Carriage Hills Animal Hospital

Reviews 3

A

A Private User

We moved from out of state to Montgomery. From our previous vet, we learned the importance of the AAHA (American Animal Hospital Association) accreditation. We expected to get the same services and treatment. We have one pet with issues and needs special treatment. All local vets wanted to start from the beginning to validate issues our pet was having. We heard good things from Carriage Hills and gave them a try. The medical staffs reviewed the issues and continued treatment without question and even recommend other treatments to make our pet better. What a relief! We decided to let Carriage Hills treat our six pets. Yes, they displayed the AAHA logo on their door. We travel over 25 miles to Carriage Hills. They said they even give discounts for having multiple pets treated by them. Yippee!! After three years of service, I am pleased with the immediate medical staff. However, I do not trust anyone but the vets. While someone is always in the building at all times, Carriage Hills does not allow pickup of boarded animals on Sunday. You are forced to pay for another day of boarding per animal. I recently had two dogs get annual injections and physical. I expected $100 for each animal – the total bill was over $500! The tech did not review what the physical accomplishes and costs. What a shocker! I was told once the pet is older than six; they like to do more tests to catch medical issues early. For $250 each – that is the last physical they will get from Carriage Hills. We determined we wanted to change to a more reasonably priced boarding facility which had the additional benefit of being open for pick up on Sunday. I went back to get a copy of the shot both animals received during the last $500 visit. One pet did not have all the information listed. I had to return to Carriage Hills to verify the shot was given and to get an updated list of vaccines received. The last several times we have traveled, we used their boarding service. They call a week prior to verify pets will be boarded and there will be no cancellations. This is a great policy around the holiday season. However, the last three reservations were lost. We received the call a week prior as expected and paid the reservation fee. When you are ready to catch a flight and told we can’t board the animals because they are full. The ‘upset factor’ blows through the roof! No, they don’t reimburse you for missed flights. This was our last boarding at Carriage Hills. I don’t mind paying a premium for ‘reasonable’ services for an AAHA rated facility. However, I have lost faith with Carriage Hills: • $250 for a physical for a dog is outrageous. • Not being open on Sunday for boarding pick up is terrible service. • Losing boarding reservations multiple times with their current policy is inexcusable. • Not maintaining records correctly. • Multiple discounts – never seen it. For new clients, they do and say all the right things to get you in the door, but the service drops once you are in their system. We are searching for another vet. They do have a couple of outstanding staff members I would love to continue treating our pets. The two star rating is an overall rating for the entire facility.

MA

Matt Flag

Military Family. Disclaimer: Ive never rated any company/organization below 5 stars as I usually dont believe in critical reviews over a public network; however, in this case, Im making an exception. We called Carriage Hills, a CORPORATE company, when our dog got a major laceration behind her ear, about an hour away. Bottom line: This place is only concerned about taking your money. The veterinary assistant assure that they could tend to our dog, so we left immediately. Upon arrival, we were greeted by the assistant to who seemed exasperated and completely incapable of clear communication which became distracting. She took our information and then we spoke to the vet who would be performing the surgery who seemed very knowledgeable. As an aside, they assessed the charges at 680.00 for local Anastasia and stitches. We ended up hiring an "above board" private veterinarian who charged 370.00. At the time, we were comfortable with the vet and left our dog, to return about an hour and a half later. An hour after that, we received a call that another dog was being rushed in having been hit by a car, so our dog was bumped. We understood this, because they told us they would get to our dog whenever they could, we decided to look into other options. We called Montgomery Veterinary Clinic and left a message and immediately heard back from Dr. Armstrong who offered to meet us at his clinic (that was technically closed) to see our dog. After speaking to Dr. Armstrong we immediately called Carriage Hills to let them know we found another option that could see our dog immediately and that we would be coming to get her. When we arrived, we were brought into a small room, doors closed, where an assistant strongly urged us to board her over night so that they could get to her in the morning, discouraging us from taking her by also noting that because she came to the clinic, we owed them the emergency fee (though they didnt do anything with her) and a check up fee (though we never got any diagnoses or check up from the vet). Once again, here we have an imposing staff employee using intimidation tactics by locking us in a small room in the middle of an empty hospital building and coercing us to leave the dog overnight "or else.." type of ultimatium. At this point, we did not care, we simply wanted to get our dog seen to immediately (she had a 3 inch open wound, bleeding, and they had not done anything with her in the hour that we had left her there). We are so thankful to Dr. Armstrong at Montgomery Veterinary Clinic who performed her surgery perfectly, at half the price, and did so on his own time. We are disappointed that Carriage Hills wasnt looking out for the best of our dog (by letting us take her elsewhere) and cornered us before allowing us to have her back, to discuss what we owed. If you want the best care for your dog as well as not being completely taken advantage of - go somewhere other than this location.

RI

Rini Beeny

Last week I had the unfortunate necessity to bring my cat to the emergency vet at Carriage Hills and afterwards, I know for a fact that I will never bring my pets here ever again. I had nothing against the receptionist that was helping us as she was doing everything in her power to keep us calm, but after reading some of the other reviews, it seems like this is a recurring issues. First, they took my cat to the back and did not allow me to come with them. I have been to almost every vet clinic in Montgomery and have never had the experience where I have not been allowed to go back with him. The fact that they just took my cat, just makes me know for sure that they were acting rough to him especially after how he was acting. Half an hour later, the receptionist, NOT THE VET, came out to us to give us our estimate. It was over $500 worth of tests to find out what was wrong with him, this wasnt even including how much we would spend were they to actually figure it out! The receptionist gave us a few minutes to process everything. We didnt have the money for that, but knew that if were able to keep him comfortable for the night, we could take him to the vet in the morning. When the receptionist, STILL NOT THE VET, came back out we asked her to give him some pain meds and we would hold out til morning. The entire time that we were there, I never once saw the supposed vet, Dr. Maples. She was supposed to be treating my cat, but she didnt come out to even introduce herself? Im paying you to look at my cat and find out whats wrong and you cant even come out and comfort me while Im freaking out? I dont appreciate the level of care that I received while I was at this vet hospital. I guarantee the poor receptionist does not get paid well enough to break that kind of news to their clients and what pisses me off most is the fact that I know if they were able to figure it out, the vet would have come out and taken all the credit. Because I wasnt willing to spend God knows how much money, I didnt get to even meet the vet. If this is the way that they treat the people that walk in the door during an emergency, Id hate to see how they treat their regular patients. Oh, and the vet that I took him too the next morning, knew exactly what was wrong with him and they didnt do any of the tests that Dr. Maples wanted to do. A $500+ vet bill went down to $100. Please go to ARK Animal Hospital if you have a pet issue, Dr. Stephenson and the others will actually treat you with some respect and will actually look at your pet. Im not even completely convinced that Dr. Maples was even actually present during my trip. I refuse to step through that door ever again.