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What You Must Know About Banfield Pet Insurance – A Review

As I normally do I want to give you a review of as many pet insurance company websites as I possibly can and today I go through the Banfield Pet Insurance website with you. If you want to visit their website you can do so by clicking here. Before I get started with the review I would like to state that I have no relationship to Banfield and I am not associated with them in any way.

Banfield Pet Hospital


From their website we can see that they have been in business since 1955 which means that they have more than 50 years of experience in the pet industry and without digging any deeper into what they are all about that should at least give them some credibility as nobody stays in business for more than half a century without having a happy customer base. That is an important observation to make as we sometimes see that new business are creating a great buzz and then they disappear in just a year or two. As we generally expect to have our pet for more than a year or two we’ll like the insurance company to stay around for a long time as well. In addition it is almost certain that the Banfield VET staff is also highly educated people. That is probably also one of the reasons that they call it Banfield THE pet hospital.

Banfield Pet Hospital Locations


On their website you will find a search facility that will help you search for the nearest hospital. When searching you have two options. One is to enter your zip code and the other is to enter your state. Personally I would start with zip code but that is a matter of preference.

Next you must choose what radius the hospitals should be located in. Depending on where you live you might want to increase the radius to see some results.

Finally you have the option of clicking on the small link just beneath the “state dropdown” menu. This will give you a list of all states and when clicking on the individual state you will be presented with all Banfield pet hospitals within that state on a Google map. Clicking on the small red pointers will take you to the address of the Banfield pet clinic. This is actually a pretty nice feature.

Banfield Hospital Locations Search

Main Page Options

From the entry page we’re able to subscribe to their email newsletter. This isn’t something new but what is lacking is an explanation as to what it is that we’re actually subscribing to. It doesn’t say whether it is about keeping your pet healthy or whether it is about the Banfield Pet Insurance business and how their sales numbers are evolving. That could definitely be improved quite a bit. The second thing that I found a bit odd was that you are asked to enter your company name. Does this mean that the newsletters are meant for corporate people that have their own company or at least work for one? If you had asked me I would have assumed that the newsletters were for pet owners but I must be mistaken.

The Banfield Newsletter

I decided to sign up anyway and within a minute or two I received an email to confirm my request. Now that is the way an email newsletter signup should work but even after receiving the mail and having a look at the confirmation page I still don’t know what it is that I can expect to receive.

But let us go back to the main page again. The page’s right side is divided into two categories. One is the three current news articles and the other is the four major sections of their website.

One thing that I can help to notice is that nowhere on the front page is stated anything about Banfield Pet Insurance or even anything about insurance in general for that matter. But from the main four sections we might be able to locate something about it.

The Four Major Sections

The site is divided into sections called “Your Pet’s Health”, “Locations”, “Careers/Practice Ownership” and “About Us”. From the view of a pet owner the sections about careers and about Banfield seem rather irrelevant. Sure it would be nice to know more about them and if that is what we want we can click the about us link but currently we’re trying to locate something about pet insurance options.

I believe that it would be a fair guess to assume that anything about insurance ought to be found in the section called “Your Pet’s Health” as the “Locations” section will merely be a bunch of addresses and phone numbers. It is relevant information but not what we’re currently looking for. In the end it might come in handy because we might have to call them up if we can’t find the information about their pet insurance.

The Pet Health Section

Entering the section about pet health we don’t seem to find that much. It is another page with a newsletter form and then a few paragraphs claiming Banfield veterinarians to provide exceptional pet care. They write about their “Optimal Wellness Plans”, but still nothing about pet insurance. However we would all agree that being well is the preferred options as to being ill and needing insurance coverage.

From the page we are again provided with three options. We can choose between the “Dog Health”, the “Cat Health” and the “Optimal Wellness Plan”. Neither the dog health section nor the cat health section says anything about Banfield pet insurance. The dog section talks a little about the importance of nutrition, vaccinations, parasite control, spraying and neutering and about having routine checkups.

The cat sections talks about exactly the same things and as a matter of fact the two sections look almost identical in nature.

