Around here, it's $60 plus additional fees like "record maintenance".
A veterinary practice is a business.  To survive, it must be profitable
and the only upper limit to prices is competition.  Businesses give
discounts when it results in more bottom-line profit.  A few might lower
prices to some based on conscience but I think that's fading.

At the hospital I used to use, those very pricey dentals are performed
by an assistant who has no formal training or credentials.  That's
illegal in this state.  But it's more profitable than paying a tech.
It's safe for the business because the state veterinary board always
announces a visit days in advance.  And the cat can't tell.

My family doctor spent an hour giving me a physical exam.  The insurance
company paid him $85.  His liability insurance is huge.  Your cat's
exam probably took 15 minutes.  The vet's malpractice exposure is
small.

If your kid wants to be a doctor, send him/her to vet school instead.

Everything is going up. Everything always goes up, except in rare
situations like great sales.

Vets pay more for supplies, and more to get to their offices due
to gas prices. Vets are paying more for food, and hopefully paying
their staff more to deal with inflation.

Several times a year my MIL does the whole "chicken little"
thing, "I just called to tell you, your health insurance premiums
are going up!" Like they don't nearly every damned year.

I know it is hard for those on a fixed income, and nobody wants
to pay more. But it is not unreasonable, nor is it unfair.

What you can do is shop around.

If you can't vet 'em, don't get 'em.
Vets operate on very low profit margins. Everything is getting more
expensive.
Suck it up.

$54 WOULD BE OK IF the vet knew what he/she was doing. Unfortunately,
many do not. I have had two vets give the wrong diagnosis for my pet and
intitate treatment based on that wrong diagnosis. Then the next vet
after several hundred dollars of tests and anesthesia, STILL cannot
determine the cause of the problem. The truth is most of these guys
would never get into and out of human med school and we all KNOW how
many mistakes human doctors make. If they want to build expensive
clinics and charge Beverly Hills prices, then at least screen out all
the incompetents in the field. Most of these vets also would not be able
to survive human medical school because they are psychologically unfit
for dealing with the public. Not all of them, but a disproportiately
large percentage of them. And, it shows what kind of practice and
motives they have when they charge a large fee on the initial consult.
That shows they are primarily interested in money and they don't want to
serve clients who cannot pay. These people should never get into vet
school to begin with, since their motivation is not to help animals, but
to helpe themselves. We need to kick some a.s at the administrative
level amongst the people that select vet school applicants, they
obviously have not been doing their job.

"M.S." <littleboyblu87@yahoo.com> wrote in news:9ce60f05-ee89-4f06-ab3a-
3083f1f214a0@d1g2000hsg.googlegroups.com: