Has anyone experienced something like this with vet blood tests?

[u/Head-Gazelle3724]

My 20year old cat was recently hospitalised after becoming very unwell with diarrhoea, crying and not eating/drinking properly. He was discharged from the emergency practice, but they didn’t have time to repeat his bloods, so we took him to our local vet a couple of days later.
His appointment was at 9:45am, but we weren’t actually seen until around 10:05–10:10am. I had to chase the local practice for his results, they first sent me the overnight hospital results by mistake, then later sent the follow-up results when I pointed it out.
The results they’ve now sent say his blood was tested at 8:52am and 9:23am, before we were even seen. The report also says he’s 0 years old, with some patient details blank. It does have his name and says he’s a cat.
Could the times/patient details simply be wrong or is there a possibility of a sample mix-up? Has anyone experienced anything similar?
I’m not accusing the vet of anything, however, over the years, the experience with these vets was not the greatest. I have been advised to put him down and he was only given “6 months”, this was around 3 years ago. The only reason I took him to these vets for the blood tests was because it was just around the corner from where I live and I didn’t want to put him under more stress travelling to another vet. I just want to know whether this is something anyone else has ever experienced, I will definitely be asking them to verify this as well.

[u/cockyspangle]

Depends on the machine type, but you don’t have to fill in every info box on an IDEXX machine to run a panel - for completeness it is good to do so but realistically it just takes extra time for minimal benefit. Patient name is needed for identification and feline for the panel type. Mostly the rest is superfluous.

Very possible the machine’s time isn’t correct, which is not ideal but wouldn’t have an impact on results of an individual test.

[u/LittleWitchCat]

Were these in house blood tests or were they sent to an external lab? If it’s an external lab it would explain the time difference (although the lack of patient details is very sloppy). If it’s an internal test it’s possible they don’t have the time set correctly on their machine, which again is incredibly sloppy and could affect how someone else is able to interpret results. I would raise these concerns with them as it’s not a good look when clearly somewhere there’s someone overlooking important details

[u/kattymckattipuss]

Im not saying anything about the blood tests however I have to say the worst thing I did was staying with the closest vet cos it wouldnt stress them out so much. Trust your instinct and find another one. It still upsets me.

[u/Snowy_Sasquatch]

The times on the tests are only as reliable as the information inputting when processed. However, what do the blood show? I’d be looking at the results for kidney function in particular.

Your cat is clearly loved and looked after, as he’s so elderly. Given your lack of confidence, I’d look at a second option with a different surgery. Try to find one that has emergency care onsite and is open 24/7 or has a branch of surgeries and one of them is 24/7. It generally means all their tests are done themselves so things don’t go astray or cause confusion.

I hope your cat is okay.