Between March and May 2015, Regional State Administrative Agencies will carry out a supervisory campaign assessing whether veterinary clinics are following the regulations concerning the display of price lists on company websites.
The number of pets has seen steady growth in Finland. When the need arises, pets need to be tended to by a veterinarian, which obviously results in costs to the owner. The opportunity to compare the prices of various veterinary clinics is therefore important to consumers.
The easiest way to do this is by browsing the websites of various veterinary clinics. In order for these comparisons to be possible, service providers must display a price list on their website in accordance with the decree issued on the indication of consumer product prices. The price list must include sales prices or, should the display of precise sales prices be impossible, information on the determination criteria of sales prices (e.g. EUR X per hour).
If there is such a variety of different services that indicating all of their prices in a price list would be impossible, displaying the sales prices or the determination criteria for the most common services will be sufficient. In this case, however, the price list must include a mention of a complete price list including all the services that the service provider must provide to the consumer upon request.
Veterinary clinics typically provide a wide variety of different services, and their prices often vary according to the species of animal. Due to this reason, the supervisory campaign will consider it adequate if a veterinary clinic has included in its price list the sales prices of the most common services and charges, or their determination criteria, for the two most frequently treated species, which are usually cats and dogs. If no impediment to displaying a complete price list on account of the number of services or other such reason exists, all sales prices or their determination criteria must be displayed on the clinic’s website.
Information on the results of the supervisory campaign will be provided later in the spring of 2015.