Banfield Pet Hospital

Be forewarned, I took my dog in for a wellness check and a week later he had diarrhea and appeared nauseated. Contacted them regarding it and they were simply put extremely rude and very quick to get me off the phone. They appeared clueless as to how to actually treat a sick animal. As it stands as a «hospital», they are extremely greedy too. I wont be back.

My advice is get a second opinion from a vet. I brought my dog there and used the free exam coupon. They said 3 different things wrong with my dog. Which after 2^nd opinion from another vet, this was not so. They only issue was her eyes and it is curable, but all they wanted at this clinic was money! Glad i went with my hunch and did not agree with Bansfield.

We took our puppy to Banfield for her check-​up and routine shots. The staff was super friendly and caring. My puppy felt comfortable — which put me at ease. We were happy with the service and will continue to bring our puppy to Banfield for her shots and check-​ups.

My wife and I have been taking our Frenchie here for three years. Nice people and good medical staff who do their best to care for your pet. We’ve been through good times and bad with them, but no one else offers this type of service in the area and the positives far outweigh the negatives.

Desk staff has always been very helpful and pleasant.
I was just informed that they will no longer trim our guinea pig’s nails because he has never been a patient there… a change in policy. I’ve tried twice to have him seen there and they never had a doctor who could see him. Now they do but I am not going to pay for an exam when HE NEEDS HIS NAILS TRIMMED.
Needless to say, my two cats, who are patients, will be treated at another facility in the future. Obviously, it’s not really about animal care there.

The worst service .They do not care about your pet and it is all about money… overcharges for not needed tests and they have no respect for elders… very young staff with no idea on how to handle a sick dog… never recommend this for no one, who has a pet as a family member… nothing worst than a vet who thinks they know it all, bad practice

If you care about the well being of your dog, please go to a different vet. This place is just a numbers game. They lure you in with a cheap wellness plan but the quality of care is awful. Every time I had to bring my dog in for a visit, it was over an hour wait, which I can tolerate, because like I mentioned… inexpensive plan.
I finally decided to make a change after my puppy was spayed. I was absolutely appalled at the sloppy work that was performed on my girl. Her incision looked as though a child sewed her back together. It was literally the sloppiest sutures I have ever seen! When I tried to schedule an appointment for her suture removal, I was told that they were overbooked from the days surgical appointments and because of that they couldn’t see her for 17 days post op… ummm, standard is about 12 days, maybe 14 if the wound isn’t healed and most vets nowadays use dissolvable sutures and the incisions are much smaller than hers, so that the healing time is much faster. So I book the appointment but was really concerned about the back alley chop shop job that was performed on her so I called back and said that her wound didn’t look right and I was told it was completely normal and that I should wait until her appointment to bring her back in.
I love my dog and wasn’t satisfied with that answer, so I got another opinion at a vet who could get her in same day. When I took her to the new vet, they couldn’t believe that the «vets» who performed her surgery were still allowed to practice because it was completely obvious that they were just trying to do as many procedures as possible in a day. I was told that the sutures were sloppy and would take longer to heal because how her skin was pinched and sewn back together rather than being sewn in a clean line. On top of all that, she had a pretty nasty infection and she was put on antibiotics.
If I would have waited the 17 days like I was told to, who knows how bad her infection would have gotten. This place is terrible! Please don’t make the same mistake I did and let your dog be just another number. You get what you pay for here… cheap, shoddy care.

The front desk staff is great … but be prepared to wait. I have the wellness plan and had scheduled appointments… but still waited 50+ minutes the last two visits for A SHOT (my pet had no health problems).
Also be prepared for the «upsell» for services that you may or may not need. Before you agree to expensive tests, ask lots of questions and do your research.

Awful. They have a high turnover rate with vets so you each time I went in, there seemed to be a new vet taking care of our dogs. The Optimum Wellness Plan is a complete rip off, they automatically renew it locking you in for another year.

