Rio Linda Veterinary Clinic

Review: Cat developed infection from spay surgery conduct for treatment, communication, customer service, billing and compassion extremely poor - cat died.

I brought my cat back to clinic after spay surgery left her ill-they took her into a room I was not permitted to witness the exam which took less than 5 minutes. They speculated "I think" she had a "dormant respitory" infection brought out by stress from surgery. They refused to give her injection but gave me pills to give her at home with follow up in two days. My father took her for the follow up as I was working and he too was not permitted to enter the exam room. Vet called me at work to tell me she was not better and asked to run a leukemia test I asked again to please give her a shot and again they refused due to her having her pill that morning. They said they would try a different antibiotic because the pills were not working. I got home from work to find that they did not give other meds to my father or even any paperwork regarding the visit. They wanted me to bring her back in again the next day to show me how to administer fluids. I stopped the pills originally prescribed and she ate for the first time. I did not return her to the vet since she had eaten and waited for a call from them but it never came until the next Tuesday when they attempted to run my credit card without advising me of charges or ever sending me a bill. I informed them the pills were making her sick and asked why different meds were not given to my father during her follow up they told me to keep giving her the original pills. I also asked for itemized bill since I never received any invoice or even a phone call they said billing included an injection that they refused to give her despite my adamant requests. I gave her the pills as instructed and she went into convulsions and suffered 12 seizures thru that night. She did not survive. Vet also ran my credit card on three attempts without authorization or ever sending a bill they got all but $29.00 they claim I owed and after sending a demand letter for the amount though never sending a bill, turned it over to collection, which I responded with notice of my dispute. The collection agency sent a response letter the vet submitted declaring the debt to be valid, which included several statements not to true and obviously perjury. I am outraged by the poor service, the deceptive practices of animal treatment and billing conduct I will never pay another dime to them I have submitted complaints to the veterinary medical board in addition to other agencies of consumer protection along with youDesired Settlement: I would like the cost for the spay surgery as well as all other charges made in relation to her treatment also to resolve issue with collection agencies as well as credit reporting agencies. I realize they don't have compassion to admit they made an error or to apologize.

Business

Response:

Attached is a detailed history of the activities surrounding the treatment of Aja, [redacted] Willey's kitten by our clinic. The following are responses to the consumer's complaint filed addressing individual discrepancies:

The owner stated that the kitten developed an infection from her spay surgery. This is inaccurate. the kitten had a Feline leukemia infection which was not diagnosed prior to surgery because the owner declined testing the kitten. Cats with Feline leukemia have compromised immune systems which likely made the recovery from her surgery and anesthesia difficult. There were no complications from her spay surgery.

On the first recheck visit the owner never requested that an injection be given to her kitten. In fact she was unable to pay for the oral medications that were being sent home with her and so in an attempt to keep her bill to a minimum the owner was instructed to start the oral medication when she got home.

The owner stated that we refused to give Aja a shot on the second recheck visit. An injection of Baytril, a second antibiotic we prescribed, was given that day. She was confused by the fact that she had already administered the first antibiotic at home that morning so we did not give her another dose of the first antibiotic.

She stated that we did not send any medications or paperwork home with her father. The receptionist gave the receipt for that visit to her father showing the new balance that she carried because she was unable to pay her bill that day as well. We allowed her to carry the balance and she gave us a credit card number to use at a later date. The technician spoke with her on the phone at work while the cat was here and she made an appointment to come in the next morning for us to demonstrate to her how to administer fluids to her cat at home. We told her that and the 2nd antibiotic would be sent home with her the next morning. She did not show up for that appointment or call to cancel so we were unable to give her the medications. She states that she was waiting for a call from us that day which never came. She missed her appointment and I don't know why she was expecting us to call her.

She states that we charged her credit card without ever informing her or sending her a bill. We typically do not allow billing. We made an exception for her because her kitten was ill. She gave us a credit card number and asked us to run the balance on the card on the following Tuesday which we did. Why would we have her credit card number if she had not given it to us with the understanding of using it?

She states that she told us the pills were making her sick and that we told her to continue giving them. We had no contact with [redacted] from the time she missed her appointment until she called to dispute the credit card charges. We did not know if Aja was doing better or not. We were completely unaware of any reaction to the medication or of any seizures. Had we talked to her we would have advised her to come in for the fluids we had initially recommended.

[redacted] is accusing me of perjuring myself to the collection agency. All accounts that I and my staff have of the interactions we had with [redacted] have been consistent. I would like to point out that we have had several documents written by her that have all had different accounts of what occurred.

[redacted] is asking for a refund for the services we provided to her kitten. We performed a spay surgery on her kitten with no complications and tried to help her treat her kitten when she became ill. [redacted] did not follow our recommended treatments and did not pay for the services she authorized us to perform. I feel that we provided the services that were requested of us with the usual compassion and honest practices that I am accustomed to. I informed the owner of the charges she was incurring and even offered her credit that is not customary for my practice. I do not know why she feels that she should not pay for these services. I regret that her kitten has passed away but it was definitely not due to any negligence on my part.