The Optimal Wellness Plans

Since we have only the optimal wellness plan section left I feel comfortable that we’ll find something in here about pet insurance. However I find to be quickly disappointed. The only thing on the page is information about the importance of keeping your pet healthy and how you can increase your pet’s life with 25% by great preventive care.

Don’t get me wrong here. All of this is VERY important and nobody wants to have anything but a healthy and happy pet but we’re still here to try to find information about insurance and not prevention.

Conclusion: No Banfield Pet Insurance

So here we are after surfing their website we still come up empty handed. We have found pages about pet health and why it is important but even though I have surfed through all the other pages of their site I couldn’t find even one place where the Banfield pet insurance was mentioned.

Therefore I must come to the conclusion that what might be referred to as the “Banfield Pet Insurance” isn’t really an insurance but rather a “Wellness Plan”. Banfield is committed to giving you the best possible tools and options for keeping your pet as healthy as possible and in the case of illness and injury… well, you have to find your insurance coverage elsewhere.

Banfield Pet Hospital Complaints

After originally writing this article and trying to be objective I have found (through the comments below), that there are a lot of people that are unhappy with the way they have been treated by the Banfield staff and the hospitals in general.

If you want honest and real Banfield pet hospital reviews I would like to encourage you to read through the many comments from people that have actually had their pets treated by Banfield.

When reading the comments please keep in mind that people that feel that they have been treated poorly will be more interested in voicing their opinions than people that have experience a fair or extraordinary service and treatment. These people will hardly ever take the time to write a review and therefore you should take each of the comments as individual situations and not as a general fact.

79 comments to What You Must Know About Banfield Pet Insurance – A Review

  • janshuby

    Jesseheart
    I get what you’re saying. I understood the “wellness plan” concept when I signed up for it. What I didn’t think through was their highly inflated prices to justify the “savings”.
    Now I have a wellness plan that I’m making monthly payments on. I’m fine with that. What I’m not fine with is additional inflated prices I’m going to have to pay if they find something wrong with my pet.
    I said I was stupid. I never denied it.
    Hopefully I can wait until next year until I take my pet to a vet that I can then trust to be my primary vet physician.
    Standard neuter/spay costs in this area are around $200 or less per animal. Not the over $1700 Banfield estimated it would cost if I hadn’t had the wellness plan.
    If I’d have gone to the humane society I could have gotten them both done for under $100.
    If my pets stay healthy I am only paying a couple hundred more per year than I would have paid otherwise.
    An expensive lesson learned here but learning is good.

  • Gary

    Jesse, my problem is with the scam they pulled to extort me into signing up. We took our cats in simply get interstate health certificates, and were presented with an inflated bill for $800…or we could sign up for their “plan”.

    If they want to extol the benefits of their service in order to persuade us to sign up, that’s all well and good, but what they did to us was coercive, deceptive, and predatory.

  • Alma

    Don’t recommend it. Very poor bedside manners with pet owners. My dachshund’s life could have been saved by their vet’s early detection of his herniated disk a couple of days before he died.

  • Tina

    I took my dog into Banfield yesterday for a comprehensive exam and dental cleaning. The vet called me 3 hrs after I had dropped her off to say that she had died. When I went in to see the vet he was in tears and shaking to the point that I was consoling him. He accepted responsibility for her death, performed an autopsy, and is having her cremated so that I can have her ashes. My family is devastated and my dog cannot be replaced. If they look busy when you drop your dog off for a procedure that requires anesthesia then they probably are and your pet might get the wrong dose of medication and not wake up like mine didn’t. Just be an advocate always for your animals. I wish I had been more of one for my little Winnie.