The receptionists are nice (I have been taking my dog there over nine years) but this is pretty much all I can say. If my dog did not have SO many medical issues, I would simply go somewhere else. However, I do not want to start again with a new place. I have a bad experience at least every other time I go. It is just ridiculous and I have requested to dump my insurance, as I feel no need to pay them for the sorry excuse for services that they offer. Half the time they send me to the emergency vet or a pharmacy because they can’t do what my dog needs. My «insurance» doesn’t work elsewhere so why keep it. Then of course I get the speech about how great the insurance is the next time I go back. Of course I do, because none of the doctor ever really know me. The turn over is horrendous! If you go, expect to see a new doctor almost every time. Only about ½ of them have any bedside manner whatsoever. I am done with this place.

I got conned into doing the monthly pet protection which was reasonable for getting my dog neutered BUT the one vet over who runs the place is really mean. I brought my dog in one time bc his eye was crusty and they wanted to run over 500 dollars worth of tests. I asked if we could just do antibiotics to start bc I am a student and dont have all the money in the world. The vet practically started yelling at me and basically implying I was a bad pet owner for not wanting to get the tests done. So, I said fine do the tests (I practically left there crying bc she was so mean). AND GUESS WHAT… 527 dollars and my little guy just had an eye infection. The only reason Why I am not giving this place 1 star is because the front desk people are very nice.

Clean, friendly… total rip off.
I brought my lab mix in to be spayed when she was around 35 pounds.
I was quoted ~$ 400 for this service… which is more than double what the shelter was charging, and a good hundred dollars more than anyone else. The facility looked nice, it was very clean and the staff were very friendly so in my naiveté I brought my dog in.
When we came to pick her up we ended up with a bill over $ 600. When I asked what the difference in cost was all about I was told that the ~$ 400 quote didn’t include the office visit… really? How the hell else am I going to be bringing her in? Was there a doggy drop-​box around back I was supposed to use? I don’t mind spending a few extra dollars to get the best service for my little buddy, but seriously this place was a rip off. Poor dog ended up with a wicked belly scar too. Her sister, adopted by a friend, got better care at the shelter for $ 180.

The previous poster must not be writing about the same place I take my dog. Or maybe things have drastically changed between her post and when I started visiting Banfield (October 2011).
The office staff is super friendly, they were able to make an appointment for my dog same day when I discovered an anal gland abscess (that was about to rupture), they provided a referral for knee surgery to the nicest surgical center I’ve ever visited (for humans or animals), and Dr. Reinisch is one of of my favorite people. Further, I’ve saved over a thousand dollars with Banfield in less than a year based on services that I AUTHORIZED for my dog. They know my dog by name and have always been completely honest with me; I know this because I ask about services and they say he doesn’t need them. If they were dishonest, they’d charge me for unnecessary procedures.
The downside is that things do get a bit crowded, the examination rooms aren’t always perfectly clean, and there is sometimes a bit of a wait. But honestly, I attribure all of those things to having such a large client base.
To be blunt, I pay more money for my health insurance as a plan and I shell out more money every time I visit a doctor. I pay more for my prescriptions and I don’t get the same level of care and personal attention. Sometimes I wish Banfield accepted people clients. :-)

