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Animal Services has put out a Request for Proposals (RFP) for vet contractors to run spay/neuter clinics at each shelter other than South LA where Eric Jones has his cushy set up. However, unlike with Jones, the City gets much more for its money this time.
The URL with all the request documents:
http://laanimalservices.org/about_rfp.htm
The main document outlining the request:
http://laanimalservices.org/PDF/rfp/RFP%20Spay%20Neuter%20Clinics.pdf
The interesting one: all about the Money. This is the one Porter Pet Hospital's Natalie might be most interested in, all about the money:
http://laanimalservices.org/PDF/rfp/Attachment%20B-%20Personal%20Services%20Agreement.pdf
On the LAAS website it says:
"RFP to Operate one or more of the Department’s Spay/ Neuter Clinics.
"Animal Services is seeking veterinarians and/or other animal care professionals to operate, under contract, its spay/neuter clinics built into each of its Animal Care Centers. The RFP below provides information about the clinics, the scope of services, and instructions on how to submit a proposal."
In one of the other documents it says Eric Jones, who had everything supplied to him, made $330,000 under guaranteed contract last year at South LA.
However, the new guy is warned he can’t make over $500,000 from his shelter location. Oh dear.
These are the payment rules:
"If surgical exploration is needed to determine if an animal has already been spayed, surgery shall be deemed performed and the same fee shall apply as if the spay surgery was performed."
Hmmm. Bring any two cats you might think of to mind?
This sounds like a reward for incompetence. I think dropping this clause might prevent a lot of unneeded painful surgeries.
Further the RFP says:
"The Contractor shall provide appropriate medical treatment to animals in the event of medical emergencies for animals in the care and control of the Contractor. The Contractor will stabilize the animal in the event he or she needs to be transported to another private veterinary hospital, which will be at no additional cost to the City or the pet owner if the emergency is determined to be related to or caused by the sterilization surgery."
"All animals shall be released to pet owners or adopters with post-operative instructions, including emergency telephone numbers. Should complications occur, the Contractor shall retain responsibility and care for the animal until the complication is abated."
Could it be that Porter's current agreement with Animal Services does not have such a clause? Could it be if anything goes wrong, it is up to the owner to pay for it? The invoice I have from them said the amoxi had to be paid for, and before Mason's intervention, they wanted an additonal $42 for bandaging Simba.
Optional Services and Additional Fees to the Public:
"The Contractor may offer to the public additional services, provided that the written approval is received from the pet owner and the procedure is performed in conjunction with the surgical sterilization of the pet. Pricing of the services, and amounts of additional fees listed below, shall be at the Contractor’s discretion:
Price of Spay/ Neuter Surgeries
"Prices to be paid by Department to Contractor for spay/neuter surgeries on Care Center animals and animals adopted from the Care Centers are:
Male cat
$60.00
Female cat
$68.00
Pregnant cat
$60.00
Male dog under 50 lbs.
$60.00"
So, if Porter plays under the same rules as this contract, they got $136 for the surgeries on Foxy and Simba.
WOULDN'T IT BE A GOOD IDEA NOT TO PAY THE VET FOR A SPAY THAT DID NOT HAVE TO BE DONE?
Wouldn't that make a doctor a little more careful and not open two cats with apparent hysterectomy scars? There is no clause in the RFP for letting a fecund cat or dog not be speutered. That is, there is no downside on being too cautious and not perform a speuter.
Would this have prevented Foxy's and Simba's recent surgeries? I don't know. But whatever protocol Porter plays by, both Simba and Foxy now have two hysterectomy scars.
6 comments:
"WOULDN'T IT BE A GOOD IDEA NOT TO PAY THE VET FOR A SPAY THAT DID NOT HAVE TO BE DONE? "
!!!!!!
No shit!!!!!!!!! The one's who are suffering NOW are the poor cats.
Did you even know that some vets don't even put the cats under anesthesia when they're speutered?! I was so fucking shocked when the vet tech at Sharp's told me this. How is this even possible???!
Why can't they just x-ray the cat or dog to see if she's been spayed?
Cutting an animal open just on the offchance that they may not have been spayed is ridiculous, not to mention incredibly inefficient.
And why aren't they training these people better? It's not just the females they're having problems with, they can't even tell if the males are neutered, which is bizarre, since that's not that hard to tell.
