LIVS Catherine Loughin Dominic Marino Catherine Loughin, DVM Dominic Marino, DVM Compassionfirstpets.com Compassion-First Pet Hospitals Plainview New York Office of Professional Discipline Lied to Me.
They are excellent excellent excellent FRAUDSTERS.
They are the smoothest smoothest smoothest CRIMINALs.
They are the most charming charming and convinving Animal Abusers.
But they are terribble terrible terrible Vets.
Stay away from this fraud operation.
They advertise constantly and falsely sell themselves out to pet owners as a Long Island version of the Animal Medical Center in NY. This misrepresentation is a complete fraud and they have no affiliation with Animal Medical Center. Animal Medical Center (AMC) is an excellent not for profit specialty hospital helping pets and their owners. Long Island Vet Specialists (Livs) swindles people into their facility pretending they have an affiliation to AMC. Long Island Vet Specialists is a for profit center under numerous investigations and the defendents in multiple and frequent lawsuits for malpractice and swindles.
Two of their main doctors and owners Dominic Marino and Catherine Loughin swindled my wife and my elderly mother into thinking our dog needed a bunch of tests which she did not need. They claimed they had referals and relationships with AMC so we woud trust their "expertise." AMC subsequently told us there is no affiliation and AMC would NEVER send overflow patients to LIVS - ever! LIVS let untrained and unsupervised people work on our dog who had only a minor specialty issue - and they mortally wounded our dog. They then charged us for the tests that mortally wounded the dog.
Then they sold my wife and mother additional services to the tune of $7,000 to "fix" the damage LIVS caused. The repair services did not work. The dog suffered horribly. Then they tried to sell MORE "fix it" services - even offering my wife loan paperwork to fill out at 25% interest after they had maxed out her credit cards , all the time playing on her love for the dog and her fear and plying her with misinformation.
When my wife finally said we are getting our dog out of there, they tried every possible approach to disuade her. Dr. Loughin and Marino tried to sell her more "services" before we moved her, which we refused to buy. They kept claiming the next facility would want these services done at LIVS first - which was a total sales scam and completely false. We insisted we were taking her out of there.
When we refused to buy any more services and demanded they release our dog for transfer, they brought her out - in a carboard box - dead - and told us to leave.
We later learned that they pay their doctors a piece of every service and procedure they can sell. There are no ethics. This is called a revenue model. It helps the facility and employees get rich at the expense of the pets and their families and does not serve the best interest of the patients. Livs people are incentivised to just sell sell sell and if you harm a pet that allows you to sell subsequent "repairs" you get even more.
They were recently aquired by a sketchy chain called "Compassion-First" that seems to make a fortune pushing this same "revenue model" at multiple facilities they invest in and aquire.
I have seen all the news articles, and lawsuits, and affidavits and complaints by pet owners and doctors who had been inside the facility and worked there.
Evidently the owner sits on the licensing board and intercepts complaints. This is a criminal fraud. One thing is for certain - if you go there 90% of the time your pet will suffer and not get helped - you will be fleeced - and their lawyers will fight you tooth and nail on any complaint you file. I am told they make over $1million per week running these scams - they dont care about paying $100,000 in legal costs from time to time to keep the scam alive.
There are many better alternatives in Long Island - stay away from LIVS if you love your pet - stay away from Dominic Marino if you love your pet - stay away from Catherine Loughin if you love your pet. I wish my wife had researched them more carefully - but they really snowed her and my mother.
I recently saw some complaints about Long Island Vet Specialists (LIVS)and Doctors Marino and Loughin and their associates. My heart goes out to the families of these pets - you are not alone. LIVS has been running scams on consumers in Nassau County for over 15 years.
Their owner Dominic Marino is frequently sued but the animal protection laws in NY are weak and his lawyers are strong (he makes millions defrauding Nassau County locals). He has been sued hundreds of times in local small claims court but small claims cases are not public record.
The vet industry in NY is unregulated and the board that oversees vet care in NY is managed by Dominic Marino's co-owner at LIVS so the hundreds of filed complaints have never received a judicial hearing. They are all dismissed upon receipt. Complaints have even been filed by 9 former veterinarians from LIVS - all dismissed without a hearing. I tried to call the district attorney about what they did to my dear sweet baby but my calls were never returned.