Never trust a vet that cannot even keep your dog’s name right, let alone her medical history, misdiagnoses two dogs in a row, and severely injures two more.
Between my mom’s household and my own, we have a collective six dogs. To Banfield, this was not an opportunity to help six little lives, it was a chance to make tons of cash.
I could go on for hours and hours about all the problems we had here, but let me sum it up in as little space as possible:
1. Our dogs were continuously being mixed up. I would get bills and paperwork for my mom’s dogs, she would get the same for mine, the names of our dogs were always wrong, and Banfield would claim that they couldn’t change our paperwork to reflect «changes» without charging us. Never mind that no changes were made on our part, we certainly weren’t shuffling the dogs’ names for the hell of it! Their paperwork errors were going to cost US money to fix? Eh, no.
2. My dog, a rescued poodle, had severe dental problems after her rescue from a puppy mill. According to Banfield, after a quick glance at her teeth, every single one had to be removed, and they wanted around $ 650 for the honor. I got a second opinion from my vet in Des Plaines, who did digital x-​rays and truly examined her teeth and found that a whole six had to be removed, and he only charged me less than half of what these crooks wanted.
3. They misdiagnosed one of our dogs with Addison’s Disease, and told us that he would have to be on medication for the rest of his life. Again, we got a second opinion, and after reviewing the test results that Banfield claimed proved that he had Addison’s, he said that the results showed the exact opposite of what would indicate Addison’s! Banfield would have had us put our dog on medication forever, for nothing!
4. Their «Wellness Plan» contract is a TERRIBLE deal. When they show you how much you have «saved» for being on their plan, the only reason you spent what you did to begin with is that they charge for things that you never authorized and didn’t tell you about before doing it, and they charge infinitely more than any other vet that we have been to. Just for my little girl, I spent $ 30/​month for the plan, adding up to $ 360.00 JUST to be able to walk in the door for free, since they charged us «add-​ons» for everything else. By comparison, what did I spend to go to a very reputable, knowledgeable, polite, and passionate vet for an entire year for two dogs? Rounded up, it was $ 200.00, or around $ 100 per dog. And they are healthier, happier, and more beautiful than ever.
5. One of our dogs was injured, and bleeding severely. We brought him in on an emergency, told them it was an emergency, and we were told that «the doctor is busy, just walk around the store for a while». Forty-​five minutes later, my dog is still bleeding, and they were just too ****ing «busy» to help. When we tried to ask what was taking so long, the ***** at the desk told us that the doctor is still busy and we would just have to wait our turn. We were treated like complete scum by that pretentious twit, and my dog was the one suffering the most. We finally threatened to take our dog elsewhere if they didn’t get our dog in NOW, and suddenly, she was free.
To sum it up:
— Banfield is chock full of pompous dopes who couldn’t care less about your pet, emergency or not.
— The vets have NO idea what they are doing.
— Banfield is a rip-​off of the highest caliber.
On a side note, Banfield is owned by Mars, Inc., the candy company. Obviously, not the prime candidate to take care of my dogs.
I wouldn’t send my worst enemy’s dog to Banfield.

My roomie and I got a poodle 7 years ago and took it to this location. Signed up for their «plan». Five years later, we had learned a lot about how UN-​necessary most of the vaccinations really are and how Banfield is simply practicing «bad ju-​ju» on our pets, giving them a lot of meds they DON’T need. To top it off, our poodle, we were told, had Addison’s Disease and would require a lifetime of constant care. We got a second opinion from a highly reputable vet, who told us that his pH was a little high in his urine, but there was NO sign of Addison’s! These people scared the crap out of us for NO reason, other than to make money! We also had NUMEROUS billing problems. We had gotten 2 rescued brothers (bichons) and then a week later, another poodle girl, also a rescue. The brothers we NEVER signed up because we realized the between the little girl and the original dog, they were getting all mixed up on comprehensive check-​up dates, what was prescribed for which dog, and which one of us owned which dog. I own the little girl and the roomie owns the original dog. Within the last 2 years, they’ve gotten my DAUGHTER’S dog mixed up with mine, my roomie’s dog with my daughter’s — you get the idea. We’ve spent immeasurable HOURS on the phone trying to keep this all straightened out with them and have given up. My daughter took HER dog elsewhere, my roomie is almost done with her contract and will be going elsewhere, and my contract is now done, too, so I’m gone. It’s a shame that people can’t deal honestly with those who should be above reproach, the people you trust MOST; our vets, doctors and dentists should never become questionably unethical. Please be careful should you choose to avail yourself of the services these folks offer — it could be a heartbreaking experience and it could actually shorten your animals’ lifespan by over-​vaccinating your «babies».