Banfield Pet Hospital reviews and complaints 1
View all 523 complaintsBanfield Pet Hospital - misdiagnosis! caused more harm than good!
Our story with Banfield begins on August 25th 2010. My 11 week old black lab puppy and I were running thru the front yard when he ran between my legs and I stepped on his back leg. He let out the loudest cry I have ever heard out of a dog.
So immediately my girlfriend and I took the dog to banfield fearing that his leg was broken. We had x rays done and received a call about 7 house later finally letting us know what was wrong with our dog. They told us he had a fracture of the tibia right on the growth plate. they said surgery was a good possibility. But never once showed us the x rays. They splinted it and told us come back in a week for new x rays and new splint (first visit cost us $580). They said he would be healed up in about two weeks after another set of x rays to make sure. Which would end up costing another $500 for each set of x rays and splinting. Then we took him home. within two hours the newly placed splint was already falling off the puppies leg.
The following day Leroy was uncomfortable, and was moaning and groaning because of the splint moving. we took him in that day to have the splint readjusted. They wanted to charge us more money for a soiled bandage because the bottom was ruined. (it was ruined because it was falling off his leg). After the splint was fixed Leroy was a happy puppy and adjusting to his injured leg.
Finally the day came for Leroy’s first week exam. The nurses changed out his splint and wanted to do x rays but we declined because of the money they wanted to charge us. He was never the same after the splint change. Leroy was sleepy, moaning and groaning, not eating nor drinking. He just laid in his bed all day and night. We took him back to Banfield the next day saying something was wrong with him. They did a full exam and said he was fine and tried selling us $700 worth of blood work to make sure he was ok.
We then asked to please see the first set of x rays, with the doctor replying with "our x ray machine is broke". We asked what that had to do with previous x rays and then she pulled up the x rays after us questioning her for a couple minutes. She then showed me and circled a rather large area stating that they were unsure where the fracture was but it was somewhere in the area where she circled. I asked her who said it was fractured and she stated the company they send out the x rays to said it was fractured. After some confusion on why they now changed their story on whether it was broke or fractured, now my girlfriend and I were questioning whether his leg was even fractured/broke in the first place. we asked the doctors for a copy of the x rays and she said we would have to buy them off them, and quickly asked why? We said we wanted to get a second opinion. The doctor then got all flustered and started back tracking on whether his leg was really hurt in the first place.
so after a few hours of sitting at home we decided to go get our second opinion. we took Leroy to an animal hospital/orthopedic surgery office. They talked to us for about an hour wanting to know our story and how everything happened. They Then removed the splint, to our horror on what we saw next my girlfriend broke down in tears. to our surprise he had two soars on is leg that were dripping blood on the table. one of which was about a half inch think and almost to the bone. This would explain why he was in so much pain, and the banfield doctors failed to let us know about theses soars the day prior when the changed out his bandage. So after the new doctor was done cleaning up his wounds, they took him back for x rays. About 10 minutes later the doctor came back and told us that his leg was not fractured/broke nor was there any signs that there was ever anything to indicate there was one. This made us so upset that they would do this to poor Leroy and hose us for money in the process.
I apologize for the long story, but we felt our story needed to be heard. We have attached pictures of the soars to show why I would not recommend Banfield to anybody.
In my opnion and i think of most of the worlds. If a company hires a person to represent there company they are to be held responsible. It is almost a year later from the accident and I still have yet to have any kind of response in regards to them being sorry or that the doctor has been fired. If all of the company was good and honest then I feel someone would have stepped up to the plate to resolve this issue. I never wanted them to judge me on how much $ I had but to listen to me telling them the reason we had the wellness plan was because we were a very low income family looking for the most inexpensive way to take proper care of my puppy. I was told we would not get Leroy back until it was paid in full. Like i said they never asked what we wanted or shared any part of the process. They lied and said it was broken when it was not. There was no damage what so ever to his leg and they splinted and casted anyway. I will not and do not ever have anything to say about Banfield the "mega corporation" at all! They might have changed my mind 6 -8 months ago if they would have called me back or handled it. Rather than ignoring me and never resolving the issue.