This man Marino and his fraud are unstoppable. He is too well connected. He is tight with local politicos and cops. Marino flagrantly lies in his own biography on LIVS' website about his credentials and leaves out embarrasing parts of his academic history - such as the fact that his early college years were at a remedial junior college and he only moved to Auburn later.
Long Island Vet Specialists doctors are not paid based on the care they give your pet - they are paid based on a percentage of the revenue they sell you and bill you for, so they are notorious for pushing services and procedures that are not needed and completely inappropriate. Many peoples dogs and cats have been critically injured at LIVS. The care is horrible - they are however great salespeople - very smoothe and practiced and coached. Reputable vets say to stay away from LIVS - vets who refer patients to LIVS receive referal fees $$.
My dear sweet dalmation went there for simple no risk diagnostics and was SO INJURED BY LIVS that he was never the same and died. They gave him the wrong chemicals and too many chemicals and handled him atrociously. AVOID this place at ALL COSTS. Years ago they were the only 24 hour facility in the area but now there are many OTHER OPTIONS IN THE AREA.
Look at the horror stories on Yelp and Facebook and the Better Business Bureau but look deep - LIVS pays to have bad reviews pushed down. Go somewhere else if you love your pet.
My dear dog was only 5 and what they did to him is horrible beyond description. I have had nightmares for months. The doctors there are listed as highly specialized but dont be fooled - many are actually just "on staff consultants" who are only there for one day a month for an hour and the majority of the pets are seen by residents and the same two or three staff doctors who are equity partners.
I have startd to see more and more stories about them making it into the press to expose them. If your pet has been harmed at LIVS or your family financially ripped off by LIVS like so many others have been, you should complain to the district attorney and the attorney general. I do not know how they have been allowed to remain in business, but if you treasure your family pet then stay away from LIVS.
The saddest part is they seem to run nearly identical scams on people over and over again - same pitch - same injuries etc. My heart goes out to all the victims - Dominic Marino, Catherine Loughin, Brian McKena, Lexi Kanes, Mike Selmer - they should be in prison but are allowed to commit their crimes on Nassu County residents every day. I hope this report will save others from going to LIVS and seeing their dog suffer horribly and die as mine did.
By the way - beware when they offer you their free credit account to help you pay over time for all the services they will try to sell you (they charge you 22% interest). It comes after the high pressured sales pitch where they terrify you into thinking your pet needs all kinds of procedures they dont need and have all kinds of diseases that they dont actually have. Then they size you up to see if they can bilk your insurance company and how much additional money you can put on credit cards - then they offer you credit and convince and coerce you that you must do all this. A week later you are broke and your pet is dead but not until they have squeezed every last penny out of you and strung out your family pet until the coffers run dry.
Residents are bullied by the staff doctors into looking the other way. Those who report the crimes have been sued by Marino.
Marino did not get his millions by taking honest care of pets. He got it through scams and frauds against the public in Nassau County NY.
LIVS Dominic Marino Dominic J. Marino Kimberly Golden Heather Goodman Jonathan C. Goodwin Jaclyn Holdsworth Tomas Infernuso Kay Kim Nicole Leibman Fernando Leyva Catherine A. Loughin Dominic J. Marino Patrick Roynard Angels Prades-Sapienza John S. Sapienza Michael Selmer Joshua W. Tumulty Robert Waddell LIVS and Dominic Marino
AVOID THIS VET AT ALL COSTS. THEY EFFECTIVELY KILL PETS BY PRESCRIBING UNNECESSARY, HARMFUL PROCEDURES TO RUN UP BILLS. ITS ALL ABOUT THEIR BOTTOM LINE.
I have been a dog owner for decades and never seen such terrible behavior on the part of a vet.
My pet was less than ten years old, healthy and seemed to have a single isolated issue which is typically easily treated. Their vets were dismissive about my assessment and decided to go ahead with procedures that left my pet cripped and suffering. Naturally they billed me thousands of dollars in the process. Some of their people in front were courteous but the criminal behavior but after the fact I couldn't get a doctor on the phone without threatening to sue.
