If I could give this place zero stars, I would. I will never bring my pet here again. Sunset uses fear mongering and exploits your love for your pet to run up an outrageous bill. They are incompetent and unable to successfully conduct a simple medical diagnosis.
I brought our cat here twice over the course of two weeks, the first time after she had multiple seizures late one night. Our regular vet's office was closed at that hour and Sunset was the closest 24-hour facility. They gave her a shot of valium to stop the seizures and then handed me a estimate of $1,500 to keep her overnight for observation. For one night! This included a $200+ charge for bloodwork, which was completely unnecessary. She is an older cat and does have some health problems, all of which we are aware of and are treating through our regular vet. We didn't need bloodwork to tell us that she had a seizure or how to treat it. When I balked at the amount of the estimate, the vet essentially told me that he had made it very high in order to make it clear that we should euthanize her, because she needed so much treatment. His complete lack of compassion, along with an apparent desire to exploit our love for our pet, was appalling. I asked to remove several unnecessary things from the bill and got it down to about $700. Still an absurd cost for what really should have been just a $50 shot of valium and overnight observation.
Two weeks later, we were going out of town for a long weekend and arranged to board her at Sunset. When we showed up to drop her off, we were told that because she had a history of seizures, she needed to be medically boarded, despite the fact that she was now on anti-seizure medication and was doing fine. Of course, medical boarding costs substantially more than regular boarding. Had they informed us of this ahead of time (which they should have, since they knew she had had a seizure), we would have taken her elsewhere, but at that point it was too late to make new arrangements because we had a plane to catch. The following day we got a call that she was dehydrated and needed to be given fluids, so they were going to hospitalize her. Not only was there an additional fee for hospitalization, but we would be charged for every single time they wanted to give her fluids and for any other treatment. The hospitalization fee appears to cover no actual treatment! They wanted to insert an IV, but we asked that they give her subcutaneous fluids, which was both cheaper and less stressful for our cat. We have given her subcutaneous fluids at home previously and she's done fine. But they claimed that her heart was too weak for this (I don't know how they could know this, since they did not do any tests on her heart).
The vet also told us that she was not eating and so he gave her an anti-nausea medication, even though she had not vomited and there was no evidence that she was nauseated. When that didn't get her to start eating, they have her an appetite stimulant. That didn't work either. Evidently after that, they decided to actually examine her and saw that she had developed mouth ulcers, which were presumably causing her to not eat, so they decided to treat her for those. This is typical of Sunset's incompetence - instead of trying to diagnosis my cat, they just shoved lots of different medications down her throat, costing me money and putting her through treatment that she didn't need. Had they bothered to just look in her mouth from the beginning (seems like a basic diagnostic procedure when an animal isn't eating), they would have seen the problem.
Over the next 3 days, we got several more calls like this, in which we were told that some new problem had sprung up and we needed to pay for more treatment. At one point, the vet told us that our cat was "getting worse by the minute" and would die within a few days. Again, they used fear to pressure us into agreeing to more expenses and were utterly lacking in compassion the whole time.
We ended up changing the return flight home so that we could pick her up earlier than we had planned and just get her out of that place. When we picked her up, she was much worse than when we dropped her off and strangely dirty, with feces stuck in her fur. For as much money as we paid, you would think they could at least maintain a basic level of cleanliness.
All told, what should have been a $150 bill for 4 days of boarding ended up being more than $1,000 for forced hospitalization. Even after this, our cat was substantially sicker than when we dropped her off. Our regular vet told us that Sunset is known for price-gouging and unfortunately, I have to agree. Do not take your pet here if you can avoid it.
by Theresa
xxx.xxx.65.64
September 23, 2016
