Cat Clinic of Seattle
Category: Veterinarians
Neighborhood: Wallingford
Update - 9/11/2008
* 2nd anniversary of my first review of The Cat Clinic of Seattle, the first Yelp review I ever wrote. *
I had another recent experience with this business--I hesitate to call it a "clinic"--and it wasn't "pretty."
So go ahead and call me a muckraker.
I'm just trying to make lemon juice (out of a lemon).
I am hoping that my original review aided other Yelpers to pull the plug on the shoddy--and shady--practices of the Cat Clinic of Seattle.
* * * * *
Two years after I posted my review of the Cat Clinic of Seattle, when I hear that name I cannot help but murmur to myself:
Greedy, hypocritical, unethical, mendacious, incompetent, racist.
(Let's not get into the fact that my senior, indoors-only cat got tapeworms here, as well).
But that's not what is most important, is it? The following, however, ARE:
Nice digs. Great-sounding name, excellent location. Glossy cat magazines in the tastefully decorated lobby adorned with really cute--first-rate--feline tchotchkes, of both the hanging and recumbent varieties.
Plus, they scrub the floors a lot.*
* Note: Maureen Dowd made me write this.
But I am obliged here to move on to tertiary matters, still worth bringing up: namely, their unwillingness/distaste for writing prescriptions, preferring, for unfathomable reasons, to go to their way overpriced dispensary.
This brings up a larger problem:
Washington is one of the states* where there is no law requiring a veterinarian to follow the ethical standards of the American Veterinary Medical Association (the vets' answer to the AMA) that state that "Veterinarians should honor a client's request for a prescription in lieu of dispensing [sell from vet's own stock]."
In Virginia, a vet's refusal to prescribe would be deemed "unprofessional conduct." In Vermont, it would be considered "profiteering." Even in states where veterinary statutes and regulation do not require vets to prescribe, pharmacy laws may.
* 25 (including the largest, e.g., California, New York) DO. 25 do not yet. The majority of vets in this country are required to prescribe rather than dispense medications.
http://members.verizon...
A senior member of the Yahoo Chronic Feline Renal Failure group wrote me saying that he had removed the Cat Clinic of Seattle from his list of recommended clinics precisely because he had received too many complaints about their refusing to write prescriptions.
It is difficult not to admit feeling a sort of pity for those individuals who defend a business's reputation--when that very same business is intentionally ripping off consumers like you or me--just out of a misguided sense of personal "loyalty."
If there's any "loyalty" in it at all, it's definitely not personal: it is $eriou$ bu$ine$$.
Don't think for a second that--unless she's experienced a sudden conversion from way on high--, if you weren't constantly putting a lot more than a quarter in her 'ol "parking meter,." she would care at all about you, your dog, cat, OR your mother.
She wouldn't lift a finger to help my cat who had only a few more months to live. Dealing with Ms. Nemec felt like dealing with a (professional) blackmailer.
Her office manager seems to have walked straight out of a documentary about the reaction of white Americans after the bombing of Pearl Harbor towards Japanese-Americans.
If you can't see behind the contempt barely veiled behind the hypocritical smiles and reassuring empty words, at least look at your pocketbook.
(In this economy, standing up for consumer rights might be a good thing. I probably could have bought a pretty decent High Definition TV with the money that they overcharged us).
And if the spineless Washington State Board of Veterinarians were not bedfellows with the very veterinary clinics they ostensibly regulate, this would actually be a good place to begin a statewide investigation of professional incompetence.
But you won't find any statistics on the success (or failure) rate of surgeries at individual veterinary clinics, etc., for obvious reasons.
And, yes, five years after the fact, the name Dr.Carrie Nemec still induces nausea in me.
Edit Remove
People thought this was:Useful (14)Funny (4)Cool (4)
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9/12/2006
A V O I D
PAYING TWICE What Other Vets Charge for Second-Rate Treatment: Incompetent, Dishonest, Subtly MANIPULATIVE, and "Nice" to Boot
$20 for a 4 oz. bottle of vitamins!?
The Cat Clinic is "nice" to you, but scratch the surface, and it's all...surface.
High-tech equipment, a "name," central location, and "tasteful" interiors alone do not make a place first-rate.
