| rev:text
| - This review is for our experience at the small animal emergency clinic on Sunday, 4/29.
Our dog had been experiencing massive diarrhea for longer than 24 hours so we decided it was time to get him checked out. We felt it would be cruel to let him endure another day of not being able to eat/drink/play/walk, etc.
I called the clinic ahead of time to determine whether or not there was a wait. A very friendly employee informed me that there was no wait and took some information from me over the phone to alert the staff that we'd be coming in. Calling ahead of time really helps everyone at the clinic prepare, so if you can manage a phone call-do it!
ER visits are automatically $100 before any sort of exam or treatment.
We waited under 5 minutes for a 4th year resident to come out and take us back to an exam room. Dorothy K. was great (I'm sure she'll go on to be a great vet)!
Dorothy spent a lot of time asking us questions and examining our dog. The nice thing about a 4th year resident is that they have more autonomy than any of the other vet students. They are able to speak with the client and then leave to consult with the vet on staff about a treatment plan. We never even saw the actual DVM until we were about to be discharged. If this bothers you, I wouldn't let it. 4th year residents are very near graduating and likely already have professional jobs lined up (ours did).
We opted for blood work and an abdominal X-ray because of the age and current health conditions of our dog. The week prior to his upset stomach he'd also become increasingly fixated on eating paper products. We weren't sure if his upset tummy was due to something he ate, stress, environmental changes, etc.
His blood work came back fine, as did the X-ray. Yay! We were give a standard course of meds to calm down his irritated stomach and stop the diarrhea.
This is a teaching hospital and they inform you of this upon walking in. It's very likely that you have more than one person examining your dog. Signs in the exam rooms mention you could be waiting a maximum of 30 minutes for your Resident to consult with a DVM. Our visit was 3.5 hours long. This seemed adequate given the nature of the tests. I know blood work and X-rays take time to process and read.
The grand total for ER vet visit, exam, blood work, X-ray, meds, miscellaneous charges was about $550. That may be a huge shock to some of you, but not us. We lived near Chicago for 4 years and IMO this ER visit was chump change compared to what we've been used to. Meds were crazy affordable.
Overall we had a good experience with a positive outcome. I know many don't leave a place like this the same way we did.
I highly recommend U of I if you ever have an emergency. They see all sorts of animals, not just cats & dogs. Call ahead to get pricing if you're concerned. Look into the Good Human pre-registration program. The ER will also forward all test results, notes, etc to your regular vet for your pet's file. No work on your end and I can attest that they do this. My regular vet knew all about our guy's ER visit.
Ample parking. You can pull right up to the front door if your animal is unable to walk.
No U of I employee discounts (we asked).
Would return again if necessary! We're so lucky to have facilities like this in Champaign-Urbana.
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