Also, WHAT IS UP with Dr. Rao being paid to do 3,000 Spay/Neuter procedures a year? That's more than EIGHT operations a day, EVERY SINGLE DAY, weekends and holidays included. When does he look after sick animals? When I was at West Valley he was just wandering around the front area.
To #2:
West Valley did not know that one of Mason's cats, whom I adopted, had been NEUTERED. Kind of hard to miss those either hangin' or not hangin'.
Your comment is a good example of a small but highly annoying contingent of animal people who like to use animals to put other people down. You "read" Ed's post and overlooked all the references to evidence that the spays had already taken place, seeing only an opportunity to imply that we are ignorant asses who only use hacks for vets.
Hate to tell you, but spay surgeries have evolved in recent years. If you are fortunate enought to have cats with imperceptible scars, lucky you. Your cats can continue to wear two-piece bathing suits. I only hope they're never lost and end up at a City or County shelter, where their hard-to-see scars could condemn them to a mutilating "seach for the lost uterus."
But my takeaway from this is that you have been spaying cats recently, since the use of smaller incisions and, possibly, dissolving sutures. People like Ed and myself, despite our experience over decades of spay/neutering cats and dogs, bow to your moral superiority -- which was what you really hoped to accomplish with your post anyway...
Some vets like Dr. Bob leave a tiny button hole scar that needs just one stitch. Some vets cut them open completely and leave a big line. If you see a big line, they've obviously had the surgery. If you see no scar at all, they may not have had it. Why not use ultrasound instead of cutting them open? You could charge for ultrasound and save putting an animal through uneeded surgery.
Poster one, some vets don't put males out completely. Neuters are quick easy surgeries so they just use local anesthesia sometimes. If they didn't use anesthesia for a spay, that would be very inhumane. That would hurt like hell.
Quiet no longer.
Did you actually read my post or were you so intent on criticizing me you failed to read:
Mason told everyone at West Valley the cats were spayed.
No one, not even Dr. Rao--so far as I know--checked for the 5 months they were jailed, including the tech at the moment of adoption. They didn't check. There was no sign the cats had been neutered or not, or that anyone had checked off whether an exam had ever been made.
Natalie admitted to Mason the cats had abdomenal scars--which might have been identical "hernia" surgeries on both.
Natalie said any mistake was on West Valley; they were followng West Valley's orders.
Apparently the West valley tech never notified Porter that the owner claimed the cats had already been spayed.
The cats had been spayed by Cynthia Hockman, Mason's previous private vet who then worked for animal services within 2 weeks of the raid. That is, they were there for 4-1/2 months without her seeing them and apparently the cats' medical records from her former private practice office never made it to West LA.
Simba had a complication and Natalie billed the adopter for emergency or even non-emergency treatment of the swelling.
What is the cat had been feral and released to a colony?
The scars were seen. Mason was told he (vet) thought it might be a hernia scar (on both?).
After opening one up with a scar, and the other had a scar, would you open the 2nd with a scar?
Simba was not treated on an emergency basis for free. The adopter was charged for treating the complication.
Come on, get a grip on your compalaints. What point is served by being nasty? You think your comment gets posted faster that way?
Another point I hope we don't overlook is the fact that this entire gory mess would have been avoided if the ACTF and LAAS had properly inventoried and catalogued Ron's veterinary paperwork on the cats, and then entered the information correctly in the computer. I know that would be a lot to ask of any organization headed by Boks, but hey, let's reach for the moon here and ask for basic competence.
But then again, as has been mentioned on this blog before, that would hardly have fit in to Boks' "Ron Mason narrative," which says Ron was a cruel (nay, felony!) cat abuser and neglector who bred cats in his house.
We are overlooking the fact that Boks and Boswell had a clear motive to make it appear as if Ron's cats weren't spayed and neutered. Just as Porter has a clear (profit) motive to cut open a cat, rather than to determine that she in fact does not need surgery. Imagine if they'd x-rayed or done an ultrasound and determined the cat was spayed already. How could they charge the adopter for NOT performing a surgery when the only reason the cat was at Porter was because West Valley said she DID need the surgery?
The fact is this case clearly demonstrates that the welfare of the actual animal is lowermost in the priorities of LAAS, as well as those who have profitable partnerships with LAAS. With the kind of money they stand to make "partnering" with Boks, I'll bet Porter Pet Hospital would spay a lamppost if they could get paid for it.
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