Recently, a topic Is it reasonable for pets to see a doctor more expensive than people? has become a hot search topic, sparking heated discussions among netizens.

Like humans, pets will also get sick sometimes, but because most pet owners do not understand the knowledge of pet medicine, once pets get sick, they need to sent to hospital for treatment. However, pet owners who have been to pet hospitals will find that it is more expensive to see a pet at a cost of one or two hundred to one or two thousand yuan.

In addition to the high cost, more pet owners are mainly inclined to opaque fees and think that the pricing of pet hospitals is very arbitrary. So what is the reason for this situation?

Status of domestic pet medical care

In recent years, China's pet industry has been experiencing significant growth. According to Frost & Sullivan, the number of pets in China has grown from 189.6 million in 2014 to 302.1 million in 2019, and is expected to further increase to 445.5 million by 2024. In China, high-quality and mature pet platforms such as Boqi Pet, Love Pet.com, and Goumin.com have been born.

In the pet medical industry with a scale of more than 40 billion yuan, pet hospitals account for about 20.2 billion yuan. But at present, China's pet hospitals are in a relatively scattered state. Among the 10,000 to 15,000 pet hospitals in the country, the vast majority of pet hospitals are small-scale single-store operations, with many small clinics, and the prices of pet medical care are opaque and vary widely.

According to relevant research reports, the average cost of seeing a pet is about 500 yuan, while the diagnosis and examination will cost more than 100 yuan, and the surgery will cost more, some even as high as Thousands of dollars.

In addition to the cost of inspection, pet medicine is naturally a necessity in the daily consumption of pet medical care. Pet vaccines and regular physical examinations have become the main consumer items of pet medical services, accounting for 77.8% and 45.2% respectively. The year-on-year increase in data has also made pet light medical services popular.

However, at present, domestic pet medicines are faced with the dilemma of few categories and relatively immature technology, mainly relying on imports. According to statistics, the market share of foreign-funded enterprises in pet medical care has reached more than 90%.

The vaccine market is monopolized by the products of many foreign companies such as Interval, Eli Lilly and Zoet, among which Interval has occupied a larger market share. At the end of 2019, Japanese veterinary drug manufacturer Kyoritsu also announced its entry into the Chinese pet vaccine market.

In the short term, pet medicines and vaccines may continue to rely on imports, and international pet medicine companies are still big winners. However, with the continuous efforts of domestic vaccine companies in recent years, this situation may soon be improved in the future.

Domestic veterinary medicine has broken the predicament

There has always been a large gap in the number of veterinary doctors in my country. The overall demand for talents in the pet industry is about 370,000. Although the number of domestic professional veterinarians is increasing year by year, veterinarians are a relatively niche profession, and the proportion of people applying for veterinary studies every year is very small, and the talent gap is difficult to fill in the short term.

As more and more people keep pets in recent years, and pet medical care is an emerging industry, it is difficult for pet doctors to meet the rapidly growing demand for pet medical care.

Animals are different from humans in that they cannot speak and cannot explain their situation to a doctor. This also causes doctors to be unable to quickly judge the condition, and needs to use more medical equipment to test it, which will take longer and cost more.

In addition, the development of the domestic pet hospital market is still in the early stage, the resources in pet medical care are relatively scarce, and there is also a lack of market supervision. Most pet hospitals set their own prices. For example, for a routine blood test, some charge 50 yuan, some charge 100 yuan, and pet owners do not know the market conditions. If they encounter a black-hearted pet hospital, they can only accept high medical expenses.

Uncontrollable market

High medical expenses have made medical companies in the pet track achieve high valuations. Under the condition that the price reduction is temporarily unsolved, pet insurance and other businesses have emerged. .

At present, pet anthropomorphism exists in the pet medical industry, and there is a trend of attaching importance to pet medical care, including purchasing health insurance for pets. Referring to the information released by APPA in the United States, in the mature pet market in the United States, users' demand for medical prescriptions and pet health insurance has increased. About 25% of pet owners give priority to pets when considering huge medical expenses. A similar situation will emerge as the Chinese pet market matures.

Many insurance companies have launched different forms of pet insurance, and startups involving pet medical insurance are also Gradually gain the favor of capital. It seems that the problem of expensive pets has found a solution, but both consumers and insurance companies face different problems.

At present, most of the major pet insurances on the market have restrictions on the pet's medical conditions and age. Congenital genetic diseases are also not covered by insurance, and pets over 10 years old cannot be insured. At the same time, the health notice also lists the time limits for which various diseases such as blood in the stool, blood in the urine, fractures, dislocations, and small pets are not covered by insurance. Consumers face the rules of insurance companies, and insurance companies also face the problem of fraudulent insurance caused by technical problems.

According to relevant data, at least tens of millions of pet owners will buy pet insurance in the future, and the pet insurance market has broad prospects. The rapid development of the pet medical industry is actually a reflection of social needs.

At the same time, pet medical insurance also gave birth to technologies such as pet nose print recognition. However, unlike the face recognition technology used by humans, this technology mainly uses the texture on the animal's nose as the recognition object.