COVID-19 update: Client advice on what to do during the Coronavirus crisis

Consultations

What to expect

A vet or nurse will call you through into one of the three consulting rooms. This is where the clinical history will be taken if your pet is ill, and where a clinical examination will be performed.

Even if your pet is only here for a booster vaccination we will still give each animal a thorough check-over. It is always best to detect health problems early on and this is why an annual health check is perhaps even more important than the booster vaccination itself.

The consult is also a place for you to voice any concerns that you may have about the health and management of your pet. The vets and nurses aren't just here to treat sick animals, so if you want any advice on dental care, nutrition or behaviour and management then do ask!

Practice Policies Concerning Consultations

In the case of repeat medications e.g. arthritis or cardiac cases, then in a manner just like a G.P. we will require to check up on your pet every now and again. This is to ensure that everything is going well and that we do not need to change or alter the medication. It is also a requirement of the Royal college of Veterinary surgeons that all animal we treat must be “under our care”. Most practices interpret this as a requirement to check up on patients every 3 months in order to give the best level of care and to comply with the rules that govern us.

Please note that for non-urgent medications it is possible to ask for a prescription should you wish, which may be filled elsewhere - we regret that there is a charge made for this to cover the costs involved. In most cases, however, we can dispense any required medications at the time of consultation for a more convenient and speedy commencement of therapy.

In order to ensure that we can offer medications and treatments to our patients in their time of need, we must insist that all invoices are paid at the time. This means that all consultations, operations and medications must be paid for at the time. To this end we accept cash and all the major credit cards, but we are sorry that we no longer routinely accept cheques as they cannot be guaranteed to cover some of the sums involved.

We routinely charge three levels of consultation fees to cover the common situations - 1st Consultation Fee, 2nd Consultation Fee and a Repeat Medication Examination Fee. The level of these fees is available on enquiry but may change subject to unforeseen circumstances.

We do strive to maintain our fees at a reasonable and affordable level but the necessary expertise and equipment, together with providing a 24 hour service does cost money. Veterinary medicine can offer much more advanced treatments and investigations than before and these can be expensive - for this reason we would strongly recommend insurance as a means of covering some of these costs.

Practice Policies Concerning Insurance

The fees relating to a pet's care are the responsibility of the owner, and they can then be reclaimed from an appropriate insurance policy. Unlike many practices we will, as a courtesy, allow direct claims in some cases - ie the insurance company pays the practice direct for the balance of an account, once a client has paid their excess to GRVC.

Sadly not all insurers are easy to deal with or settle invoices promptly (with up to 6 month delays in some cases) and for this reason we do not allow direct claims from all insurers. Those who, in the past, have delayed settlement of accounts for several months are sadly companies with which we will not deal direct, but where we require a client to settle an account in full to GRVC and reclaim themselves from the insurer.

Please ask at Reception for more details as we have a list on display of these companies.

We also find that due to the time taken to review pet records, complete forms and then deal with further enquiries from insurers, we are dedicating more and more time to dealing with claims. As a result, we regret we charge a one-off fee for the completion of a claim relating to a condition - this single fee covers all the related correspondence on a client's behalf with their insurer.

Some insurers also stipulate which Referral Centre a client should use and penalise a client financially if for any reason they do not do so - this may not always be our recommendation, so please read your small print thoroughly to prevent any subsequent issue or cost to yourself.