Since this happened I have requested copies of records and seen other victims problems with LIVS and Dominic Marino come up on the internet. Here is the sum total of their offenses:
LIVS under the leadership of Dominic Marino, Long Island Veterinary Specialists has:
-Crippled and effectively killed pets by prescribing and billing for unnecessary and harmful procedures in order to run up customer bills
-Said they could solve problems to sell services and run up bills that clearly would not help the pets in their care
-Been investigated for corruption while bidding for police contracts
-Lied about who performs surgeries; Marino claims that he does it himself and offloads the work to residents but bills as if he is doing the work himself
-Killed dogs to avoid having to show the results of botched minor surgeries to their owners
-Bullied employees and residents with personal and legal threats to avoid negative reviews online
-Fail to provide services such as overnight monitoring which people pay for regardless
-Routinely have techs and relatives perform anesthesia, MRI, CT, and surgeries when they claim licensed vets are doing the work
-Pulls and alters medical records in the face of investigations from the NYSED which is the licensing agency for veterinarians
-Pays other veterinarians on commissions (no wonder they seem to have an incentive to run up bills, they do)
-Uses mostly part time employees to avoid paying taxes and benefits
-Dominic Marino has been sued by multiple former partners and employees and seems to be in lawsuits based on LIVS' conduct with multiple parties
-Commonly prevents owners from seeing anything beyond the front area to keep people from seeing the squalid conditions of where their pets are being kept- they said pets would be kept in runs but they're really kept in tiny cages often in their own defecation
-Clearly paid off Yelp and other companies to manage their social media and try to post articles on wikipeida/etc to make it seem like they are conducting groundbreaking research (see the wikipedia history for the wikipedia user who started the Long Island Veterinary Specialists wikipedia page, they also made a bunch of articles glorifying LIVS and Marino which have virtually all been deleted or reduced Marino's name to random footnotes
This is sickening and emotionally draining to write out but people need to know why they need to avoid LIVS at all costs. Find any other vet.
Here are some documented news stories and lawsuits that have been filed that show up illustrating their terrible actions:
Long Island Veterinary Specialists Reviews
LIVS Catherine Loughin Dominic Marino Catherine Loughin, DVM Dominic Marino, DVM Compassionfirstpets.com Compassion-First Pet Hospitals Plainview New York Office of Professional Discipline Lied to Me.
They are excellent excellent excellent FRAUDSTERS.
They are the smoothest smoothest smoothest CRIMINALs.
They are the most charming charming and convinving Animal Abusers.
But they are terribble terrible terrible Vets.
Stay away from this fraud operation.
They advertise constantly and falsely sell themselves out to pet owners as a Long Island version of the Animal Medical Center in NY. This misrepresentation is a complete fraud and they have no affiliation with Animal Medical Center. Animal Medical Center (AMC) is an excellent not for profit specialty hospital helping pets and their owners. Long Island Vet Specialists (Livs) swindles people into their facility pretending they have an affiliation to AMC. Long Island Vet Specialists is a for profit center under numerous investigations and the defendents in multiple and frequent lawsuits for malpractice and swindles.
Two of their main doctors and owners Dominic Marino and Catherine Loughin swindled my wife and my elderly mother into thinking our dog needed a bunch of tests which she did not need. They claimed they had referals and relationships with AMC so we woud trust their "expertise." AMC subsequently told us there is no affiliation and AMC would NEVER send overflow patients to LIVS - ever! LIVS let untrained and unsupervised people work on our dog who had only a minor specialty issue - and they mortally wounded our dog. They then charged us for the tests that mortally wounded the dog.
Then they sold my wife and mother additional services to the tune of $7,000 to "fix" the damage LIVS caused. The repair services did not work. The dog suffered horribly. Then they tried to sell MORE "fix it" services - even offering my wife loan paperwork to fill out at 25% interest after they had maxed out her credit cards , all the time playing on her love for the dog and her fear and plying her with misinformation.
When my wife finally said we are getting our dog out of there, they tried every possible approach to disuade her. Dr. Loughin and Marino tried to sell her more "services" before we moved her, which we refused to buy. They kept claiming the next facility would want these services done at LIVS first - which was a total sales scam and completely false. We insisted we were taking her out of there.
When we refused to buy any more services and demanded they release our dog for transfer, they brought her out - in a carboard box - dead - and told us to leave.
