Diagnostics and imaging

Four things get recommended most often when an examination turns something up: laboratory testing, X-rays, abdominal ultrasound and echocardiography.

Laboratory testing

Run here, in our own laboratory: heartworm tests, urinalysis, pre-operative bloodwork, and the blood panels a sick patient needs.

A pet who comes in unwell can have blood drawn, run and interpreted during the same visit, so the conversation about what to do next happens while you are still in the room. Anything else goes to a reference laboratory.

X-rays

Radiographs are taken here and are usually the first imaging step for a limp, a cough, a swallowed object, a bladder stone, or a chest that needs looking at before or after a heart scan.

What they cannot do is show what an organ is made of, because an X-ray flattens everything in its path into one overlapping image. That is where ultrasound takes over.

Getting your results

Every imaging study taken here gets a report from a board-certified specialist. X-ray reports come from a veterinary radiologist, abdominal ultrasound reports from an internal medicine specialist, and echocardiogram reports from a cardiologist. One kind of X-ray is looked at by our own veterinarians instead: a study taken to check one specific thing, such as whether there is a stone in the bladder.

Specialist reports come back in one to three days. A faster STAT report is available on X-rays for $119, back within hours, and on an abdominal ultrasound for $169, back the same day if we scan in the morning and early the next morning if the scan is later than that. Echocardiograms have no STAT option.

In-house bloodwork is different. Those results are usually back during the same visit, and are gone through with you before you leave.

What imaging costs

Radiographs, up to six views	$465
Abdominal ultrasound	$690
Echocardiogram	$795
STAT report — X-rays	$119
STAT report — abdominal ultrasound	$169

Every figure above includes the specialist’s report.

All published prices