In short, STAY AWAY from this place. You, your pet, and your wallet, deserve better.
There is absolutely only one reason to consider taking your pet (s) to this hospital, and that is if your pet requires emergency care and your normal vet (or alternatives) are closed.
Several of the Associate Vets at this location are actually quite good, and if they opened up their own practices we would follow them in a heartbeat.
However, the front office clearly does not understand the basics of customer service, they quote inaccurate fees over the phone, and generally charge highly over-inflated prices compared to any of the neighborhood vets. It is clear that the office is run as a strictly corporate enterprise without any understanding about the value of providing quality customer service at fair prices.
As an example: They will quote a rabies shot at $25 per animal (cat or dog), with a 50% discount on their clinic days. So the cost should be $12.50, right? Higher than the $8 at the pound, and $10 that I've seen at what will now be my new regular vet. However, since we had an established history with Central Animal Hospital we thought we'd still do it, for my parent's 3 dogs and 2 cats.
5 animals x 12.50/animal should be a $62.50 bill, right?
Imagine our surprise when they charged us $288!!!
Although they saw all the animals at the same time, within a 25minute window, they still charged $40 office visits for *each* animal. They also charged a bogus $5.75 "Bio-Hazard" disposal fee for each shot. I asked our new vet about that fee — his office charges a similar fee, but it is just thirty-five cents! As this is a required (but un-disclosed) charge for the rabies shots, the true "discounted rate" for Rabies shots at VCA is $12.50 5.75 = $18.25, or roughly twice what you'd pay elsewhere, and that's before their required "office visit" fee!
I pointed out that these rates had not been disclosed to my mother when she called regarding their rates, as she had been told that they would charge one office visit and then just $12.50 per animal for the shots, which should have been $102.50 total, not $288. Note that many other vets do not charge office visits for rabies shots on clinic days.
Ms. N., the office manager, refused to reconsider the charges and redundant office visit fees, and suggested that we take a copy of our files to a new vet. So that is what we did, and I am so happy that we did it. Some of the other front office staff at VCA were nice, but it is clear that Ms. N's poor customer service attitude permeates and corrupts the entire office.
Whatever you do, follow the advice facetiously provided by VCA's own office manager Ms. N., and take your business elsewhere to a veterinary practice that actually cares about its clients, and won't intentionally try to deceive and fleece its long-term clients without remorse.
Stay away, stay away, stay away from VCA!
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