We have 3 dogs & had been going to Chicago Road Vet Clinic for over 11 years until just recently after a horrible & unprofessional experience with Dr. Ruhl.
A few weeks ago, we had to get some blood work done on one of our dogs in preparation to remove some of his oral cancer. Prior to surgery we had to get some blood work done & were quoted the price of around $25. My husband Carlos took our dog in for the blood work & after it had been he found out that the actual cost was over $400 bc they have to do some specialized testing. Carlos was shocked & explained that he was told the price was around $25 & that he was not expecting this large of a bill or we would have put off the testing for about a week. Carlos asked the assistant if we could pay some money down now & the rest in a few days after we got paid. She left the room & then came back & said it was ok so Carlos left thinking everything was fine.
However, about 1 hr later Dr. Ruhl called my husband up & literally yelled at him for pulling a ""fast one"" & walking out without paying the bill! Carlos was shocked & confused because he assumed that Dr. Ruhl had agreed to his request since that is what Carlos was told by the vet tech. Carlos explained what had transpired. Dr. Ruhl said that he told his assistant that it was not ok & continued to yell at Carlos so loudly that I could hear him yelling.
For some reason, Dr. Ruhl continued to yell at Carlos for pulling a ""fast one"" even after Carlos repeated told him what had happened. This went on for quite some time, even after the communication error had been verified by the assistant. Dr. Ruhl demanded payment right away even when Carlos reminded him that we have 3 dogs, have been going there for over 11 years & had paid all of our other bills immediately on the day of service, plus we had spent plenty of money there over the years. Dr. Ruhl did not seem to care at all & continued to harass Carlos.
At first we were so upset that we were going to switch vets, but after considering it for several days we decided to try & smooth things over since 2 of our dogs are on medication & another one has to have surgery for oral cancer. When Carlos called the office to smooth things over he was told by the office assitant the same things as Dr. Ruhl had stated previously. At least the assistant was very nice about it & seemed to understand things from our perspective, but there is little that she could do. Carlos told her to relay the message to Dr. Ruhl that we are switching vets & he had added up our medical bills for the last 3 years alone & we've spent over $5,000.00 & were going to spend almost $1,000.00 for this upcoming surgery. However, now he's lost our business over a mere $400 that he only had to wait a few days for.
We've had different vets over the years & never had problems making payment arrangements. I am so shocked at how poorly we were treated when we
have been loyal customers for over 11 years, have 3 dogs & have paid for all of our other vet services immediatley on the day of service. I will never
go back there or recommend them due to the discourteous treatment from Dr. Ruhl that was entirely unjustified.
more