Do you know who charges $300? I would be comfortable paying this amount. Also, as mentioned in the original post, I am willing to travel outside of the city for more affordable care. In terms of being short-staffed causing cost increases, I often find this a humorous comment. They often raise their prices due to being ‘short-staffed’, but that money never actually goes to the staff. The owner gets it (who is often a vet at the practice). When I worked as a pharmacy technician during COVID-19 people threw the term short-staffed around a lot. But we never saw a dime of that ‘short-staffed money’. Most we got was about $100 for our hazard pay, and we were testing COVID-19 patients everyday.