  • Roni

    A friend told me about he’d heard about the Banfield Wellness plan, so I went to their website for more info. The website does not list the plan prices and instead prompts you to call or stop by a clinic. I made THREE attempts to speak with someone (2 calls and an e-mail) because I was interested in enrolling my cats in the program, but no one ever got back to me. This sort of unprofessionalism plus the negative reviews I’ve read on this page have made my choice clear: I am NOT taking my cats to Banfield. The only reason I was looking into it was financial, but I’d rather continue to see my current vet who is amazing and whom I trust. (By the way, she works in a cat-only clinic which is a lot less stressful on my cats.) I will continue to look for ways to save money on pet care, but for me Banfield is not the answer.

  • dog lover for life

    I will never take another dog to banfield again! I used to take my, recently departed, wire terrier to the local banfield pet hospital located in the petsmart store here. My dog had gone there from 6 weeks of age untill the age of 5 years for routine checkups, shots and the ocasional groming. This particular day I dropped her off for shots and nail care and proceded to work. Sometime shortly after I left they took my dog out of the cage for treatment, with the back door of the facility open, and she got away. While they were chasing her she was struck by a car and injured. They did not call me to let me know what happend. I showed up to pick her up at my scheduled time and was greated by a dog who had all four paws bandaged and was crying in pain. I asked what happend to her and they told me that she had got away and had ran down the street and scraped her paws up on the hot asphalt ( a lie). Of course I asked how she did this and they told me she slipped from the vets hands and got out of the open back door. Then they proceded to try to charge me for the bandaging of her paws. I refused to pay and asked to speak with the manager and was told she was not in. Later as I was carrying my dog to the car ( after I told them that they could go and take a long walk off a short peer. They tried to charge me $500 for care that she received as a result of their incompetence) a man aproached me and said that he worked at the store next door and saw my dog run out into the street with one vet worker chasing her and she was hit by a small pickup truck. When I heard this I immediaetly took her to the emergency vet, who took X-rays and said that she had a fracture in her right back hip. He also said that this could not have happend from simply running away. She had surgery the next day($3800). I called banfield the next day to ask if they would be reimbursing me for her medical cost. I was told that it was not their responsiablilty and that I still owed them $500 for the care she received after she got away.( mind you, that she never received the care that she was supposed to be there for: shots and nail clipping). I took them to small claims court and won. But I caution anyone who takes their dog there. Beware.

  • Traci Jenkins

    the only thing i have to say about banfield’s wellness program is that if you no longer have the pet, you should not have to continue to pay. i had to put down my cat, and i adopted another cat and i had to create another wellness plan for the new cat and still pay for the cat i no longer had. that’s a stupid rule to have.

  • sheribeari

    up to now I have been very pleased with Banfield. I have been taking my German Shepherd there for almost 4 years. When I called and got the wellness plan I had asked about hip dysplacia and they said the plan would help with a good part of it. At my local Banfield, they have been caring and, I thought, thorough. Although my dog has had the physical every 6 months and has been sedated 3 times for teeth cleaning, not once it seems was he checked for dysplacia. From what I found today it is a simple test to do. It would seem that on a breed known to have this problem, they would have checked. but no…. not until I noticed my dog’s change in gait and a few yelps when he landed after jumping on the bed and took him in and asked for x-rays. Now I’m told that he has advanced dysplacia and needs a hip replacement on both sides. Not only that, it would have to be done at another facility because they don’t have the equipment.. and by the way, it is not covered and will cost $3000 per side.
    I don’t know what to do now. We just don’t have that kind of money laying around. I am heartbroken.

  • novelty

    Hi, I would like to say that Banfield doesn’t offer insurance. The wellness plans are exactly that, a wellness plan. It’s a pre-paid program that covers what a pet should have done during the course of a year. It covers two comprehensive exams, all the vaccines recommended your pet should have, plus much more depending on the level of plan you want for your pet. For instance you can have a plan that includes bloodwork, a plan to include a dental scaling and polishing(anesthetic procedure), a plan that will include an ekg and chest x-rays. Plus the different level of plans will give a discount on service or medication not included on a wellness plan. All of these things are done in the name of prevention.

