Premier Veterinary Group - Chicago

Reviews 4

TA

Tanner McSwain

We had a very similar experience to some of the other reviewers, with the staff clearly more interested in upselling us on unnecessary tests than on providing actual quality care. We brought our cat in with an illness shes had several times before. While under their care, her conditioned worsened (not their fault), but every point of contact we had with the staff, they tried to hard-sell us on expensive tests for other conditions we knew she didnt have. It got to the point where they called us, told us our cat was on her last breath, and if we didnt have them perform a particular test she would be dead within the hour. So we had them do the test, and my wife and I wept and freaked out because we had no idea it was so serious. It turns out, it wasnt serious at all! The test was unnecessary, as we had told them many times before, but they sure succeeded at extorting us into paying more. Once they finally did the procedure we had been asking for since the beginning, our cat was fine. She just needed to rest there. My wife tweeted about our experiences, and was immediately bombarded with calls from Premiers marketing department demanding that she "check her attitude." We received easily twice as many calls about a frustrated tweet than we did about our cats actual health, culminating in them -- I kid you not -- kicking our cat out and telling us we were never allowed back. Because she tweeted that she was frustrated with their service. We had to move our cat to a different facility while she still had a feeding tube in because brand management is more important to Premier than providing quality care. The point is, the actual vets and nurses we talked to at Premier are wonderful, but somewhere along the line, the companys priorities have become a rotten mess of greed and myopia, and our pet’s life-saving treatment was delayed for several days while we tried to hack our way through a jungle of sales pitches and brand management. We have several pets and have been to a lot of vets over the years. This is the first time weve felt like we were at a used car dealership. Try Furnetic or Your Pets Wellness instead.

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GA

Gaby Jaje

I really wish I had read the reviews before I came here. My dog was throwing up all day and so I decided to take her in. They made us wait an hour and a half before seeing vet even though they saw she was throwing up blood every ten minutes. They finally put us inside a room which took another 45 minutes before we saw the vet. They told us they were going to run some tests and the total would be $800. At that point I agreed because my dog looked in so much pain. About an hour later the vet comes back and says that we might need to consider putting our dog down because "she is very sick" but wouldnt tell us what was wrong with her because she needed to "run more tests" what person says that to someone?! And she sounded so inhumane and horrible when she was speaking to me. The whole time she was talking she wouldnt even look me in the eyes. Then she concluded that my dog was "very sick" still not telling me what was wrong with her and she was going to have to spend the night in the hospital and that ended up being 3,700. Then the nurse at the desk told me there was a payment plan available but I would have to put a down payment of 3,000.... that didnt make sense to me at all. The next morning the doctor called telling me she was doing a lot better and that they didnt find anything in the blood or xrays but they wanted to do an ultrasound that was 400 and they would need to call a doctor in which would be another 100 just to be sure they didnt miss anything.. when i said no she tried to make me feel guilty about it. This place doesnt care about your pet they just want to take as much money from you as possible. They made the situation so much more worse than it really was ad the purposely freak you out so that you agree to paying all that money. I now realize more than half of the tests I paid for werent even necessary. I wouldnt recommend this place to anyone. Now a week later my dog is better than ever and I still cant believe I had a heartless vet tell me I should put her down.

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VE

Versus VSNY Fanzine

Never take your pet here. They are predatory. It has taken some time for me to be in the proper emotional state to write this review. Back on Sunday November 23, 2014 I brought my Cat, Gepetto, to this animal hospital as it was the only place open close to my home. It turned out he had bladder stones and they wanted $800.00 immediately in order to treat him. Being a Sunday with my Bank closed and my ATM limit being $250.00 I told them I could not come up with immediate payment but could pay first thing Monday morning and basically begged them to treat my dear pet. I was told they would NOT treat him and would NOT bill me for treatment, and I quote " You do not work for free do you?" Well, I am an auto mechanic and you generally pay for your car repair upon completion I explained. At which point they told me that is not how it works here. They proceeded to explain that they could bill me to euthanize him in the amount of 300.00. At which point I became slightly emotional and defensive. I told them to return my cat to me and I would take him somewhere else. I was then told for them to give me my cat I would have to sign a refusal of treatment release form. I refused as I felt I was not refusing to treat him they were and told them very firmly to give me my cat now! They called the police and had me removed from the facility. My girlfriend remained. They euthanized Gepetto, and had the nerve to offer to bill her another $200.00 for a box to bring Gepetto home in, for a total of $500.00 as opposed to treating him for $800.00 that they would not bill us for. Am I wrong to find this unbelievable? This place is horrid! Please do not use this despicable business as there are many very good vets in Chicago. Gepetto was a beautiful 2 year old, sweet as the day is long, full of life and love and did not deserve to die in this fashion, a piece of me died that day with him.

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CA

Cari Garafalo

Actually, not as bad as I expected. My cat lanced her hand on the underside of our dishwasher while trying to get at a rat that our landlord was trying to get rid of. I quickly bandaged her up while my room mate called these guys to see if they could take a look without an appointment. She was gushing blood profusely and we feared that she was bitten by the rat (which very well may have been rabid). They said to bring her in right away, and they took her in with little fuss. I wasnt 100% sure she was recent on her rabies shots as shes an indoor-only cat that is terrified of being outdoors and therefore wasnt high-risk for that. They advised me that if she was current, giving her another shot before she was due for the next would be harmful to her health. They advised that they simply check the shape of her wound-- she needed to be sedated, shaved, and stitched either way, so we went ahead with that. They ultimately found that the wound was a very clean slice (which matches the suspicion I had, in that she must have caught her hand on the sharp metal panel beneath the dish washer). The consensus was that shed be fine without a shot, and they were right. :) As for the price, it actually wasnt that bad for emergency services. The facility is really hoity-toity so I expected a massively disproportionate bill. I actually used to have an indoor-outdoor cat that had to visit an emergency vet after being attacked, with a similar afflictions, and the bill was just about the same. Id say theyre reasonably priced. The staff was also pretty chill. They also had photos of pet visitors and such on monitors and seemed to care. The lady that took and returned my cat handled her very gingerly.

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