VCA Market Street Animal Hospital — Local services in San Diego

Yet another subpar veterinary clinic in San Diego that is more concerned about maximizing corporate profits and charging you for unnecessary care visits, vaccines and medications your pet doesn't actually need versus providing humane care to their "patients".

The vets insist on prescribing medications to treat health conditions instead of offering resources or advice for lifestyle changes, modifications or other holistic measures than can be attempted before prescribing a chronic medication for an animal. I can take an accurate, calm blood pressure on my cat at home. However the vet insists I pay $100 for them to take an inaccurate, stressed blood pressure reading on my cat. Hmmmm

The vet will withhold medication refills for a chronic disease unless you pay for an exam and all the other associated hidden fees, and they do not care what affects withholding the medication may have on your animal.

The icing on the cake:: after an absolute nightmare circus of trying to get a current prescription refilled, I asked for advice to taper my pet off her medication and was told I'd have to make an appointment and pay for an exam just to get professional advice on how to take my pet off the medication YOU prescribed her. You straight up told me you don't care about my animals health, safety and well being. I wonder if it's even ethical to prescribe medications and refuse to explain how to safely take your pet off them?? Hmmm

I highly recommend avoiding this business if you value quality veterinary care where you actually have a say in your animals care. They do not go above and beyond, nor do they even act like they care about your pet unless you're paying them to care

Also the customer service rep Susie argued with me and over exaggerated how long it's been since my exam. It's been exactly 1.5 years (totally fine for a healthy indoor only cat!!!) and she was insistent it's been almost 3 years and was adamant I needed to make an appointment and completely ignored the reason for my call, nor was I offered to speak with a vet professional. They care about profits not your pet.

As a human nurse, this kind of treatment wouldn't fly in the medical world. Doctors don't prescribe medications and then refuse to explain how to safely take yourself off them. That's negligence.

UPDATE:

I wish to provide an update on my situation: I was able to successfully wean my pet off her blood pressure medication by myself without any professional advice or involvement. Her blood pressure has remained stable and within normal limits.

I will state that the management reached out to me via email but only as a standard robotic-like customer service response and a blurb about their policies. They did not ask how my pet was doing, nor was I offered any empathy for my situation. Unfortunately the VCA corporation owns and operates many of the vet clinics in this area so options for quality and affordable pet care is limited if...

I was a regular here until today. I had a vaccine booster scheduled 2 weeks ahead for my pup and the morning when I arrived to the office the check-in person inside tries to tell me that they cancelled my appointment with out saying it. She says they “called multiple times and your mailbox was full”, completely not true. And then she proceeds to tell me that “ You might need to wait a while” outside because of the situation when a pair of other people just walked right in after me. I wanted to be understanding and asked her for an estimated wait time for my appointment, she refuse to give me a range, like it may be all day or the fact that she cancellled my appointment and doesn’t want to tell me and decided to leave me and my pup waiting outside for hours in the hot summer day. I was an current client with my animals here and this is not an acceptable treatment to anyone who just want care for their pets.

I was so upset the way the person talked to me and decided to just walk away after the call. I dont think i can trust this place if they can’t even give me an idea with their situation on scheduling, where is the transparency? They obviously didn’t care or just the fact that this Susie lady is just not a good customer service person. Why would you tell someone who is already arrived for their scheduled appointment with such hesitance and show so much uncertainty when it is a simple routine appointment previously scheduled and confirmed?

I am not coming back here...

Deeply disappointed and frustrated.

We trusted this clinic with our cat’s care ahead of a cross-country move from California to Boston. A month ago, we brought him in for anxiety meds and were told we'd need a physical exam to issue a travel health certificate. Fine. We paid several hundred dollars and were explicitly told that this one exam would suffice—we’d only need to return for vaccinations closer to our travel date. No mention of needing a second exam.

So we returned this week for the vaccines, only to be told that we now do need to pay for another full physical exam—again, several hundred dollars—because the previous one had “expired” for certificate purposes. Not only is that contradictory to what we were told, but we were also given no credit or acknowledgment for the previous visit, despite doing exactly what they instructed.

Whether this was a communication breakdown, a lack of clarity, or a blatant cash grab, it left us scrambling and feeling taken advantage of. If your staff can’t keep your own policies straight, don’t make pet owners pay the price for it—literally. We will not be returning, and we will be advising others to look elsewhere for trustworthy,...