If You Have to See a Specialist In a Corporate Franchise

Some $pecialists practices are commission-based: Inexperienced, young, debt-ridden Vets can burrow pretty far into testing for unimportant results, and the bills can make you Blue. You'll thank me for that Pearl of wisdom if we try and avoid them, if possible.

Some of the tests aren't even the doctor's idea! Some of the tests are MANDATED by Izod-wearing MBA's back at 'corporate' - with absolutely no face-to-face accountability to the clients. "We just have to run these tests on every admission to the hospital. I agree, bloodwork doesn't seem relevant to this broken toe."

The fundamental problem (According to job offers on Monster.com, is that these vets are offered a salary of $100,000 a year. Except wait-for-it, they're only paid $80,000. Turns out they only get the other $20,000 if they "hit certain numbers" and "production" and 'move high-profit procedures' and hit a high 'average invoice'.

I mean what would YOU do if someone said, we're not going to give you your whole salary unless you upsell and overcharge?

And they're smart - when you ask "What is this next, expensive, test actually FOR? What will it tell us? How can we use the result?" and the STOCK ANSWER you will ALWAYS get is: "We'll know the answers to all those questions when we get those next-test results back."

The actual PROGNOSIS, or "odds" for your pet will always be available "after the next test". Even if they said that before the first test they ran.