THE HALLIBURTON OF CAT CLINICS.
Puget Sound Consumers' CHECKBOOK scores for The Cat Clinic of Seattle:
Apparent competence = 73
Giving prevention/self-help advice = 61
Giving helpful advice by phone = 59
Spending enough time with you = 66
HELPING KEEP MEDICAL COSTS DOWN = 30
OVERALL CARE AND ADVICE = 70
But:
PRICE INDEX = $ 1 8 8 ($100 = the median) !
The WORST ratio of overall score to price index of 100 vet clinics surveyed in King County.
Try getting a prescription instead of buying from their dispensary. Or your cat's medical records. (Since my review, they may have become more "flexible").
One review is usually missing:
http://www.yelp.c...
They are simultaneously into nostalgia for BOTH wartime rationing AND The Gilded Age. They ration those plastic lids, high-tech 7-cent food syringes, etc. as if they were bullions of gold.
After 8 weeks of exclusive contact with me, they suddenly decided to "get rid" of me because I asked crucial questions about things they never bothered to explain. Five different, contrived explanations were given.
In fact, after 5 days of expensive hospitalization, for which we were billed for 6, our cat was released with only scant instructions.
They had us give our cat injections he never should have been started on: Very dangerous.
The vets may know a lot. One, Dr. Johnson, was kind, HONEST, and gracious. However, Nemec and Nevin have no business asking you to do expensive interventions without sufficient medical justification.
The conceit whereby Dr. Nemec, in spirit closer to Leona Helmsley, dons the mantle of Mother Teresa is a rather spectacular one.
She reeks of self-entitlement.
My experience of her was of--appearances ("nice") aside--an ill-bred, dishonest, subtly manipulative person with an irrepressible urge to modestly flaunt her "superiority" in your face. She calls the shots, her surrogates provide cover.
Try disagreeing with her.
In my view, Dr. Nemec is a disgrace both to her profession and a failure as a human being.
The charmingly porcine office manager Chris--the one with her head buried in her computer crunching numbers, a racist in all but in name--treated me like dirt when I requested a copy of the lab report. She barked "WHAT?? WELL, YOU'LL JUST HAVE TO WAIT." She wasn't busy--no one else was in the waiting room--just on "auto-pilot.".
However, I swallowed my pride for my cat and continued to be nice to her. But I will NEVER accept such abuse again.
My friend (humanities Ph.D., old enough to be her father) was livid when, after waiting 25 minutes to do a 90-second blood test, he asked one young staff (AA degree??) if she could expedite things. Taking her cues from Nemec, she rudely refused: "N - O . You'll just have to wait."
The fact is that I've been super-nice to everyone there. That we had already spent $2000 made no difference.
If the (salaried) techs are SO very busy, why can one ALWAYS make a same-day appointment (within 2 hours)?
If they don't want to fax prescriptions, why are they unwilling to simply HAND them to clients? Glad to find a pharmacy myself.
UPDATE 10-19-06:
The receptionist Anne, passing herself off as the owner, "explained" there were too many people (TWO) involved and misinformation being passed around" (HUH?? Like WHAT??) and then hung up on me.
The first time I visited my cat during his hospitalization, the techs were "shooting the breeze," laughing uproariously the whole time they sheared a poor shrieking cat. I was not impressed with their compassion.
A bevy of nattering sophomoric young women + a bilious, not very genteel middle-aged one, who throws her weight around, leave an indelible impression.
Seriously...
I LOVE MY CAT VERY MUCH and this experience has been mostly deep pain and frustration for me.
UPDATE 11-17-06:
Because of this review, the Cat Clinic posted on craigslist: "Beware: Denny [+ my REAL last name] is always looking for freebies without medical supervision. He has a cat dying of renal failure..."
If you're female (easier to cajole and, if that doesn't work, bully), upper-middle-class, and, most of all, GULLIBLE, they'll love you.
However, they foster an UNHEALTHY, EXPENSIVE DEPENDENCY (on them). And they are experts in making you feel guilty.
These people are deeply ETHICALLY CHALLENGED. However, I do not question their innate capacity as human beings to be truthful and compassionate, if only they cared!
