Rachel Wysocki

Review of Orchard Park Veterinary Medica...

Absolutely terrible customer service. They give yo...

Absolutely terrible customer service. They give you a hard time accepting your dogs into their practice after your pet has an emergency, even if they have a chronic condition that will require future specialized treatment; as they say it is poaching customers from other practices. One of our pets had three separate heart defects and I had to fight my way all the way to the general manager and get a letter from my other veterinarian stating it was OK my Pet moved to their practice, though they had the only canine cardiologist in the area! This process took months while my second dog was bounced between two different care centers. Then they weren t going to allow me to move my other pet over to the practice, forcing me to take my dogs to separate places for their care.

Appointments with vets are VERY SHORT and are only focused on the specific issue you reported when you called. Do not expect a full head to toe examination of your pet. Expect nice doctors, but don t expect comprehensive care. And don t expect consistency of treatment recommendations across doctors.

It is obvious from the building design that no human being who ever had an emergency with their pet, or who have been experienced the loss of a pet built the building. It is a heart wrenching trip every time. Emergency cases are on deck in the waiting room, animals on stretchers wailing in pain. Owners who had to let their dogs go due to serious illness wait in the same checkout line as everyone else for upwards of thirty minutes as they bawl. Other animal care centers have separate entrances for emergency cases and for owners who will not be leaving with their pet. When we lost our dog I asked them to take payment before she was gone and they refused stating they wouldn t know how much the disposal fee or the medicine that would be. Overall letting our precious girl go to save her from pain cost us over $500

At a typical appointment be sure to have a firm hold on your dogs leash. The waiting room is a cacophony if animal sounds and appointments are overbooked so animals and owners are waiting on top of each other. As you can imagine this has not been a good experience injured animals, sick animals, upset owners all on top of each other. Barking matches. Owners losing their pets leashes. Howling from injured animals. People grouping to lol at an injured bird. Pets with sound sensitivity have nowhere to go to get away. The space allotted for the waiting room is about 20 by 30. Not enough space to safely contain the number of people and animals anticipated to be present at any one time. Also, expect to spend more time standing around waiting to check out than actual time spent in an examination room. Today for example, I had an appointment at 8:20am. I waited for ten minutes for my appointment, I was the o my one in the waiting room and no other pets could be heard. Then, the doctor spent about 10 minutes in the room with us. Then we spent triple that 35 minutes in the waiting room waiting for prescriptions to be filled . two pre-packaged items and two kinds of pills. While I was standing waiting it felt as though every employee was hiding. When I did get the attention of a staff member I was told they were counting the pills , then I was told twice that the pharmacy was working on the prescription . And this is after I was given an initial 10 minute wait time. They didn t appear to care that there is a window to the pharmacy right in the check out area and staff could be plainly seen casually chatting as I waited. I even went into the business office to ask for assistance and provide feedback and received an incredulous look.

The only benefit from being a client here is the emergency service which is open to everyone, but you get a $20 discount on your appointment fee when there is an emergency.