Errors on Coggins Tests

[Mulligan314]

I had this discussion with my mom this afternoon. At what point do official people start getting suspicious that so many tests are having to be corrected? Again, we’re at 100% of our coggins/paperwork in general over the last 2 years having some sort of inaccuracy present. And, It can’t just be ours. So it really makes me wonder how many others they have done are wrong and people either don’t check them or don’t care.

I will add and correct myself, I said we got all of them corrected last year, but with the carbon copy coggins that came with the mare and was incorrect(markings incorrect and also written and picture didn’t match), the vet that pulled it refused to come fix it and was going to require us to ship the mare out to their office and pay to have it done again. We battled with them for awhile, and then decided she just wasn’t going to be moved off the property.

I was going to propose this same question at that point last year but didn’t because the errors were over multiple vet clinics and I thought maybe I was just old school and like things done more accurately.

[mommy_peanut]

I don’t ever remember having an incorrect coggins, even back when it was the old carbon copy form.
Now it’s all digital. Same service as mentioned above.
Vet (or assistant) takes a photo of front, back & both sides. If there is an odd or distinguishing mark, they photograph that as well.
Owner, trainer, barn manager (basically whomever is in charge) fills out the horses info.
Easy peasy

[Mulligan314]

Our experience as well prior to about 2 years ago. It was never an issue.

[No1]

That’s not good.

I had a horse in Florida once who was ‘quarantined’ pending a new coggins. The markings weren’t accurate and they caught it at the ag station. It involved several conversations with the state and the vet. The fix was simple enough and the horse didn’t need to leave the state again for months, so it didn’t end up having much impact outside of being annoying.

If you haven’t mentioned the problem to you vet, make sure you do. If your vet’s office has to do things like export papers or coggins for horses going to the race track, these mistakes can quickly become costly and they should do whatever they need to do to correct it ASAP.

[Libby2563]

@No1

I had a horse in Florida once who was ‘quarantined’ pending a new coggins. The markings weren’t accurate and they caught it at the ag station. It involved several conversations with the state and the vet.

That just reminded me…the one and only time I shipped a horse to Florida, my vet made a mistake (although it was on the health certificate, not the Coggins, and I can’t for the life of me remember what it was). I had already driven my trailer full of hay down in advance, so the vet had to coordinate a rendezvous with Brookledge to get them a corrected version. It all worked out okay but could have been a huge headache. I shipped my horse and one other home myself a month later and was super careful to make sure there were no mistakes that time!

[clanter]

@No1

That’s not good.

I had a horse in Florida once who was ‘quarantined’ pending a new coggins.

if this occurred at a show or event All horses would be impounded until the questionable horse(s) had clear reports

I used to have to check coggins papers with a state rep of inbound horses for an event… it was common to presented papers that did not match the horse then have the person go into a fit when the horse was not allowed. Yeah they say all Bays look alike, but sir the papers you gave me for the bay gelding are for a bay mare

[Mulligan314]

We communicated to them(the office staff) immediately and have already gotten them corrected. I’m just annoyed that it’s happened two years in a row now, which is why I presented the question. In my eyes, it was/is unacceptable, but I wasn’t sure if I was just being…too type A about my paperwork. Anyways, the older receptionist always makes a big fuss about how hard it is to change things after we find the mistakes and how much time it’s going to take her…well, honey, maybe do it right the first time? The newer one was very apologetic and was able to get the corrections made quickly. I feel bad for the new girl. She seems to be the clean up crew for a lot of the other receptionists sloppiness…not just with paperwork either.

ETA: we are still trying to figure out how to kindly approach the subject to the main vet, but communication to him will also be made.

[atr]

I did question once why my gelding had an “M” on his coggins for sex rather than a “G”, and was told that it was for “Male.”

[Mulligan314]

This was from the gelding. Even M would technically be incorrect based on this document’s code breakdown.

