenInABox 3y ago
    I would rather euthpanize my dog than subject it to quack vets.
    - ndriscoll 3y ago
      And you think everyone should have to make that choice? And that e.g. 4 years for an undergraduate degree isn't enough to become proficient in treating cats (at least for the stuff that's worth treating)?
      - NegativeK 3y ago
        This thread has become casually dismissive and insulting to the actual work that vets do. Techs (for states that require technician certification, it's a two year degree) do a lot of the work with pets. There's often more than one technician per doctor. That reduces costs. Doctors are still needed because, unsurprisingly, cases can have a lot of nuance that requires significant training to see.
        ndriscoll 3y ago
        That's fine if people want the best care for their pet, but not everyone is going to care about getting that level of service. I've taken in multiple strays over the years that found their way to me. Shelters where I lived were already overcrowded. The counterfactual was likely that they get hit by a car or caught by the city and euthanized. I'm sympathetic toward animals, but there's a lot of them that are lucky to have anyone take them in at all, and a lot that aren't that lucky. If someone wants to get an animal some level of care without there being someone with a postgraduate degree to supervise (instead of no care), that sounds like a good thing. They could always be referred to a more qualified vet if needed.

CommieBobDole 3y ago

I would question that second assertion; given the rise of pet insurance, private equity buying up clinics, and the increases in cost of veterinary care entirely out of line with inflation, my suspicion is that we're in fact in the early stages of the buildout of a vet industrial complex. Seems like the usual suspects have realized that there's a ton of money to be extracted by the veterinary industry and we're seeing the direct (hey, our CFO did some analysis and we can raise prices 500% and only impact sales 20%!) and indirect (hey, since there's a lot of money in this industry now, we've developed a new veterinary surgical instrument that improves outcomes 10% for only 20x the cost!) effects of that process. And in this case, veterinarians are caught in the middle since they don't have a powerful cartel to protect them like human doctors; they end up with all of the stress and none of the profits.

rqtwteye 3y ago
"given the rise of pet insurance, private equity buying up clinics, and the increases in cost of veterinary care entirely out of line with inflation, my suspicion is that we're in fact in the early stages of the buildout of a vet industrial complex. " In the last few years have seen several times how things go when private equity buys a dental or vet practice (or even plumbing) . The workers there are suddenly under a quota to make money, have less time but more stress, costs to the customer go up. The only beneficiaries are the private equity company. Everybody else loses big time.
_ea1k 3y ago
It is worth adding the drug companies and their lobbying groups to that list.

_ea1k 3y ago

As much as I wish that were true, it isn't really true. There is definitely a complex of businesses behind veterinarian offices with the intent of driving up prices.