Budget Options
We have several options that allow you to save on costs if your budget is limited. For young healthy pets, a budget vaccination examination is available. For more information on this, click on the Budget Vaccination tab (under Budget Services above) Finally, you can enroll in one of our Preventive Health Care Plans that provide your pet with optimal care, at a significant discount, with an extended payment plan, year-round heartworm and flea prevention, and you receive a discount on all other products and services. For all of these options, click on the appropriate tab for more details.
Budget Spay and Neuter Option
Budget (Reduced Cost) Vaccinations
Budget Spay and Neuter Option
The Health Care Team of the New Carlisle Animal Clinic strongly believe that spaying and neutering is in the best interest of most pets since it has many health benefits and reduces the pet over-population problem resulting in shelter over-crowding and euthanasia of unwanted animals. As the science of veterinary medicine has progressed in its ability to provide state-of-the-art care for our pets, we have improved our ability to keep our pets, who are truly members of the family, safe and comfortable during the surgery and recovery period at a level never before imagined. However, these advancements come at higher expense and sometimes this prevents clients from being able to afford to have the procedure done at all, especially when the owner is just trying to provide minimal care such as that for strays, farm animals, or when their personal economic situation has taken a downturn that now prevents them from providing the level of care they would prefer. Therefore we have developed a "Budget Option" to offer these surgeries at a much lower cost than normal. Of course, we still recommend that the pet receive our "Preferred Plan" which maximizes patient comfort, safety, and recovery while minimizing risk.
So how are we able to do this? First, our Budget Option surgeries do not include many of the advancements that help improve patient comfort and safety. Many of these are detailed below; however, the animal still receives general anesthesia, short term pain management, a unique sterile surgical pack, and of course the surgery. Second, we are limiting these surgeries to one morning per week in order to streamline our staff's focus and therefore improve efficiency. We need to make sure that the schedule is full to do as many animals as we can safely do to maximize productivity. Check-in and release discussions will be minimized and frankly, the animal will receive less individualized attention than with our preferred surgery. However, we will still have a dedicated assistant to monitor the animal during the actual procedure. Third, we have a few policies that are different than that for our "Preferred Plan." The pet needs to be FIVE YEARS OF AGE OR YOUNGER and healthy. For examples, boys that are cryptorchid, girls in advanced pregnancy, or animals that are very overweight, have heart murmurs, significant respiratory disease, or other problems need more advanced care and therefore will be excluded. These may not be discovered until the pet has been admitted but can result in our canceling the procedure or requiring that the Preferred Plan is required; you would be notified of this before we would proceed although it might result in the procedure being rescheduled. Although some procedures like vaccinations and examinations can be done at the same time, there may be additional fees and exclusions, such as declaws cannot be combined with cat spays or neuters because of the additional time, pain management and laser use that is needed for the declaw. Any animal found to have fleas will be treated at additional owner expense since we will not tolerate fleas in the hospital. With the Budget Option, animals must be dropped off between 7-7:30 a.m. (South Bend Time) after an 8-12 hour fast and picked up between 3-6 pm; a boarding fee will be incurred if the pet is kept overnight before or after the surgery, whereas with our Preferred Plan, one night's boarding is waived if the pet needs to be admitted the day before surgery for your convenience. As a result of clients failing to show up without 24 hours advance notice of cancellation, we now require pre-payment which can be done most conveniently with a credit card over the phone at the time the appointment is made. This is forfeited if you fail to make the appointment, although you may re-schedule the appointment without penalty up to 24 hours before the appointment. For those pets adopted from a rescue organization, the Budget Option can be used instead of the discounts given with the adoption agreement, but the discount will not be applied to the Budget Option. Finally, we generally provide care for minor complications at no additional cost should they occur after discharge with our Preferred Plan, but with the Budget Option, the owner will be charged for care such as incisions that get infected, the animal pulls out its sutures, etc. Of course, any time you have questions, feel free to call our Health Care Team at 574-654-3129
Budget (Reduced Cost) Vaccinations
Although we truly believe that all pets should have a complete physical examination at least once a year, we realize that sometimes our clients' budgets just don't permit this yet they still want to keep their pet current on vaccinations or heartworm testing and preventive use. We are now offering the option of a brief physical examination in conjunction with updating vaccinations and/or heartworm testing in outwardly healthy pets. The examination fee has been reduced to $29 (subject to change); vaccines are the same as those giving during more detailed examinations so their fees are the same. Certain restrictions apply: First, the pet must be between 6 mos and 5 years of age. Beyond this age, there is too much likelihood that the pet has some physical, dental, or behavioral issues that either need to be discussed or that will be discovered during a detailed physical exam. Second, the pet needs to have had vaccinations previously, presumably at the time of a more thorough physical exam. Congenital or hereditary defects hopefully would have been diagnosed and discussed at that time. Third, the owners should not be noticing any medical or behavioral problems at home. The presence of these would necessitate a more detailed examination and require a discussion and possibly diagnostics for which adequate time is not scheduled during these brief exams. In fact, if a pet is scheduled for a "Budget Vaccination Examination" and the owner requests a particular problem to be examined or advice for it, then either a routine examination/consultation fee will be assessed or the owner will be requested to schedule a lengthier appointment, depending on the time available at the time of the request. These appointments are only available on Wednesdays or in conjunction with drop off services such as boarding, grooming, or surgery appointments. For these, however, you must request the Budget Vaccination Examination at the time of scheduling; if a full physical examination is performed because the owner requests conditions to be examined including behavioral discussions, the owner will be billed for that exam.
