The Private Equity Veterinary Scam Making You Poorer and Killing Your Pets
Why’s it suddenly so expensive to take your dog to the vet? Here’s a hint: private equity. Joe Spector on the solution.
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Chapters:
0:00 Why Is Veterinary Care So Expensive?
2:55 The Private Equity Firms Swallowing Small Businesses
10:15 Why Are Veterinarians So Afraid of the FBI?
14:53 Why Is There an Effort to Ban Telemedicine?
20:55 How Does Dutch's Service Work?
23:14 The AVMA Cartel Pushing Lobbying Politicians
27:46 The Mass Veterinarian Shortage
33:39 Why Spector Is So Dedicated to Pets’ Health
41:37 The AVMA Propaganda Lying to You About Your Pet
So a third of their revenue is dependent on you getting a blood exam, getting x-ray, et cetera.
And I think to be clear, like the rank and file veterinarians are doing this only because they love pets.
I think what's happening is it's the few business owners and ultimately, like I said, private equity that are simply raising prices for something that you're going to pay for no matter what.
Yes.
And it's scaring people.
We, so at Dutch, my company, 50% of our customers say they haven't been to a vet in three years or more.
So let's just back up and go through these one by one.
So the first is private equity.
So private equity buys the model in general, buys small businesses, independent businesses, links them together for efficiencies, for cost savings, right?
This is the idea.
This is what they do.
So how many, do you have any sense of how many vets are owned by private equity now?
In fact, this, there's been, there's like two major companies that are doing it that there was a lawsuit that they're creating a monopoly that's that was going around.
So they'll go to owners of Brook and Moore, mom and pop.
Yeah, mom and pops.
And they'll just, they'll, and they're doing this with dentists as well and HBAC and like basically every small business in America and and they'll buy just a whole bunch of them.
No, well, I mean, I, you know, I'm willing to believe there are examples of private equity doing what it says it does, which is, you know, to come in and make the business better, better for its customers, better for its owners, better for its employees.
I've never seen that.
No, it's ever in any sector, but I believe there must be some time where that happened.
So I think what happens is it's the list of services that they'll try to sell you and make you feel horrible that you don't care about your dog if you don't buy from this menu.
Do you, it seems like the incentives would produce like actually bad outcomes where your dog or cat is getting treatments they don't need and that might be counterproductive.
Definitely there's vaccines, but even vaccines, like you should, I mean, as we have at Dutch, try to kind of, so telemedicine can do vaccines, but there's definitely lower cost clinics that will do vaccines for $50, whereas in person, it'll cost you $150 to $200 for the same thing.
What they'll say, and again, like, I think this is why I want your listeners to know this.
It's just so insane.
They will say that the federal law requires, it requires you to have a physical exam no matter what.
Like no matter if it's an opinion, it's a rash, it's a quick question.
They'll say that the FDA website requires a physical exam, which it doesn't.
In every conference, in every newsletter, they'll say, oh well, we asked the FDA and they said that you need a physical exam, so if you violate this you might go to jail.
That's what they'll say at every conference for years now.
And they'll vilify me and Dutch and they'll say, this guy is gonna hurt your dog if there's telemedicine.
What i've been doing now is i've been working with the Aspca and a huge coalition of shelter um organizations, because they're the ones that get the brunt of it, because now millions of dogs actually also get surrendered because their owners can't care for them, because they can't afford veterinarian care, because they can't afford veterinary care.
Yes, come on, i'm telling you, people abandon their dog.
Yes oh, man it.
I know it gives me chills, it sucks yeah, um.
So the only way this can change is at the state level, and we've been working so.
In Florida it took us four legislative sessions to allow telemedicine and and all it does is all the law will say is that the veterinarian can use their judgment to make a decision.
I mean right, it's so weird that they feel like some state legislator feels like he has more power over your dog, who sleeps in your bed was your dog than you do.
But actually, I will tell you this, most legislators, once we tell them that this is a law that you need to help us with, they're most of them are completely on board.
They don't.
They're like, we have human health care and this is I like.
A lot of them will say, I didn't even know this was an.
Like you said, I didn't even know this was an issue.
This is dumb.
So where it doesn't work is when the AVMA or a lot of these state uh, lobby groups who have hundreds of millions of dollars in annual budgets.
If they've lined a politician's pocket, then that's where we will have trouble in those states taking money for the veterinary lobby.
There's one reason that they'll say, and then there's one reason that they'll say behind closed doors.
So what they'll say in public is that they'll say telemedicine is going to is going to harm dogs, lead to millions of dogs dying.
But what they'll say at the hearing behind closed doors, it's purely financial.
They think that it's an either or choice that if you have telemedicine, people will no longer go to the vet and their brick and mortar business is going to die.
But if he has a rash and you just want to know, like, is it like, what is this?
Why do you have to go to urgent care when you can just show, again, the dog's in the comfort of their home and you use your phone and show a video of their paw?
So anything as someone, if you love animals, you want to, you want care for them, of course, but you want to keep them out of the physical space if you can.
