From the newsrooms of the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. This is the morning edition. I'm Samantha Cylinder Morris. It's Monday, May 19th. It's one of life's agonising scenarios. Your puppy gets hit by a car or your cat develops a tumor. Of course you want the best care. But what if you're quoted $10,000 or more? And why are prices varying
so much from vet to vet? Today, senior reporter Henrietta Cook and national science reporter Liam Mannix on why veterinary bills have skyrocketed over the last few years, and the people who are now having to sell their furniture or struggle to make rent in order to care for their pets. So, Liam and Henrietta, I am so excited to have you on. You both have cats. I've got one too. And I think, you know, just as I do, that pets are the best people in the house. Now, first, Henrietta, I'm going
to go to you because I think it's official. Your cat has the best name in the world. This is Margaret Scratcher. So is she called Margaret Scratcher because, like her namesake, she's a badass.
She is a bit, um, and she scratches a bit and hisses and doesn't really like humans. Um, but she likes my husband. And, yeah, she's definitely the feistiest person in the house. She's quite scared of my two young kids, so it doesn't spend a lot of time in the house anymore. But she is a very important part of our family and we love her very much. Maggie or Margaret Scratcher hates the vet, and they told us that we're not to bring her back unless we, um, give
her a sedative. So we we unfortunately don't go there very often.
Okay, well, that brings me to my next question, which is that the two of you have just written that some people are now paying absolutely astonishing amounts of money to see the vet. So tell us, how much are we talking about here, Liam? I might go to you first.
Yeah, sure. So we wanted to look at the skyrocketing costs of vets because. So we got data from Petua, which is the nation's largest pet insurer, and they think that the average cost of healthcare over a pet's lifetime is about $30,000, which is a huge amount of money. I think they were saying 1 in 10 pets, it can rise to $100,000. And the statistic that really jumped out to me was vet inflation. So this is a
rise in the cost of vet services. And we're tracking that at up 34% since 2020, which is well above inflation.
Okay. That is pretty shocking. Now Henrietta, I want to go to you because you both have spoken with numerous pet owners who really all have shocking stories, like forking out their entire savings to cover medical costs. So can you share some of those stories?
Yeah, we spoke to a few pet owners who have had to basically dig into their savings, um, sell furniture, take out loans just in order to pay their vet bills. One. Poor man, um, he had an accident where a child fell on his puppy, and the puppy broke its leg. He, um, had no option but to seek the help of a charity that helps pet owners pay for these sorts of bills. He was initially quoted $10,000 to fix the the dog's leg. Um,
and he was also quoted a smaller fee to amputate it. Um, I also spoke to another woman who has set up a crowdfunding campaign just so that she can pay her bills, um, to treat a urinary blockage in her cat. Um, this poor woman, um, is now struggling to pay the rent, and she's Choose, listing all the furniture in her house on Facebook Marketplace.
And Liam, I want to go to you because these costs are rising. So tell us why? Because I mean, these these are massive figures you're talking about.
As with most things, Sam, what we're seeing here is a confluence of different structural factors. So first of all, we've got the basic idea that vet care has never been better. Our animals today get better care than they have ever had. And that care has improved quite dramatically in the last 20 years. But that also costs money.
You know, we've got the entry of machines and procedures that were once reserved for humans, like CT scanners, MRI scanners, even anticancer vaccines that are now moving from human medicine into animal medicine. We've also got this sense, this growing sense that animals are part of the family. People are really willing to spend a lot more money on their pet's care now. And part of that is bolstered by rising rates of pet insurance, which we know encourages consumers
to spend more on their vets. But there are other things that we hear a bit less about that we found were really contributing here. First is that this is an industry that is rapidly transforming. Vets for a very long time have been underpaid relative to what other people with similar university degrees might experience. The average wage in vets is about $70,000, and that's really jumping up now because the workforce is experiencing chronic shortages and people bought
a lot of pets in the pandemic. Sam. So suddenly there's a big spike in demand that's pushing up wages, and those costs are flowing through to vet owners. Then on top of that, there's growing corporatization. So a number of groups funded by venture capital have moved into the veterinary industry, started acquiring practices. And we think that that
is contributing to some increases in costs. And then the last one that I really want to hit on, and this is what got Henrietta and I really interested, is we think that there may be a level of overtreatment and overdiagnosis within the industry. And that's a word that really pricks up hen in my ear, where some health and science journalists and we've done a lot of reporting on this problem in human healthcare, where there are big
steps being taken to stamp it out. And it would seem that this is a problem for animals as well now.
And so, Henrietta, let's go to you. Let's talk about, I guess, the new procedures, you know, the sophisticated treatments that we've now got for pets. Because I think you had it quoted in your story that, for instance, specialists are sometimes charging $1500 to $7000 to repair a ruptured ACL, but there are actually surgical options that are not nearly as expensive. Is that right?
Yeah, that's right there. Seems like there's a really large discrepancy in terms of the cost of treatments between providers Often there's tests that are perhaps not necessary that are ordered. There's also increasingly sophisticated procedures that are being performed on animals chemotherapy, for instance. We also came across a case of a Great Dane that was, um, kept alive with ventilators, who had pneumonia, and that cost the pet insurer $80,000, which was their highest ever claim.
Part of what drives this, Sam, is the unusual structure of the vet market. We know that consumers don't tend to price shop between different vets. It's much like with a doctor you go to the doctor, you say, I need this done and they do it for you. The same thing happens with vets. You take your sick dog to the vet. The vet says this is how much the medicine costs and you pay. So there's not a
lot of price competition between different vets. And that tends to lead to a lot of price discrepancies for the same operation at different practices.