    There are also two different levels of Banfield Hospitals. Charter, which are privately owned and Associate which are owned by Banfield corporation. I highly recommend finding a charter owned hospital. The veterinarians at a charter owned have much more leeway for treating illness. Just as they would in any private practice. Corporate hospitals are run more by the business office and many complaints about Banfield medical care come from these hospitals.

    Medical insurance is designed to cover catastrophic injury. Banfield hospitals are more than happy to work with pet insurance companies by sending paid invoices for client reimbursement to insurance companies. Wellness plans are designed to avoid major medical problems by cathcing things in an early stage and keeping your pet healthy. No one can predict an injury, therefore do your pet a favor and do both things.

  • nikky

    Banfield’s pet insurance goes up in price every year..

  • I was with Banfield for about 8 years. I was taking my dogs and my cat. For a long time I thought Banfield Wellness Plan was awesome. Banfield called when an appointment for one of my buddies came up. The Wellness Plan covered all the vaccinations, vet visits, blood work, stool samples, medications, and much more. Certain Wellness Plans, depending on how much you’re willing to pay, also covers dental.

    One day I began to pay attention to the receipt they gave me at the end of an appointment with the money I would have paid had I not had the Wellness Plan. I began comparing their prices to other vets and realized how expensive Banfield was. When the prices concerned me I began doing some more of my own research; probably a bad idea because since then my three dogs have had a crazy year with health.

    One dog now has a tumor and is suffering from seizures; one tore her ACL and needed knee surgery; and the other was diagnosed with Inflammatory Bowel Disease and needed stomach surgery because of an inflammed intestine.

    At that point prices didn’t matter anymore. Banfield Wellness Plan did not cover any of the emergency vet visits. It did not cover any of the X-rays however, they recommended the X-rays which turned out to be almost three-hundred dollars for each dog. Finally, after all that, they didn’t do stomach or knee surgeries. However, they recommended certain Vets, all way out of my price range.

    I went to another Vet to have all the surgeries done. I loved the personal time my new vet and I had when I came to the vet. I loved the concern my new vet had for both of my dogs. Yes, I had to pay for everything, but it was well worth it.

    I look back at Banfield and realize I never even knew who my vet was until my emergency situations came up. At Banfield I always dropped my dog off early in the morning and was called around 4 in the afternoon to come pick them up. At my new vet, my appointments last all but thirty minutes to an hour and I am with my dogs throughout the entire appointment. I am able to talk to my vet and ask him about any concern I have for them. I never got personal time with my unknown Vet at Banfield.

    Furthermore, when I was flirting with one of the nurses at Banfield I got into a conversation about college and asked her what type of schooling is required for the job she performs. She told me they go through a four or six week training course and then are considered certified for Banfield. However, the certification is not transferable to any other Vetrinarian Hospital.

    Finally, when I decided I wanted to cancel my Wellness Plan I was unable to because I had to wait for my annual renewal. My annual renewal? I have been with Banfield eight years and have never received a letter claiming my Wellness Plan was even being renewed. So my choices were to either pay the entire year and they would cancel when the time came or continue to make my monthly payments until the annual month. My credit card expired and I had to change every creditor to the new credit card. I missed my Banfield payment by a couple of days and they sent me a letter threatening to send me to collections if I did not pay by a certain date.

    Banfield is much more expensive than most vets. Banfield is nation wide. The vaccinations your dog and cat receive are far more than they should actually have. What is required by the state of Georgia is not required by the state of Washington; and so on and so on. If you have the Wellness Plan, your buddy is getting every vaccination imaginable and you’re paying for it.

  • Jen

    I’ve been a customer of Banfield for 6 years. The Denver location was much friendlier than the location I’m at now, Lake Mary, FL. Their commuication with clients is horrible, you wait for hours – yes hours – to be seen and the staff is just rude.

