Located just off Sunrise Blvd on the moderately busy street of Old Auburn Rd in Citrus Heights, Sylvan Corners Pet Hospital is a smaller-on-the-outside-than-on-the-in-looking building with a clean atmosphere inside and out, an open waiting room with a fair number of chairs, a scale, plenty of informative brochures, and an overall cheery, welcome (if slightly grey) feel to it when you first enter through one of the two cramped doors. The techs who welcome you are very pet friendly, enthusiastic and kind, and are sure to get you into a room within ten minutes.
In each of the three times I visited SCPH, I waited less than ten minutes to be seen into a room with my Charlie-dog, then did a quick check-in with another very friendly tech, to whom I explained the purpose of my visit while she ran over the basics with Charlie (checked his body for signs of anything being off, asked about his diet, etc.). Soon after, the vet herself (both vets at Sylvan are women; we've seen both) would come in. The appointment would proceed as would be expected. I noticed that Dr. Cohen, the vet I saw when Charlie came in with an actual problem rather than simply for a check up, needed to look up almost everything she said and did for my dog in her text books, which took quite a bit of extra time (note this--it's important later); also, because she did not have the proper equipment to examine him on our second visit, we made little headway that day, and had to come back for a third, costing me more money and time. That being said, she was extremely friendly and level with me, and very gentle and kind to Charlie-dog.
At the end of the third visit, I checked out the receipt and noticed that for each of my three visits I had been given a different charge for the base-fee, or the bare appointment before any charges such as medications or urinalysis had been added onto the total. I asked the receptionist about it, to which she responded by informing me--then, for the first time--that my appointment fee was based on how long I spent with the veterinarian, asking her questions, how much she had her hands on my pet, etc. She said that since the first visit had only been a checkup, where I'd asked few questions and had asked little of the vet, I'd been charged the lowest fee (something in the range of $18, a good deal). On that same token, during my second visit, when Charlie had first gotten sick, I'd asked the most questions and had spent the most time with the vet, and had been charged the highest fee (about $36, still not a bad price). My third visit it had been somewhere in the middle, so I'd been charged the middle fee ($28).
What upset me about the charges was not the actual cost. Firstly, it was that I had not been told that this was their pricing system up front, which would have given me the chance to reel in the excessive questions and cut the vet time shorter, hence lowering the charges. Secondly, and this more than anything, what upset me about my bill was that they were charging me for time that the veterinarian was spending about half of in the back room, looking up information that she should have already known and had readily available to me. Because she didn't know her material, I was being charged for the time she was taking to look it up. I don't think that that's fair at all.
Overall, I don't feel that Charlie's case got any better by going to Sylvan Corners. Having gone elsewhere since my last visit there, I know that I could have attained the information I found there and more by going somewhere else, and have achieved more visible results. I think the people at Sylvan truly mean well and are doing their best, and that anyone looking for a vet that offers low, albeit unfair, rates ought to look into their services. However, if you want the very best for your pet as far as loving care AND expert knowledge, I'd say keep on looking.
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