CONSUMERS : Coping With Nighttime Pet Emergencies
What if your dog is hit by a car or your cat is wheezing and can’t breathe properly in the middle of the night? Where do you take it for emergency treatment when your own veterinarian’s office is closed?
It is for just such eventualities that night vets exist. These are emergency clinics that are not open during the day, but have hours from 6 p.m. to 8 a.m. weekdays and 24-hours-a-day on weekends and holidays. There is a growing number of them in Southern California, and the majority were set up by groups of veterinarians who wanted emergency care for animals during hours when their own offices are closed.
To find an emergency animal clinic, you can look in the Yellow Pages under Veterinarian Emergency Services, but your best plan is to call your regular vet, who will usually have a phone referral to a night clinic. You can bet he isn’t going to send you to one he doesn’t like. With a sick or injured animal on your hands, you’re in no position to shop around or drive halfway across the county.
When and if the situation arises, you may be emotionally upset about your pet’s accident or illness. But be sure to ask the veterinarian at the night clinic what he has to do for your animal and what it’s going to cost. You may be shocked if you don’t.
First, emergency vet hospitals charge on average $20 more for an office call than your regular daytime vet because of their night and weekend hours. There are a few that offer 24-hour emergency service, but often the vets are on call, not on the premises.
Although those fees vary, the basic office charge for a regular emergency visit ranges from $32 to $48 in the Los Angeles/Orange County areas. Some clinics will charge a few dollars more if you bring your pet in after midnight.
Secondly, what may escalate your bill into several hundred dollars is the extent of emergency treatment your pet may require.
“The cost would be dependent on an individual case basis,” said Dr. David Smith of the 8-year-old North Bay Animal Emergency Hospital in Santa Monica. “If you have an animal hit by a car, it probably would be between $150 and $200 for most routine cases. X-rays are $70 of that. A blood transfusion would be $80 to $100. If you get into complications, it will cost more. If the animal has to be in intensive care overnight, it also costs more.”
A Burbank couple, for example, voiced a recent complaint about the bill they received after their puppy was hit by a car. It was after midnight when they got the dog to the emergency clinic, so the initial fee was $45. The total bill, however, was $165.
“The thing that upset me was that they told us when we got there about the $45 fee and said it would be an extra $10 to keep him overnight,” Candyce Plummer said. “But they didn’t tell us about the rest of the costs. I just wish they had said something more to let us know how much it really would be.”
The itemized final bill read: emergency fee, $45; injections, $10; X-rays, $90; overnight hospitalization, $10; medication, $10.
Most of the emergency vet clinics in Los Angeles and Orange counties surveyed informally by The Times said that their policy was to tell the pet owner up front--before treating the animal--what the estimated total fee would be, in addition to the standard office call charge.
“You spell it out first to the people, unless you have an animal that’s in extreme shock and you have to treat him right away,” said Dr. David Griffith of the Animal Emergency Centre in Studio City. “You don’t have time to give them a written estimate in that case, but you can tell them.
“If you have an injured animal in shock, you’ll need to give fluids and oxygen, do X-rays, give medication, steroids and antibiotics,” Griffith explained. “That gets quite expensive.” Afterward, he said, “we write out a full report saying what we did and what we did it for. We’re putting our knowledge on the line. The cost is based strictly on what’s done.”
Treating Trauma
Both night and daytime veterinarians insist that pet owners often don’t understand that emergency vet clinics are just like emergency rooms for people. They treat trauma and emergencies, and that costs more.
Many pet owners panic, too, vets say, and bring their animals into an emergency clinic when they could well have waited until morning.
“If people call to talk about the sick animal before they come in, you have to be terribly careful what you advise,” said Griffith. “A lot could probably wait till morning, but you can’t see the dog over the phone. If someone calls and says their dog is itching. I would say that the dog is not doing to die from itching. Of course, the dog might be going crazy and driving the person crazy, so the owner wants to come in.”
“They’re fulfilling a needed service, just like the St. Joseph Medical Center emergency room is for people,” said Dr. Martin Small of the Animal Hospital in Burbank, a daytime practice that takes evening emergency calls.
Although Small and his two partners handle 90% of their emergency calls, including nights and weekends, they still refer calls to an emergency clinic on nights they can’t handle all they’re getting or if the animal needs overnight supervision, Small said.
Small said that he and his partners charge $40 for an emergency office call at night or on weekends.
‘Fulfilling a Service’
“‘People will understand why you charge $40 instead of $20 to get out of bed and come to the office,” he theorized. “(But) they don’t seem to see why the night vet has to charge $40 if he’s just sitting there. They don’t understand that these vets are fulfilling a service so the rest don’t have to go out at night. If you work all day and then all night, you’re no good for your clients the next day.”
Some consumers, night vets say, also don’t understand why the emergency veterinarians usually don’t set broken bones for an injured cat or dog, but will send them back to their regular vet the following morning for surgery.
(In fact, in most cases emergency vet hospitals will refer you back to your regular veterinarian after they have administered emergency treatment.)
“If you have an animal that’s been hit and is severely traumatized, bleeding and in shock, you have to control that trauma first and worry about internal injuries, chest trauma and stabilize him through the night,” Dr. Bill Sullenberger of the Eagle Rock Emergency Pet Clinic explained. “You might splint, cast or bandage a leg, but you have to worry about those other injuries first. You’d have to anesthetize him to do surgery, and he could die if you did it when he’s in that shape. Orthopedics are not emergency procedures. You have up to five days for most broken bones.”
Emotional Clients
“Communication between the doctor or hospital staff and the client is critical,” said Dr. Dennis Chang, manager of the 16-year-old Emergency Pet Clinic of San Gabriel Valley in El Monte. “You have to make sure the client knows what he’s looking at, so he doesn’t get shocked when he comes to pay. But sometimes the client is so emotional . . . what you’re saying doesn’t register with them.”
Rol Gillum, hospital administrator for the Orange County Emergency Pet Clinic, recommends that pet owners check out the emergency clinics in their area before they need them in a bona fide emergency.
He also advises clients to patronize emergency veterinary hospitals that are accredited by the American Animal Hospital Assn., which certifies that the hospital, emergency or regular clinic, meets required association standards.
“I tell people to find out where the clinic is and how to get there before they need to,” Gillum said. “I also recommend that they tour the emergency hospital, and they should also tour their regular vets’ practice. They should ask to go in the back rooms of the facility, too. They’ll find that a number of places may not let them in the back to look around.”