[Ghazzu]

For many years, the official form had only a blank field for the sex, and it was convention to put simply a letter M, S, G. “mare” could be easily written into the box, but “stallion” and “gelding” would have been pretty illegible.
When the form was revised sometime after Y2K, there was the new instruction for F,M,G, FS on the form.
It still took me months to stop writing in “M” for mare and “S” for stallion.

Speaking of “official forms”, I suspect that if the local APHIS office finds out that a practice routinely buggers up the forms, the accredited DVM will be told to attend a session or two on how to do it correctly. (There is periodic specific CE required in order to maintain the accreditation necessary for performing official animal health testing and issuance of health certificates.)

[Mulligan314]

@Ghazzu

It still took me months to stop writing in “M” for mare and “S” for stallion.

That is an understandable error for sure.

I’ll be in contact with our vet soon to make the repeated errors known.

I really appreciate all of your feedback. It has helped confirm what I felt to be unacceptable situations the office staff have put us in time and time again. ugh.

[Luseride]

I have not had any wrong and have had as many as ten horses at a time for forty years.

[candyappy]

In my experience with getting a coggins on my horses, the vet fills out the paper work right then when he draws blood. Are other vets doing it differently?

[Mulligan314]

@candyappy

the vet fills out the paper work right then when he draws blood. Are other vets doing it differently?

With the carbon copy coggins, yes, this is how it is done. The problem with our CC coggins last year were the markings not done correctly. Mare has one hind sock, but on both sides of the picture, the farther leg was marked, making it appear as though she had two hind socks. The description was done back at the clinic and the person scribing the description just followed the drawing and described the two hind socks that were depicted from the inaccurate drawings. This coggins was never able to fix because the vet refused to come out to us and fix it(this was not our vet, but the one from where the horse came from). We gave up on the battle, especially once Covid hit, because it just wasn’t worth the headache anymore.

With the digital documents, there is no paper at the time of the visit, they just take pictures and insert them into the document, then describe the images - which we also experienced errors with last year - I guess the default in each box is the word ‘None’ - and the office staff didn’t take the time to go change all of those ‘Nones’ to my geldings actual markings. So, you have pictures of this horse with very distinguishable markings with descriptions for a solid bay. This also means all of the other information is typed in back at the office(or that is how his practice does it) which means the information in their system needs to be accurate in order for them to transfer the information.

This year, trying to combat the errors from last year, I stayed on the phone with the older receptionist for awhile making sure the information for all of the horses we were pulling was updated and correct. Name, Color, Birthdate, Gender. She read it all back to me…everything was good. Get the papers back…all of it wrong. Again. Go figure. It’s exhausting. So, there is a disconnect somewhere. I don’t know where, but it’s somewhere. They’ve also submitted blood work under a dead horse because ‘oops, that must have been the last one we did something on’ - umm…what? You don’t check a patient ID number? How does your program even allow you to input things under a dead animal? That animal’s file shouldn’t be active anymore. I work at a clinic and it wouldn’t be possible to make some of the errors they make. Their patient system must just be a total cluster to be able to make so many errors.

[Ghazzu]

I suggest that those of you experiencing multiple/continuing errors on Coggins tests, be they hand-drawn or digital, contact your local APHIS office and drop a dime on the practice/DVM that is doing it. There is no excuse for screwing these up on a regular basis, and if, God forbid, a horse came up positive, there would be a virtual shitstorm if the documentation were incorrect.

[Another_Poster]

Every coggins I’ve ever had pulled ( at least 6 different clinics) has had errors. The sex has always been right but the name, birthdate, county, something is wrong. I’ve brought it up every single time bc I, in detail, give them this info. All my animals are microchipped and that’s never listed on the coggins, either.

[Libby2563]

I just noticed kind of an appalling error on my TB’s March 2020 Coggins. I guess I never really looked at the photos before, but I noticed that his mane was on the other side of his neck in both photos, and yup…the right-side photo is just the left-side photo mirrored! It looks like he has a RH sock in one photo and LH sock in the other. Argh! Already sent my vet the correct photo for this year. I did log into GVL and can’t edit anything in there myself anymore.

[lenapesadie]

Well that’s terrible