We later learned that they pay their doctors a piece of every service and procedure they can sell. There are no ethics. This is called a revenue model. It helps the facility and employees get rich at the expense of the pets and their families and does not serve the best interest of the patients. Livs people are incentivised to just sell sell sell and if you harm a pet that allows you to sell subsequent "repairs" you get even more.
They were recently aquired by a sketchy chain called "Compassion-First" that seems to make a fortune pushing this same "revenue model" at multiple facilities they invest in and aquire.
I have seen all the news articles, and lawsuits, and affidavits and complaints by pet owners and doctors who had been inside the facility and worked there.
Evidently the owner sits on the licensing board and intercepts complaints. This is a criminal fraud. One thing is for certain - if you go there 90% of the time your pet will suffer and not get helped - you will be fleeced - and their lawyers will fight you tooth and nail on any complaint you file. I am told they make over $1million per week running these scams - they dont care about paying $100,000 in legal costs from time to time to keep the scam alive.
There are many better alternatives in Long Island - stay away from LIVS if you love your pet - stay away from Dominic Marino if you love your pet - stay away from Catherine Loughin if you love your pet. I wish my wife had researched them more carefully - but they really snowed her and my mother.
I recently saw some complaints about Long Island Vet Specialists (LIVS)and Doctors Marino and Loughin and their associates. My heart goes out to the families of these pets - you are not alone. LIVS has been running scams on consumers in Nassau County for over 15 years.
Their owner Dominic Marino is frequently sued but the animal protection laws in NY are weak and his lawyers are strong (he makes millions defrauding Nassau County locals). He has been sued hundreds of times in local small claims court but small claims cases are not public record.
The vet industry in NY is unregulated and the board that oversees vet care in NY is managed by Dominic Marino's co-owner at LIVS so the hundreds of filed complaints have never received a judicial hearing. They are all dismissed upon receipt. Complaints have even been filed by 9 former veterinarians from LIVS - all dismissed without a hearing. I tried to call the district attorney about what they did to my dear sweet baby but my calls were never returned.
This man Marino and his fraud are unstoppable. He is too well connected. He is tight with local politicos and cops. Marino flagrantly lies in his own biography on LIVS' website about his credentials and leaves out embarrasing parts of his academic history - such as the fact that his early college years were at a remedial junior college and he only moved to Auburn later.
Long Island Vet Specialists doctors are not paid based on the care they give your pet - they are paid based on a percentage of the revenue they sell you and bill you for, so they are notorious for pushing services and procedures that are not needed and completely inappropriate. Many peoples dogs and cats have been critically injured at LIVS. The care is horrible - they are however great salespeople - very smoothe and practiced and coached. Reputable vets say to stay away from LIVS - vets who refer patients to LIVS receive referal fees $$.
My dear sweet dalmation went there for simple no risk diagnostics and was SO INJURED BY LIVS that he was never the same and died. They gave him the wrong chemicals and too many chemicals and handled him atrociously. AVOID this place at ALL COSTS. Years ago they were the only 24 hour facility in the area but now there are many OTHER OPTIONS IN THE AREA.
Look at the horror stories on Yelp and Facebook and the Better Business Bureau but look deep - LIVS pays to have bad reviews pushed down. Go somewhere else if you love your pet.
My dear dog was only 5 and what they did to him is horrible beyond description. I have had nightmares for months. The doctors there are listed as highly specialized but dont be fooled - many are actually just "on staff consultants" who are only there for one day a month for an hour and the majority of the pets are seen by residents and the same two or three staff doctors who are equity partners.
I have startd to see more and more stories about them making it into the press to expose them. If your pet has been harmed at LIVS or your family financially ripped off by LIVS like so many others have been, you should complain to the district attorney and the attorney general. I do not know how they have been allowed to remain in business, but if you treasure your family pet then stay away from LIVS.
The saddest part is they seem to run nearly identical scams on people over and over again - same pitch - same injuries etc. My heart goes out to all the victims - Dominic Marino, Catherine Loughin, Brian McKena, Lexi Kanes, Mike Selmer - they should be in prison but are allowed to commit their crimes on Nassu County residents every day. I hope this report will save others from going to LIVS and seeing their dog suffer horribly and die as mine did.
