On Saturday afternoon, my dog's bandage slipped off after being re-bandaged on Friday evening at his regular vet--they had done it too loose and it came off in our parking lot like a sock or boot. He ... Read More
On Saturday afternoon, my dog's bandage slipped off after being re-bandaged on Friday evening at his regular vet--they had done it too loose and it came off in our parking lot like a sock or boot. He has an infected paw laceration, and since it happened on July 4th I have spent close to $1,500 on his treatment--sutures, bandage changes every other day, various antibiotics, pain pills and sedatives, and diagnostic tests. He is currently on the up and up but still technically has a form of MRSA--MRSS--and a pseudomonas species bacteria. My vet had closed an hour before so I was forced to take him to emergency. My vet refers its clients to Hope Advanced Vet in Vienna for emergencies. I called them and despite being a referred vet by my vet--meaning to me they must have some sort of partnership in exchange for my vet bringing it clients/$$--they refused to do a simple clean and re-bandage of his wound without having a full veterinary exam first (for $175, which wouldn't include the fee for cleaning and bandaging) since "we don't have his records so we can't treat him without a full exam" (this makes no sense to me, as we're not living in the dinosaur ages now--if they are partners with my vet, they should be able to have access to his digital records). They were flippant and not helpful at all. A friend recommended Prince William Emergency Vet, so I gave them a call.Prince William Emergency was sympathetic, friendly and had a positive, "we want to help you" attitude from the second they answered the phone. When I informed them of my situation and financial concerns--I am totally broke after all of these medical bills over the past month--they immediately put me on hold to speak with their vets about what they could do to help. Since my dog was infected with MRSS they couldn't have him come into the building, but said they would send out some techs to clean and re-bandage my dog outside in the shade because they wanted to help me out. They even apologized for the "less than ideal" scenario, when they could've easily just told me to f*ck off and find somewhere else. They even agreed to charge me for only the tech time and the bandage--$85. My vet charges $55 for the same, so considering it's an emergency vet that had no obligation to help me and hadn't ever seen my dog before, this was incredibly reasonable and mostly DECENT of them to do--no highway robbery here (COUGH Hope Advanced Vet).It was heat index of 106 degrees in the middle of the afternoon, and two techs came out with all of the medical supplies and sat there sweating for 15 minutes with me and my dog, cleaning and bandaging his wound. From the time I called to the time we left was 30 minutes--they saw him as soon as I could get there. I am incredibly thankful to them for helping me and my dog out with a very basic but necessary procedure, and not screwing me over when they knew they had me by the balls like Hope Advanced Vet tried to do. I'm already in the hole over all of this and it was such a breath of fresh air to find an emergency clinic that was NOT this opportunistic vulture waiting to kick me when I'm down for something as basic and quick as a bandage change. From now on I will go to this vet WHENEVER another emergency scenario arises for either my dog or cat (hopefully won't happen again but always possible), and will be recommending this place to all of my pet parent friends! Thank you Prince William Emergency!!! Read Less