You're only making their situation worse by forcing them to this place they don't like.
And then a lot of the behavior modification that happens, telemedicine is perfect for that because you can have these regular conversations and for a fraction of the price.
Just to give you context, by the way, so Dutch, it's less than $100 for a year of care.
If you went every month, you'd pay $100.
You'd pay like over $1,000 to treat your dog.
And oftentimes when you have anxiety, you kind of need to have those regular check-ins.
And we had a story recently of this guy who had an aggressive dog.
He's been on Dutch for two years.
And the dog went from crazy aggressive to now he has two buddies.
I'm just like telling people like how their pets, you know, this is my freedom of speech.
So the Fifth Circuit, which is Texas, Louisiana, Missouri, has ruled in his favor, but the Attorney General has filed this as an appeal at the Supreme Court currently.
According to them, now there's always, so there's two paths in Texas.
There's any state allows emergency, has an emergency provision if it's a life or death situation.
And then in Texas, again, there's this Fifth Circuit decision that's currently, so there's like, there's sort of this competing situation in Texas where on the one hand, the Fifth Circuit says telemedicine is allowed, but the state regulations still say that it's not allowed.
So I think, again, there's two things, what they'll say publicly versus what happens behind closed doors.
And I've read, I mean, it's like we live in two different worlds because what they'll say is, like, for example, one reason prices are going up is there's also massive vet shortages because the veterinary profession has one of the biggest dropout rates of anyone.
And they'll say, and this is just, it's, this is just factually true if you follow BLS, Bureau of Labor Statistics, but they'll say there's no shortage.
Or you'll say, you know, prices are going up and there's like data that shows that they'll say, no, prices are not going up.
So a lot of times when you talk to them, the surveys they put out make are completely nonsensical.
They've like literally, I at this point know several vet schools that have just stopped development, you know, gave up because the AVMA basically told them that they're not going to get a license.
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So prior to Dutch, I was one of the co-founders of HIMS and HERS.
And so I helped start that telemedicine journey.
And I would say if we back it up even more, we'd have to go back to my experience coming to America and just always as an immigrant and having to figure things out.
When we, my family and I immigrated from the Soviet Union to the Bay Area.
So it was, you know, we, you know, I mean, I had a good childhood.
We left everything behind because my dad was almost thrown into a labor camp for having an illegal book, which is just like a regular, I'm sure it's probably maybe a book on your shelf.
I still, I think, you know, I want to make sure my kids have that, but I still think, and I think back to this business.
I think that's why when I see things that are so expensive for people, I feel it in my bones because I still know what it's like to not have any money to make difficult decisions when you only have so many dollars every month.
No, but the thing is, and that's the thing, is then I was talking to a veterinarian friend and he said, like, you really didn't have to do, you didn't have to like pump his stomach for like the three M ⁇ Ms that he ate.
And I, so then that's kind of how I started to look around.
Like, are there any, like, could I done something else?
And, but, and, and so I think that's when I realized there's really no like other option when it comes to, there's no telemedicine options that I saw.
And it, and it goes back to that a lot of times that has to do with the laws.
But look, I'm the guy who I figured when him started, it was actually a similar situation.
Back five years ago, telemedicine wasn't legal on the human side either.
Like we forget that because it's now so commonplace, but it was also the same thing.
And I, and I helped change those laws back then.
I think that's kind of why some of these groups are scared of me is because this guy comes from a place where like he has nothing to lose.
He's only doing, I mean, I also, I think it's because I'm doing the right thing.
I think they don't like that.
And I've done it before.
So I think that kind of gives me more confidence that I can do it again.
And I don't think that's because before this, so before Dutch came on the scene, what the shelter groups, for example, that wanted telemedicine, what they were doing is talking to the state veterinary boards.
Because that's how the, that's an, that's a simpler way that this could all change.
If the veterinary board at the state, they could just say, if you want to do telemedicine, do telemedicine if it's medically appropriate.
And that's what people do because, again, if that's what you need to do, that's what you'll do.
But there's definitely ways to talk to a human being veterinarian very quickly, even that for much less and definitely much less than having to spend $1,000 in ER.
I had a case where my dog, I thought he was having a seizure and I really, I mean, I really freaked out.
And I got on Dutch and the vet says he's doing reverse sneezing.
When our first child, who's 31, came home from the hospital after being born, both of our dogs, our spaniel, jumped up and licked the dog, licked the child in the mouth.
Well, I think when you first called me, it was, hey, I like dogs.
This makes sense.
And I think I already, I was like, Tucker's got to know this conspiracy that's happening because it's such baloney and it's so unfair.
And so few people kind of, like I said, know how monopolistic it is.
And I thought that your listeners and you could help us because I think we're the Goliath in this fight or the, right, with a David in this fight.
And it needs people to understand how crazy the situation is for both for veterinarians who, like I said, feel scared to do telemedicine as well as for pet owners who can't afford it.
And it all has to do with these trade associations who are keeping and using their monopoly power to change to keep the laws from changing.
So I think that whole part, you had no idea what's going on.