  • Tina

    I wrote on Aug 16th about my dog who had died after getting her teeth cleaned at Banfield. I was devastated and found it hard to write anything positive. Now having had time to evaluate everything I want to say a few things. The vet at Banfield was extremely upset that she had died because he had treated her for over two years. Banfield had my dog cremated at no expense to me. She came in a beautiful cedar box with her name engraved on it and with a paw print in plaster along with a certificate noting her life with our family. They did an “autopsy” or whatever it’s called for an animal and the results were normal. The only conclusion that I can come up with is that she was oversedated and under ventilated. I probably will not go back to Banfield because I have noticed when I go into the pet store to buy food that they employ very young vet techs. I would recommend taking your beloved pet to a place with experienced verternarians and vet techs. Just like you would want your loved one cared for by experienced nurses and doctors. Anyway, I wanted to try to come back to this site with something a positive to say and I hope that I have. I since have been fortunate enough to be gifted with the daughter of my fallen dog and she is almost like a clone of my Winnie!!!

  • Linda Mills

    I need to cancel my wellness plan for my dog when it expires in February, 2010.

  • Linda Mills

    Even when you have an appt. they have you wait for hours! always the same excuse…..we had an emergency…..every time????????? Tallahassee, FL location

  • Jonas

    You note that Banfield has been in business for over 50 years what you neglect to mention is that ONE clinic, in northeast Portland, Oregon has been in business for over 50 years. The current chain as we know it started out as PetsMart veterinary hospitals in the early 1990’s and only much later renamed itself Banfield after much badly publicity and a hospital closing in Georgia I believe. The current company has a history of less than 15 years with ALL of original players bought out by the NEW owners less than 2 years ago. So let’s get the story right!

  • Mikael

    You might be right Jonas (and I thank you for the correction if you are), but my information is from Banfield themselves. It is hard to know more than what the company is telling you :)

  • Tammy Jerez

    I went into the Banfield Pet Hospital on 12/2/09 to have my pet vaccinated. I went during their posted ‘Complimentary Office Visit Walk-In Hours’. They talked me into signing up for their Wellness Plan after giving me a bill for $116– I figured well I might as well sign up for the $140 if my bills are going to be this high every time (I found out that they should not be & the price was escalated). I wrote a check for the initial fee of $139.99 + the first month’s payment of $25.99. After going home & thinking it over and doing the math I realized I wasn’t really saving so I decided to cancel the plan. When I called the office the very next morning to cancel the hospital they told me I had to call the corporate office. When I called the corporate office they couldn’t find my record at all in the computer & told me I had to call the hospital to cancel. I called the hospital back again & they cancelled the plan but told me I would only be issued a partial payment. I understood I would pay for all services rendered & was prepqred to do that but they were also charging me for the office visit even though it was a complimentary visit regardless if you were a patient or not. I put a stop payment on my check after corporate informed me I should do so. They were apologetic that they could not help me because they were unable to view my acct. The hospital staff was unwilling to help me or explain why I was being charged for the office visit. They simply stated I would get a check in the mail in about 6 weeks minus the office visit. The staff was extremely rude & refused to even speak to me saying she would call me back at 6pm (I was calling at 9am). I believe the entire Wellness Plan that Banfield offers is a scam & would like to warn others.