Category: Veterinarians
Neighborhood: Wallingford
Update - 9/11/2008
* 2nd anniversary of my first review of The Cat Clinic of Seattle, the first Yelp review I ever wrote. *
I had another recent experience with this business--I hesitate to call it a "clinic"--and it wasn't "pretty."
So go ahead and call me a muckraker.
I'm just trying to make lemon juice (out of a lemon).
I am hoping that my original review aided other Yelpers to pull the plug on the shoddy--and shady--practices of the Cat Clinic of Seattle.
* * * * *
Two years after I posted my review of the Cat Clinic of Seattle, when I hear that name I cannot help but murmur to myself:
Greedy, hypocritical, unethical, mendacious, incompetent, racist.
(Let's not get into the fact that my senior, indoors-only cat got tapeworms here, as well).
But that's not what is most important, is it? The following, however, ARE:
Nice digs. Great-sounding name, excellent location. Glossy cat magazines in the tastefully decorated lobby adorned with really cute--first-rate--feline tchotchkes, of both the hanging and recumbent varieties.
Plus, they scrub the floors a lot.*
* Note: Maureen Dowd made me write this.
But I am obliged here to move on to tertiary matters, still worth bringing up: namely, their unwillingness/distaste for writing prescriptions, preferring, for unfathomable reasons, to go to their way overpriced dispensary.
This brings up a larger problem:
Washington is one of the states* where there is no law requiring a veterinarian to follow the ethical standards of the American Veterinary Medical Association (the vets' answer to the AMA) that state that "Veterinarians should honor a client's request for a prescription in lieu of dispensing [sell from vet's own stock]."
In Virginia, a vet's refusal to prescribe would be deemed "unprofessional conduct." In Vermont, it would be considered "profiteering." Even in states where veterinary statutes and regulation do not require vets to prescribe, pharmacy laws may.
* 25 (including the largest, e.g., California, New York) DO. 25 do not yet. The majority of vets in this country are required to prescribe rather than dispense medications.
http://members.verizon...
A senior member of the Yahoo Chronic Feline Renal Failure group wrote me saying that he had removed the Cat Clinic of Seattle from his list of recommended clinics precisely because he had received too many complaints about their refusing to write prescriptions.
It is difficult not to admit feeling a sort of pity for those individuals who defend a business's reputation--when that very same business is intentionally ripping off consumers like you or me--just out of a misguided sense of personal "loyalty."
If there's any "loyalty" in it at all, it's definitely not personal: it is $eriou$ bu$ine$$.
Don't think for a second that--unless she's experienced a sudden conversion from way on high--, if you weren't constantly putting a lot more than a quarter in her 'ol "parking meter,." she would care at all about you, your dog, cat, OR your mother.
She wouldn't lift a finger to help my cat who had only a few more months to live. Dealing with Ms. Nemec felt like dealing with a (professional) blackmailer.
Her office manager seems to have walked straight out of a documentary about the reaction of white Americans after the bombing of Pearl Harbor towards Japanese-Americans.
If you can't see behind the contempt barely veiled behind the hypocritical smiles and reassuring empty words, at least look at your pocketbook.
(In this economy, standing up for consumer rights might be a good thing. I probably could have bought a pretty decent High Definition TV with the money that they overcharged us).
And if the spineless Washington State Board of Veterinarians were not bedfellows with the very veterinary clinics they ostensibly regulate, this would actually be a good place to begin a statewide investigation of professional incompetence.
But you won't find any statistics on the success (or failure) rate of surgeries at individual veterinary clinics, etc., for obvious reasons.
And, yes, five years after the fact, the name Dr.Carrie Nemec still induces nausea in me.
Edit Remove
People thought this was:Useful (14)Funny (4)Cool (4)
1 Previous Review: Hide »
9/12/2006
A V O I D
PAYING TWICE What Other Vets Charge for Second-Rate Treatment: Incompetent, Dishonest, Subtly MANIPULATIVE, and "Nice" to Boot
$20 for a 4 oz. bottle of vitamins!?
The Cat Clinic is "nice" to you, but scratch the surface, and it's all...surface.
High-tech equipment, a "name," central location, and "tasteful" interiors alone do not make a place first-rate.