We'll be right back. Okay, so, Henrietta, I want to go to you and ask you about the corporatization of the vet industry, because that, I think is also a key here. I know Liam mentioned it just before in terms of why costs have risen so much. So can you tell us about that, I guess, how much vets have become corporatized?
Yeah. In Australia we have about 15 to 20% of clinics owned by these big corporate companies. There's I think, 555 vets across the country. Um, we have been told by people that that is pushing up the price of veterinary care for owners, and that is often because they have KPIs that their vets have to meet in order to bring in more money. It's not just like a vet that's owned by an individual owner who may not mind if they don't make a huge profit that year.
These companies are beholden to shareholders and have to turn around big profits. That sometimes means upselling treatments and scans and things that you may not necessarily need.
However, it's important to also say that Green Cross. They're one of the sort of biggest corporates in this sector have told us that there's no KPIs and that there's no commission that's linked to remuneration for their vets in terms of how many interventions they perform, and that they have full clinical autonomy to give the right care to the animal that's in front of them.
And it makes me wonder, you know, is there any regulator in this industry, any oversight, because it seems to be sort of open slather in terms of, you know, what can be charged if there's such discrepancies sometimes for one procedure between one clinic and another, is there any oversight?
Yeah. So each state has a veterinary board and they basically oversee, I guess, the practice of vets in that state, but they're mainly looking at, I think, sort of ethical practice. Uh, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, they basically told us that businesses are free to independently set their own prices. Um, but they also pointed out it's illegal for businesses to make false or misleading claims about prices. So I guess they're kind of your two levels of regulation here.
And so I guess just to wrap up, Liam and Henrietta, is there anything, I guess, that you'd recommend for owners to, to help with this problem? I mean, obviously you've spoken about people who have drained their life savings to care for their loved pets. Is it sort of charities like the pet medical crisis that I think one of the people you spoke to went to, or is it something else?
Pet insurance is obviously one potential way of defraying some of these costs. Um, I also think we need to be somewhat philosophical about these costs. What we're talking about here in many cases, is we're paying more for better quality care for our pets. And as we transform the way that we think about them, then it kind of makes a bit of sense that we would want to
spend more to prolong their life. I think that the overcharging issue that we've identified is real, but I also think a lot of this is just down to people wanting to care better for their pets.
I would probably recommend shopping around for prices and seeking a second opinion if you have been quoted an exorbitant price for treatment. And one of the things quite a few people raised was payment plans, and that vets should be doing more to help people who cannot necessarily afford these huge upfront costs.
We're touching on an interesting ethical dilemma here, though, Sam, that a lot of pet owners and a lot of vets are really encountering before, it was reasonably common to economically euthanize an animal where you got to the point where you simply made the call. My companion animals. Life
is not worth this very large treatment cost. We're now moving to the point where that is much less common, but we've almost got this reverse ethical problem coming out the other direction, where animals are being offered treatments that can extend their life but may compromise the quality of their life. Some vets have concerns about some of the heroic chemotherapies that we undertake these days because they say, well, you know how good a quality life is this dog
having while it is being treated for cancer? I think that's a really interesting dilemma for people to grapple with.
I think it's a really interesting dilemma, and it makes me want to ask, do you think many vets are really happy to have those difficult conversations with pet owners? Because we see that in human care, right? I know I've read features again and again where doctors who are treating human patients find it difficult to have those conversations and to sort of ask those questions. Is this something you actually want? Do you actually want this end of life.
Care to prolong your life when your life might be incredibly painful? Let's just say so. I don't know if you two have spoken to vets about whether, yeah, they're forthcoming about having those kinds of conversations.
Yeah, I imagine it's one of the most difficult parts of being a vet. One vet I spoke to said that about 40% of his customers cannot afford the the treatment that he recommends. He then has to discuss sort of second or third line treatment and I guess detail, um, the pitfalls of that treatment. Um, they're pretty uncomfortable conversations to have. Uh, in some cases, uh, the vet and the family might reach a decision that, um, ending the
pet's life is, is the best way forward. And, um, yeah, it might also be worthwhile mentioning vets have quite high rates of, um, of sort of mental health issues. And I think a lot of that comes down to having these quite uncomfortable conversations with pet owners and wanting to do the best for these animals.
Gosh, that's tragic, and I hadn't actually heard that before. Liam, is that something you've heard before? Are you surprised to hear that?
I was surprised when I initially heard it, but when you speak to vets and then think about what they have to go through, you can see why it's pretty mentally challenging. These are people who typically go into this profession because they love animals, and they are, on a daily basis, being asked to euthanize an animal or not provide the best quality of care for an animal for financial reasons. You can understand why that's that's pretty traumatic and pretty heartbreaking.
I have to admit, it really does put another lens on. I think, you know, the bills that people get, it really sort of does provide a much more holistic view, doesn't it, about what's going on, one that I hadn't had before. So thank you so much Liam and Henrietta, for your time.
Thanks for having us.
Thanks for having us, Sam.
Today's episode of The Morning Edition was produced by Josh Towers and Julia Carcasole, with technical assistance by Cormac Lally. Our executive producer is Tammy Mills. Tom McKendrick is our head of audio. To listen to our episodes as soon as they drop, follow the Morning Edition on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Our newsrooms are powered by subscriptions, so to support independent journalism, visit The Age
or smh.com.au. Subscribe and to stay up to date. Sign up to our Morningedition newsletter to receive a summary of the day's most important news in your inbox every morning. Links are in the show. Notes. I'm Samantha Selinger. Morris. Thanks for listening.