The longer version:

Submitting a bill is simple. Pet owners can upload their vet bill through Vetted’s secure submission form . You can submit a bill for routine care, urgent care, emergency care, surgery, dental work, vaccines, diagnostics, medication, end-of-life care or anything else you paid for at a veterinary clinic.The most useful submissions include:
A clear photo, scan or PDF of the full invoice

• The clinic name and location

• The date of service

• The type of pet, such as dog or cat

• The pet’s approximate weight and age, if relevant

• A short description of why you went to the vet

• Whether the final bill matched the estimate, if you received one

What we collect

Vetted’s database is built around invoice-level information, not vibes.When a bill is submitted, we may record details such as:

• Clinic name

• Clinic neighborhood or borough

• Practice ownership, when known

• Date of service

• Species, such as dog or cat

• Approximate pet size or weight

• Visit type, such as wellness, urgent, emergency, dental or surgery

• Procedure or reason for visit

• Individual line items

• Taxes, fees and discounts

• Total amount paid

• Whether an estimate was provided

• Whether the bill was paid out of pocket, reimbursed by insurance or financed

We use that information to compare similar services across clinics and neighborhoods. A vaccine visit should not be lumped together with emergency surgery. A 10-pound cat dental should not be treated the same as a 90-pound dog surgery. Context matters.That is why Vetted does not just publish one big average and call it a day.

How we anonymize submissions

Before any bill is added to Vetted’s public-facing data, we remove personal information.That means we do not publish:

• The pet owner’s name

• The pet owner’s email address

• The pet owner’s phone number

• The pet owner’s home address

• Payment information

• Account numbers

• Medical record numbers

• Pet insurance policy numbers

• Photos of the original bill

• Any notes that could reasonably identify the person who submitted it

We may also remove or generalize a pet’s name if it appears on the invoice. In published data, a submission might appear as “dog, 65 pounds” or “senior cat,” not as a personally identifiable record.Vetted may publish the clinic name, neighborhood, borough, service category, line items and price because that is the information pet owners need to understand the market. The goal is to protect the person who submitted the bill while preserving the pricing information that makes the database useful.

How we clean the data

Vet bills are messy.Different clinics use different names for the same thing. One invoice may say “office visit.” Another may say “exam.” Another may separate a consultation fee from a technician fee. Some bills bundle services together. Others break every syringe, medication and disposal fee into its own line.Before we publish data, Vetted reviews each submission and standardizes it as much as possible.That can include grouping similar line items into broader categories, such as:

• Exam fees

• Vaccines

• Bloodwork

• Fecal testing

• Urinalysis

• X-rays

• Ultrasound

• Dental cleaning

• Spay or neuter surgery

• Anesthesia

• Pain medication

• Antibiotics

• Emergency fees

• Euthanasia and aftercare

We preserve the original price, but we make the category easier to compare.For example, one clinic’s “pre-anesthetic panel” and another clinic’s “blood chemistry/CBC” may both be categorized under bloodwork, while still keeping the original line-item wording where useful.This is part data work, part translation.

Vetted publishes data when it can help pet owners make sense of the cost of care.That may include:

• Median prices for common services

• Price ranges by procedure

• Clinic-level examples

• Borough-level comparisons

• Ownership-level comparisons

• Line-item breakdowns

• Reported estimates versus final bills

• Real examples of what people paid for similar care

Whenever possible, Vetted will show how many bills are behind a number. A price based on two submissions should be treated differently than a price based on 200.We do not want this project to create a false sense of precision. Veterinary medicine is not one-size-fits-all. Costs can vary based on a pet’s age, weight, breed, medical history, temperament, anesthesia needs, complications, clinic type, staffing, location and whether the visit happened during regular business hours or in an emergency setting.The point is not to tell you exactly what your bill should be.The point is to help you know whether the number you are seeing is in the realm of normal, unusually low, unusually high or worth asking more questions about.

What Vetted does not do

Vetted is not a veterinary clinic. We do not diagnose pets, recommend treatment plans or tell people to delay care because of cost.We also do not assume that the cheapest clinic is the best clinic.A higher bill may reflect longer appointment times, higher rent, more experienced staff, better equipment, overnight monitoring, specialty care, emergency staffing or a more complex medical situation. A lower bill may reflect a nonprofit model, lower overhead, fewer bundled services or a different standard of care.Price is one part of the story. It is not the whole story.Vetted’s goal is to give pet owners better questions, not easy villains.Questions like:

• What is included in this estimate?

• Is bloodwork required or recommended?

• Are there lower-cost options?

• What happens if I decline this line item?

• Is this urgent or can I compare prices?

• Will the final bill be higher than the estimate?

• Is this clinic independently owned or part of a larger group?

More information does not replace medical judgment. But it can make the conversation more honest.

Why ownership matters

Veterinary care in New York City is not just a story about individual clinics. It is also a story about the businesses behind them.Some clinics are independently owned. Others are part of larger regional or national groups. Some are nonprofit or shelter-affiliated. Some operate like neighborhood family practices. Others are built around urgent care, specialty medicine or emergency services.Vetted tracks ownership where possible because ownership can affect pricing, staffing, marketing, expansion and the way care is delivered.That does not mean one model is automatically good and another is automatically bad. But pet owners deserve to know who they are paying.

Why your bill matters

One bill can help another pet owner walk into a clinic with a better sense of what to expect.Ten bills can show whether a price is typical.A hundred bills can show patterns across neighborhoods, clinic types and ownership groups.That is how Vetted becomes useful: one receipt at a time.If you have ever left a vet appointment wondering whether the bill was normal, your experience is exactly the kind of information this project was built to collect.Submit your bill. We will anonymize it, clean it and use it to help other pet owners understand what care really costs.[

Our promise

Vetted is built for pet owners, not for clinics, chains, insurers or financing companies.We will be transparent about our methodology. We will label estimates clearly. We will correct mistakes when we find them. We will distinguish between verified bills and broader reported information. And we will not publish personal information from submitted invoices.Veterinary care is emotional enough. The bill should not be a mystery too.