THE HALLIBURTON OF CAT CLINICS.
Puget Sound Consumers' CHECKBOOK scores for The Cat Clinic of Seattle:
Apparent competence = 73
Giving prevention/self-help advice = 61
Giving helpful advice by phone = 59
Spending enough time with you = 66
HELPING KEEP MEDICAL COSTS DOWN = 30
OVERALL CARE AND ADVICE = 70
But:
PRICE INDEX = $ 1 8 8 ($100 = the median) !
The WORST ratio of overall score to price index of 100 vet clinics surveyed in King County.
Try getting a prescription instead of buying from their dispensary. Or your cat's medical records. (Since my review, they may have become more "flexible").
One review is usually missing:
http://www.yelp.c...
They are simultaneously into nostalgia for BOTH wartime rationing AND The Gilded Age. They ration those plastic lids, high-tech 7-cent food syringes, etc. as if they were bullions of gold.
After 8 weeks of exclusive contact with me, they suddenly decided to "get rid" of me because I asked crucial questions about things they never bothered to explain. Five different, contrived explanations were given.
In fact, after 5 days of expensive hospitalization, for which we were billed for 6, our cat was released with only scant instructions.
They had us give our cat injections he never should have been started on: Very dangerous.
The vets may know a lot. One, Dr. Johnson, was kind, HONEST, and gracious. However, Nemec and Nevin have no business asking you to do expensive interventions without sufficient medical justification.
The conceit whereby Dr. Nemec, in spirit closer to Leona Helmsley, dons the mantle of Mother Teresa is a rather spectacular one.
She reeks of self-entitlement.
My experience of her was of--appearances ("nice") aside--an ill-bred, dishonest, subtly manipulative person with an irrepressible urge to modestly flaunt her "superiority" in your face. She calls the shots, her surrogates provide cover.
Try disagreeing with her.
In my view, Dr. Nemec is a disgrace both to her profession and a failure as a human being.
The charmingly porcine office manager Chris--the one with her head buried in her computer crunching numbers, a racist in all but in name--treated me like dirt when I requested a copy of the lab report. She barked "WHAT?? WELL, YOU'LL JUST HAVE TO WAIT." She wasn't busy--no one else was in the waiting room--just on "auto-pilot.".
However, I swallowed my pride for my cat and continued to be nice to her. But I will NEVER accept such abuse again.
My friend (humanities Ph.D., old enough to be her father) was livid when, after waiting 25 minutes to do a 90-second blood test, he asked one young staff (AA degree??) if she could expedite things. Taking her cues from Nemec, she rudely refused: "N - O . You'll just have to wait."
The fact is that I've been super-nice to everyone there. That we had already spent $2000 made no difference.
If the (salaried) techs are SO very busy, why can one ALWAYS make a same-day appointment (within 2 hours)?
If they don't want to fax prescriptions, why are they unwilling to simply HAND them to clients? Glad to find a pharmacy myself.
UPDATE 10-19-06:
The receptionist Anne, passing herself off as the owner, "explained" there were too many people (TWO) involved and misinformation being passed around" (HUH?? Like WHAT??) and then hung up on me.
The first time I visited my cat during his hospitalization, the techs were "shooting the breeze," laughing uproariously the whole time they sheared a poor shrieking cat. I was not impressed with their compassion.
A bevy of nattering sophomoric young women + a bilious, not very genteel middle-aged one, who throws her weight around, leave an indelible impression.
Seriously...
I LOVE MY CAT VERY MUCH and this experience has been mostly deep pain and frustration for me.
UPDATE 11-17-06:
Because of this review, the Cat Clinic posted on craigslist: "Beware: Denny [+ my REAL last name] is always looking for freebies without medical supervision. He has a cat dying of renal failure..."
If you're female (easier to cajole and, if that doesn't work, bully), upper-middle-class, and, most of all, GULLIBLE, they'll love you.
However, they foster an UNHEALTHY, EXPENSIVE DEPENDENCY (on them). And they are experts in making you feel guilty.
These people are deeply ETHICALLY CHALLENGED. However, I do not question their innate capacity as human beings to be truthful and compassionate, if only they cared!
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