As far as we knew they eople that read the x-rays and Banfield were on the same page. They werent and we didnt know that untill they sent the paperwork over to the 2nd vet. We trusted them and they did what made them more money. Had there been swelling they could have said that there was swelling and they were unable to get a good look at the bones to see. And said as a just to be safe they would wrap it for a week and then take a look at it again. But they didnt they lied which makes them very questionable in my opnion.
1 Maybe you could tell the "doctors" and "nurses" that a fracture is a break and how to see where it is, there was no swelling the "blob" was us referring to her guess on where they were speaking of. We failed to mention that the report that the Banfield "doctors" had sent over to the 2nd vet said a fracture was present on the growth plate but the notes sent from where they send the X-ray to says that there is no sign of any damage to the dogs leg at all. So a 3rd opinion was not needed because the true 1st one was the same as the then would be 3rd. 2. The right call would have been to monitor him not to splint it without even asking if that’s what we wanted. 3 How does cotton wrapped around a leg cause a hole in it? 4. He was unable to lick it due to the cone around his head. He’s a puppy and will wiggle and move no matter what but if that were the case wouldn’t the second time around have done the same thing? Also to clarify the 2nd opinion vet has been dealing with a older dog of mine. So I have dealt with them many times and trust them 100 times more than the Banfield staff. They just don’t offer a "wellness plan" and we were being cost friendly in this economy. Wish I would have visited this site before I even gave Banfield a thought. But yes our puppy will live a long happy life no thanks to Banfield!
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A continuing story centered around a costly Banfield misdiagnosis ... http://placeitonluckydan.com/2011/11/when-lost-kittens-find-you/
What's sad is that a particular doctor is now being referred to as the mega corporation that is Banfield...I work for a Banfield, and yes we have a had a shady ### doctor on staff before, it didn't take long for us to get her fired. We encouraged the clients to complain about her to the board and our corporate offices. The doctors we have now are amazing. But do they represent Banfield as a whole? No, they represent themselves. Good, honest people who do care about the animals they treat and do what they can to provide the best care. And a treatment plan (or estimate) is just that. We can't judge our clients, we can't look at someone and say "They won't be able to afford this..." and then cut out recommendations. Our job is to advocate for the patient. Once diagnostics have been recommended and prices laid out, then we can begin to discuss with that client, what exactly they are able to do within their budget. And if they can't do any of it, well then they are welcome to take our recommendation somewhere else if they can get it for a lesser price...or they can apply for care credit if it's something urgent...or we can try at home remedies first, or offer a script that they may be able to pick up at a local pharmacy like Walmart for $4... I take pride in my relationship with our clients and I have the utmost respect for our current staff. Just like any company, there are going to be bad apples in the bunch. Your experience with this doctor, sounds horrific! And I do not at all blame you for not returning to him/her. But it saddens me to see so many people come online and instead of singling out the doctor or nurse that they had a problem with they blame the company as a whole..when there really are people out there who work for them and do truly love animals and want to do the best for pets. (I should add though, that wanting to do the best for them, does not mean that we can do everything for free...we have a busy hospital, and just to break even on staff pay, overhead, medicine, vaccines, lab equipment, surgical supplies, etc. we need to bring in 2, ooo a day!) We do have a Charitable Trust Foundation, which people can donate to, we use the funds to help people who really need it, ie unemployed, house in foreclosure, single mom trying to raise her kids and their new puppy on her own... But people rarely donate...Just today we used the last of our funds which was only 132.46 to help cover the cost of parvo treatment for a new client. There are good people out there...and some of them do work for Banfield! You just have to find the vet and staff that you feel comfortable with and can bond with, partner with to care for you furry family members!