This is a rating on the clinic's policies. if you arrive a few minutes late, Bond Vet will attempt to charge you a late fee or delay your appointment later in the week. It is clearly driven by the centrally directed, VC model which attempts to scrape as much money out of people's pockets as possible. They will then offer to rebook you for an emergency walk-in appointment for $120. It is egregious that Bond Vet thinks this is an acceptable vet practice. We know traffic in the DC area can be a mess and unpredictable and they are very unwilling to be flexible with their clients. We've also been plagued by multiple serious storms and flooding in recent weeks. We all aim to arrive on time but sometimes it can be very challenging to get to an Old Town location with a lot of traffic. It's a shame to have to leave the practice as the clinic is otherwise close by and convenient. It is clean and modern.
I'm an animal fosterer who rehomes animals from abroad, so I usually have ~ 20 pets in the house
I have removed myself and close to ten foster animals from the practice due to Bond Vet HQ's policies. I do not recommend them at this point due to their HQ policies. I have wide variety of medical issues which arise in my foster cats (street rescues, many of which have underlying or chronic health issues). I need my local vet to be a partner, not a hector me about rigid corporate policies made by a VC firm sitting in NY. I work a job with long hours and often need to visit the vet from 1-3 times a week. Bond Vet is not able to work with me to support this.
Fees are very high here. Bond Vet is a chain and venture capital backed. Yes these are the folks causing your vet bills to skyrocket. Of course, inflation is an issue everywhere but the entry of venture capital has also greatly exacerbated vet fees. This is not your long time neighborhood vet integrated into the community.
Dr Holly Connolly is a great vet, empathetic and knowledgeable. Highly recommend and I hope she'll switch practices some day. Dr Marjorie O'Brien is also very helpful in resolving clients' issues. There are a couple of great technicians as well.
Dr Holly Liu is just awful. Rude, hostile, not good with clients. Avoid. I have no idea how she got into a business doing face to face business with people (and pets of course.) She unfortunately is the only vet in the practice who can do USDA travel documents, so I'd recommend going elsewhere if you need travel documents. One day when we had major storm warnings and I arrived 5 minutes late, then sat in the waiting room for five minutes, she attempted to impose a fee for arriving 10 minutes late. Clients are accustomed to wait a bit to see a vet or doctor, that is not the issue. I've was shocked to find that Dr Liu thinks it is acceptable to impose late fees when she herself is running a few minutes late. I don't fault for a vet for walking in after 5 or 10 minutes, that's perfectly normal, but to try to charge the client for it, is simply egregious and astonishing. Dr. Liu is pretty clearly the henchwoman in imposing the corporate HQ's egregious fees, regardless of the validity of the case. She seemed taken aback when I was prepared to walk out and cancel several subsequent appointments.
Bond Vet Corporate needs to remember it has competition, and anti-patient policies won't win it a good reputation or long term patients. The fact that is a 2.5 rating on Yelp is showing the impact of a NY HQ putting its inflexible mandates before its patients. VC funds which value their profit and pickpocketing their clients for rapicious and extraneous fees over pets' health are not what we need in the vet industry. read more