  • Emily

    I signed up for the Banfield wellness plan because it seemed cost effective after calling other vets about the cost of dental cleaning ($500). The plan I picked, the Basic Plus, included the dental cleaning and shots, and at a cost of @ $400 for the year seemed to be a way to save money. The local Banfield called me to schedule an appointment and I explained to them the first thing I wanted them to take care of was the dental cleaning. They said normally they did an overall exam and wanted me present when they did it. I explained their hours didn’t fit into my schedule that week and if they could do the dental cleaning we could schedule the wellness exam a later date. They agreed to this over the phone. When I brought my dog in I was informed the appointment was scheduled for a dental “consultation” and not a cleaning. They couldn’t explain why but said they would go ahead and do the cleaning if they had time. They stated they would call me and let me know if they were going to be able to do it. They also stated they would be giving him his annual shots if they could not do the cleaning. I explained he’d already had his shots but since I did not bring his records (which they did not ask me to bring since this WAS A DENTAL CLEANING AND NOT WELLNESS EXAM) they were going to give them to him. The lady, w/o my approval or initials, wrote additional things on the paper, which I have no idea what since she didn’t show it to me. I was never called, they gave him shots he’d already had, and of course NO DENTAL CLEANING. They did the wellness exam without me present which they said they needed. They sent home a packet of papers showing they ran numberous tests but none of them showed the results of the tests. The next day I called and spoke to the vet to ask about the test results and why his teeth were never cleaned and why they didn’t call me. She just kept repeating the same things over and over like a broken record and wasn’t given me answers. She kept blaming everything on the computer. She also said I should call the corporate office if I was unhappy or unsatisifed.They had scheduled another appt for him to clean his teeth. We called the day before to confirm the appt and they said he didn’t have one even though it was printed on the papers they gave us. A few days later I personally went to the Banfield to question them and they say the appt was “tentative”. They are the ones that scheduled the appointment so how could it be “tentative” especially when we called the day before to confirm? After much heated debate over their practices another appointment was made to have the dogs teeth cleaned on 12/7. I called the corporate office several days ago to express my concern over the competence of their employees seeing they had made numerous errors on several different occassions. They questioned me about my knowledge of a refund to which I knew nothing about and stated that I was sent a certified letter in the mail that explained everything and that if I didn’t have the letter I should contact the vet at the location and she “MIGHT” explain it to me. Needless to say I called the vet and she told me to contact the corporate office. Obviously no one at corporate or the local Banfield had the guts to actually tell me what the letter stated. So here it is, 12/03/09, no letter and apparently my pet has been kicked out of the plan, not because he was rejected for his health (they were willing to make additional appointments after the first visit) but for some other reason which I will probably never know because again I don’t have the letter and they aren’t willing to tell me. Hope my experience provided you with some insight and helps you make your decision about whether or not to use them.

  • Tammy Jerez

    I had the same experience, the receptionist blamed the computer for the error of charging me for the office visit. She also told me to call the corporate office which couldn’t even find my name on the computer. They also claimed they got a stool sample (they left the room for 5 minutes & then came back in) & said he went. On my bill was a charge for $9.20 for the medical procedure of gtg the stool sample?!? And then a $15 charge for the testing they did on that sample. I don’t think it is possible my dog even went in 5 min?!? They also could have simply told me to bring a sample with me but didn’t–in my opinion, so they could charge me for gtg a sample which I am not sure they even got.

  • APF

    I am a client of Banfield and have been a client for about 12 yrs. All of my pets have been seen there. You are correct, Banfield has a wellness program that provides a yearly physical for free (excluding blood tests) and reduced price services. They call to remind you of appts. and when your pet is due for vaccinations. Of course, any pet hospital or veterinary facility is only as good as its staff. My pet has been seen by excellent vets but also by mediocre ones. My complaint is the turnover of vets they have. It’s difficult for the owner and pet to build a relationship with a Dr. only for that Dr. to disappear. However, all in all, my experience has been positive and my pet has been treated lovingly. She has developed a heart condition and has been treated with tenderness and the followup has been good. I do find some of their prices excessive but they are still more reasonable that a vet without a wellness program.

  • Kate

    I would highly reccomend taking your pet almost anywhere… EXCEPT Banfield!!
    **********************
    Shortly after I got my first dog we noticed he had an ear infection. Another vet was unable to cure it so we decided to get a second opinion at Banfield since the first office call was free. That knife happy excuse for a doctor wanted to remove part of my 4 month old cocker spaniel’s ear canal!!! She was ready to send me straight to surgery without even trying anything.
    **********************
    If that didn’t scare me enough, I started working in the vet field. I worked as office staff and also as a vet assistant. More often than not I hear horror stories about Banfield vets going straight for surgery, mis-diagnosing pets, failing to treat simple problems…. you name it. On top of that they are usually over priced and the vets that work there are usually FRESH out of school since more experienced vets get out of there as fast as they can.
    **********************
    Their latest scam seems to be this “Wellness Program.” I have had SEVERAL clients come in saying they have “Banfield Health Insurance” and I have to explain to them that it’s not real insurance. They always give sob stories about how the person at Banfield said it was insurance and didn’t tell them it wasn’t good anywhere else. They lie about what it is and then have you sign a 1 year contract.
    **********************
    Take my advice- get a decent local vet you can trust and skip Banfield!! If you want insurance go with a reputable company like VPI (backed by the ASPCA) or Embrace.

