Personally I think most vets, regardless of the animal rip people off. The vets where our German Shepard is registered always state the consultation fees and then the medication, so whilst sitting in the waiting room you get to hear what others are being charged. I calculated that on that occasion the consultation fees came out at around £300 / hour, and there were three vets on rota.
But it's also the medication that is overly inflated. A few years back we were charged £35 for a weeks worth of tablets for our dog. I googled the product and found several on-line companies that supply the same drug having received the script direct from the vets, at a fraction, ie under £10, of the cost. I challenged the vet, and after a heated discussion put me on a scheme they run where you are charged the cost from their supplier so they don't make any profit on the drugs. It was still more than the online company, but only by a couple of quid. The markup the vets place on the drugs was horrendous, and I've seen an increasing rise in the threshold insurance companies expect you to pay before any claim is considered. Direct line's threshold is £195, but with any one off treatment / consultation averaging £100 you can't recover any of that cost.
In 33 years of keeping snakes I've only ever required the assistance from a vet three times. The first was with a garter snake that had thiamine poisoning through my inexperience as I was following the advice from the pet shop back in 1986. Multiple injections later and the snake just died. The vet was fair, often just charging for the shots and no consultation fees other than the first. The second time was with my old male cornsnake which has an eye infection. Again, one consultation fee, the others were free, plus the cost of a tube of ointment. The snake made a full recovery over three month period. Lastly, different vet, and my 21 year old royal. It had developed an abscess in its throat, possibly after taking a rat down in the wrong direction. Vet charged for every consultation visit, and for the shots. Sadly it didn't work and the snake died. I was advised afterwards by a well known herpetologiest that the snake had been given a broad based antibiotic where it should have been given one more suited for the infection (he did mention the product but I've slept since then !), and he felt there would have been a good chance the snake would have lived.
Personally I feel that it's our duty as keepers to try and control things ourselves so that vets are a last resort. Often things like RI's are down to poor husbandry rather than some random occurrence. With better understanding of the reptiles needs, regular cleaning and precautions when handling (it does annoy me when you see so many videos on Youtube where people show one snake to the camera and then another without washing their hands in between.)
