Cost of sedation

Please could a vet give me an idea of the cost of sedation. We recently had our 23kg boxer PTS and I asked the vet to give him a sedative to make him sleep before the final injection. I rang up the following day to pay the bill and was staggered by the cost. £154 for the euthanasia, and………….£290 for the sedative. I watched the sedative being given and it was a small injection, of no more than 1 or 2 ml. I have rung other vets and have been given various prices, with some even including sedation within the euthanasia price. I would like to know how much does the medication actually COST the vet…… Vet costs should be totally transparent and they are not. I complained to the vet and told him I should have been told how much the sedation injection was beforehand, and I would have taken my old boy somewhere else. After a heated row, they have removed the charge under protest, but have told me I will have to sign to agree costs before any further treatment on my other dogs is carried out. Needless to say I will be changing from Medivet.

I'm so sorry to hear that you had a negative experience, especially at the end of your pets' life.  Euthanasias are highly emotional consultations at the best of times and take a lot of experience to get right.  I beleive that vets should estimate fully for euthanasia and most do - although sometimes, it can seem a bit awkward to break away and talk about money at such an emotional moment.  As you can imagine, clients - most of whom would already be very upset -  often take exception to it ('my dog was about to be put to sleep and needed extra sedative and they were only bothered about making sure I was happy to pay the money').  Some vets have a separate, flat, 'sedation for euthanasia' fee to avoid this problem, because while sedation does take up time and drugs, the level of heart / colour / blood pressure monitoring required in that situation isn't usually the same.  Others have an overall final euthanasia fee that accounts for the size of the animal and doesn't ask for mls of sedative to be added later.  It sounds as though your vet got the presentation of the procedure and prices very wrong for you.  They may not have been helped by an underlying charging policy, or perhaps by their lack of understanding of it.   Situations like this are usually about the performance of that vet using that system in that situation on that day - (and sometimes their underlying pricing policy) - not about the person's value / ability as a vet overall and sonetimes not even about the company.  I agree that it was very important to make the company aware however, because if this has happened to you, it can happen to other clients and staff trainings on the subject sound to be in order.  Euthanasia, when everything goes well and there is a pricing system that works for it, can be a very positive experience.

I'm afraid that I don't know the current wholesale prices of sedatives, or how you would find them out, because drugs can be bought in bulk and distributed through large companies and this is beyond my understanding.  Vet help direct has some blog articles on the subject, including obe along the lines of, 'vet medicines - are they really a rip off?'

Finally, my heart goes out to and your dog.  It also - to a lesser extent, of course - goes out to your vet.  It is excrutiating when a euthanasia doesn't go according to plan (and all of us have had that happen) but in the event that the pricing structure wasn't how they expected it, it makes everything ten times worse.  I hope that this gets resolved for you.