  • janet lauritsen

    hello, i loved the staff at the levittown ny banfield…..they were wonderful with my sweet cherokee, my one issue is that the day after thanksgiving my sweet boy passed away and it seems that i am locked into paying the monthly fee’s still; i don’t believe i knew about that…again the staff was ALWAYS AMAZING with my sweet boy….thank you staff of the levittown ny petco/banfield for taking such wonderful care of my pup Cherokee right until he crossed over..Janet L

  • sharyn

    Hi,
    I took the wellness plan about 5 months ago,so far all is well. We also have seen more than one Dr. but the one we have seen lately DR Ryan McKenzie is why I continue to stay. If anyone is near the De. Banfields check him out, how patient and caring he is but if you call with a question the (gatekeepers)girls at the desk will take a message or ask for you. I hope this dose not turn into a complaint but since our 1st shot he has had a gagging cough and this was not given by Dr. Mckenzie but we hope he can diagnose this problem soon.

  • DEBBIE

    I purchased a puppy who turned 5 weeks today 2/3/10. Prior to bringing her home I searched around for a vet and questioned friends as to why and where they took theirs. I entered into PetSmart and right away was so happy with the services they offer. Then going to talk to the staff at Banfield, I was only too happy to bring my lil girl upon bringing her home. Right away they noticied her tail (doberman) was showing some bone and was docked wrong and may have to be re-cut. They are trying something out first before having to go under the knife. I have found the staff and vets very caring and have had 2 phone calls as follow up to see how she is doing. I really hope this postive experinece continues and feel for everyone who has had a negative one. BUT the same thing goes for doctors for humans! People have been mis-diagnosed leading to unnecessary treatment, etc. I will continue to take her there and hope she continues to grow as she is doing. I too would like her to have one vet, however even at a real doctors, you dont normally get the same doctor, and if you do they get sick also and you’ll have to eventually see someone else and this way my puppy will be exposed to more of the staff.

  • Wesley

    I used Banfield for over a year, they were o.k. as far as treating the dog goes, however they always try to push you to buy something and end up having fees for something that is supposed to be covered by the so called health plan. Not to mention I would bring the dog at the scheduled time and sit for an hour before the vet ever showed up, which is no easy task with an 80lb shepherd. Also my dog died recently and they so naturally I went to cancel the insurance, well they are still going to make me pay them for the rest of the year. Read the fine print, it is ripoff and they are scum for doing such a thing.

  • Susan

    I recently rescued a 6 year old pug and took her to Banfield in East Hartford Ct. The staff was wonderful and the vet was terrific. I did purchase the optimum wellness plan which to date has saved me lots of $$$. So far I am happy with the care and treatment we’ve received.

  • Jay

    Horrible. Came in with a 2 month puppy and got the puppy wellness plan. Told us they wanted to start him on heartworm meds, doing as what the dr told us, we give our puppy it. Later that night our puppy would squat and poop every 10 minutes and had blood in it. After while there was nothing left to push so it was just bloody mucus he was pooping out. Knowing something was definetly wrong we returned the next day. They told us that they didnt know what was wrong but offered to give him more meds and ivs totaling a cost of up to 1,300 dollars. Im a college student and have no money to pay for that. They then said we will just give him IV to flush whatever out of his system and that was 200 which I said yeah do it. My puppy did get better a few hours later but what if i decided to pay for the 1300 instead of the 200? And the Banfield Hotline is just as worse.

  • Janice Smith

    Hi,
    I was searching around for insurance for my two small dogs, hoping it would help with the teeth cleaning they both need. My thanks to all of you for taking the time to share your experiences here with Banfield, since it was at the top of my list!

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