[fabsroman]

Okay, comparing hospitals and car lots to vets is like comparing apples to oranges. By law, a hospital must treat somebody with a life threatening illness and then look to them for the money. I am handling a pro bono case right now wherein the guy went to the hospital with no health insurance, no money, and extreme abdominal pain. The bill came to a little over $4,000 and now he has a bunch of attorneys hounding him for the money. They represent the hospital, doctors, and radiologists. Now, if they cannot recover from my guy, they can always try to get payment from Medicaid if he turns out to be too poor. Last I checked, vets couldn't get medicaid for dogs.

As far as car lots and mechanics go, a car lot usually has a security interest in the car and can repossess it when you don't make payments. I guess a vet could offer financing and would then have the ability to perfect a security interest in an animal if he wanted to and then reposses it at a later date, but I doubt that would go over too well and something tells me that pets wouldn't go too high on the resale market. Now, a mechanic has something called a mechanics lien on your car and they do not have to release it until you pay for the repairs. If you don't pay for the repairs, they can auction the car off. Vets don't have this option either.

Like huntingvet, I'll play devil's advocate because that is just what I do. Plus, I am a small business owner myself, which I would assume most vets are too. How many vets go out of business every year? How much does it cost them to perform your specific surgery? Could they make money performing work for others or are they just sitting around doing nothing? If they are extremely busy, why should your pet take precedence over a paying customer (i.e., why should they lose sleep or time with their family?). If vets had a policy, or requirement, of performing services for people that couldn't pay, how many people would come in and say they cannot pay? A lot of people don't pay certain bills just because they don't want to, not because they cannot. They just do not want to sacrifice something to pay the vet. For instance, they want the new shiny car so they use the money for the vet to make the down payment on the car. It is greed all the way around.

I have been in practice on my own right now for a little over three years now and have dealt with all of four people that didn't pay on time. One declared bankruptcy and I lost $2,500 in fees. After several months of non-payment by two others, I reduced the bill by $400 for one client and $100 for another client if they paid me by a certain date and I received the payment. I just drafted a letter last night to another client giving him $120 off a $520 bill if he pays by the end of the month. I am an attorney and the collection process is a pain because I don't get paid anything for the time spent on it.

Imagine if a vet had a ton of accounts receivable. Who would collect it all? How much time would the vet have to spend trying to collect it? Time spent trying to collect outstanding accounts is time lost helping animals and time lost making money. How much would the vet have to spend on attorneys fees? Would the vet have to hire additional office staff to handle the receivables?

Now, instead of blaming the vets in your area for everything, how about looking inward too. Was this a planned pregnancy for your dog? If not, why didn't you have her fixed? If you couldn't afford to get her fixed, why didn't you protect her so that a male dog couldn't get to her during heat. If you couldn't afford to get her fixed, why didn't your girlfriend buy a male dog? If it was planned, why didn't you have the money for any possible complications? If it was planned, did you see a vet before this crisis? Do you have a regular vet for your dog that you have a relationship with?

We all have a limited amount of time on this Earth, and time is a resource that once used, we cannot get back. So, what makes you think that a vet is any different than any of us. What makes you think that a vet should sacrifice some of his time on this Earth to help somebody out and not get anything in return? Have you ever gone into work and said, "Hey Boss, I'm going to work for free this week!!" How many people get away with not paying for their groceries at the check out counter. Do check out clerks justs say, don't worry about being short, we'll just open an account for you and you can pay us when you get it. It used to be that way a long time ago, but very rarely nowadays, especially in the big cities. Now, that doesn't mean there isn't a free lunch called Welfare, but that is an entirely different animal.

I am sure that the majority of vets are just trying to make a living like you and everybody else on this board. Sure, some of them make a ton of money, but I doubt the majority of them do. Same goes for attorneys. Everybody thinks attorneys make a ton of money, but the truth is that on average we graduate law school with close to $100,000 in debt and the average starting salary for an attorney is $40,000. We don't make good money until several years down the road, which is probably 8 to 10 years.