Veterinary Medical and Surgical Group (VMSG)

Reviews 3

JE

Jeff Frank

Over the years, and through many dogs, Ive found myself at VMSG on a half of a dozen occasions. I live in Santa Barbara so its a 40 minute one-way drive for me. I will begin by saying that my experience with the technical skill of the Veterinary staff has been good-to-very good. They know what they are doing and they are well equipped to deal with most any medical emergency 24/7. But that is where my positive experience stops. In every other aspect this place is a disaster. The front desk and support people initially come off as courteous, caring, and professional, but eventually, in every case, you find that they are basically uninformed and/or clueless. If you ever have the unfortunate need to go to VMSG, take the entire day off. No schedule they give you will be even close to correct. And when you question why the answer is always the same. We had to deal with an emergency or "these things are difficult to predict". A 30 minute procedure will often keep you there hour after hour with no clear updates. "You can pick your dog up now" translates into you can now pay your bill and sit for the next 90 minutes while we find the time to prep your dog and bring him out. If you question "why is this taking so long" you are treated as an insensitive fool who doesnt understand the urgency of their business or that this is all for the benefit of your beloved pet. After having these things happen on multiple occasions and complaining to the staff its become clear there is a rift between the professional vets, the office staff, and the management. The staff blames the vets, the vets blame the staff and management (and/or quit), and the management, well, they are out to lunch. Of course the result is a truly horribly run business. At the end of the day all of this is the fault of management. They need to realize their customers are almost always under stress because a loved one is likely in a life threatening situation. Add to that the financial stress when they see the estimate for services which no matter how unaffordable it may be for some, they must sign up for. Why create a business and operating model that then adds to that immense stress through incredibly weak customer service? In a life-or-death emergency situation, Ill probably still take my pets there, but Ill dread every second of it.

GA

Gayle Jordan

My border collie collapsed at 7:00 in the evening. She acting like she was drunk and then collapsed. I scoped her up and headed to VMSG. The charge for the vet is 150.00; okay I understand emergency is more expensive than the vet office. The vet told me she has a heart murmur. Wanted to do blood work, x-rays, pericardial tap and keep her overnight. Then the next day sent her to a cardiac specialist in Thousand Oaks. I said no to the specialists, because the expense was climbing. Then she wanted kept her another day so the ultrasound test could be done, because the specialists for this test not there. Beware of all the cost if you take your pet to this place. DO NOT LEAVE YOUR PET OVERNIGHT. The cost was 53.00 per day to keep her but the cost to monitor her was around 122.00 per day. That would have saved me around 350.00 dollars. (2 days) This vet did not give the option to bring her home and then return the next day for the ultrasound test. Keep in mind that once the vet you get leaves for the night or day, the next vet taking his/her place will charge you the fee again. (Other 150.00) I wasn’t thinking clearly letting the vets do what they wanted to do. The next morning I got up early and when to see her. She pee and poops all over the room. Well that tells me the person watching her didn’t do a very good job, and didn’t let her out that morning to do her business. DOES IT? The medicine that they sent her home with is Furosemide and Vetmedian. Well. the Vetmedian is 135.00 for 60 days. Vet told me that I might be able to find in online cheater. The Furosemide dose was 1 table 2 times a daily. (20mg) VMSG called me Monday morning tell me the dose was incorrect should be 2 tables twice a daily (40mg). So when I went to the regular vet he was so confused, he needed to call VMSG to verify. GET RIGHT VMSG THAT’S WHY ARE PAYING YOU 150.00. Oh course I ran out of the Furosemide because the my Vet didn’t have this dose. (20mg) One more thing she now pees all over the floor because cant hold it. My bill was 1,660.00. Now I’m in debt for a dog with Congestion Heart Failure. Not counting the medicine she is taking. And the Vets at VMSG want me to wait 6 months to see if my dog lives or dies. Dont get me wrong I love my Dog.

AN

Ana Bechara

Our dog had a torn nail while playing at the park, he was in obvious pain and bleeding profusely. Being new to Oxnard we called the first 24 hours vet that we could find. The lady on the phone was very nice, took our information and told me that once we came to the ED the vet will see our dog within 30mins. We got there and after filling out some paperwork a vet technician came to take our dog. We were not allowed to go in with him. Within 30 mins the vet came out and, with no bedside manners, explained that this was a common thing and that she will take out the nail under general anesthesia. She answered some of our questions and we agreed to go ahead with the procedure. We had to pay 75% of the costs before they would proceed. They said it would take 2 hours, what with the anesthesia and the recovery time... after 2 hours vets comes out randomly and says that they havent done it yet but that it will be done "any minute now". It took 2 more hours for the procedure to get done and about 30 to 40 minutes for us the get our dog. During all this time our dog was by himself inside the ED probably in a crate, as per the staff with a blanket but I cannot say if that was true. When the procedure was finally done, we had to pay before they would bring our dog to us. There was a mix up with the check but the staff was very nice in helping to fix it. At this point this was what I would say an average visit to any ED for pet or humans... The terrible part came after. Our dog who is usually a very sweet and loving dog started acting aggressive every time we would approach him or try to hold him. It has taken him 2 days to start calming down but still not back to normal. This new behavior we assume was due to the terrible experience he had to undergo while alone in the ED as there is no other explanation for it. God knows what happened in there and how he was handled. Bottom line, the job was done, the place has an okay costumer service and looks clean and the paw is healing appropriately. But the spirit of my dog is not the same as it was before this incident. I would think about it twice before going back to this ED...