By the way - beware when they offer you their free credit account to help you pay over time for all the services they will try to sell you (they charge you 22% interest). It comes after the high pressured sales pitch where they terrify you into thinking your pet needs all kinds of procedures they dont need and have all kinds of diseases that they dont actually have. Then they size you up to see if they can bilk your insurance company and how much additional money you can put on credit cards - then they offer you credit and convince and coerce you that you must do all this. A week later you are broke and your pet is dead but not until they have squeezed every last penny out of you and strung out your family pet until the coffers run dry.
Residents are bullied by the staff doctors into looking the other way. Those who report the crimes have been sued by Marino.
Marino did not get his millions by taking honest care of pets. He got it through scams and frauds against the public in Nassau County NY.
LIVS Dominic Marino Dominic J. Marino Kimberly Golden Heather Goodman Jonathan C. Goodwin Jaclyn Holdsworth Tomas Infernuso Kay Kim Nicole Leibman Fernando Leyva Catherine A. Loughin Dominic J. Marino Patrick Roynard Angels Prades-Sapienza John S. Sapienza Michael Selmer Joshua W. Tumulty Robert Waddell LIVS and Dominic Marino
AVOID THIS VET AT ALL COSTS. THEY EFFECTIVELY KILL PETS BY PRESCRIBING UNNECESSARY, HARMFUL PROCEDURES TO RUN UP BILLS. ITS ALL ABOUT THEIR BOTTOM LINE.
I have been a dog owner for decades and never seen such terrible behavior on the part of a vet.
My pet was less than ten years old, healthy and seemed to have a single isolated issue which is typically easily treated. Their vets were dismissive about my assessment and decided to go ahead with procedures that left my pet cripped and suffering. Naturally they billed me thousands of dollars in the process. Some of their people in front were courteous but the criminal behavior but after the fact I couldn't get a doctor on the phone without threatening to sue.
Since this happened I have requested copies of records and seen other victims problems with LIVS and Dominic Marino come up on the internet. Here is the sum total of their offenses:
LIVS under the leadership of Dominic Marino, Long Island Veterinary Specialists has:
-Crippled and effectively killed pets by prescribing and billing for unnecessary and harmful procedures in order to run up customer bills
-Said they could solve problems to sell services and run up bills that clearly would not help the pets in their care
-Been investigated for corruption while bidding for police contracts
-Lied about who performs surgeries; Marino claims that he does it himself and offloads the work to residents but bills as if he is doing the work himself
-Killed dogs to avoid having to show the results of botched minor surgeries to their owners
-Bullied employees and residents with personal and legal threats to avoid negative reviews online
-Fail to provide services such as overnight monitoring which people pay for regardless
-Routinely have techs and relatives perform anesthesia, MRI, CT, and surgeries when they claim licensed vets are doing the work
-Pulls and alters medical records in the face of investigations from the NYSED which is the licensing agency for veterinarians
-Pays other veterinarians on commissions (no wonder they seem to have an incentive to run up bills, they do)
-Uses mostly part time employees to avoid paying taxes and benefits
-Dominic Marino has been sued by multiple former partners and employees and seems to be in lawsuits based on LIVS' conduct with multiple parties
-Commonly prevents owners from seeing anything beyond the front area to keep people from seeing the squalid conditions of where their pets are being kept- they said pets would be kept in runs but they're really kept in tiny cages often in their own defecation
-Clearly paid off Yelp and other companies to manage their social media and try to post articles on wikipeida/etc to make it seem like they are conducting groundbreaking research (see the wikipedia history for the wikipedia user who started the Long Island Veterinary Specialists wikipedia page, they also made a bunch of articles glorifying LIVS and Marino which have virtually all been deleted or reduced Marino's name to random footnotes
This is sickening and emotionally draining to write out but people need to know why they need to avoid LIVS at all costs. Find any other vet.
Here are some documented news stories and lawsuits that have been filed that show up illustrating their terrible actions:
News stories-
https://nypost.com/2019/07/31/another-dog-dies-after-mri-at-long-island-vet-owner-claims/
http://longisland.news12.com/story/40886856/li-family-blames-plainview-vet-for-death-of-their-dog
https://newyork.cbslocal.com/2017/08/31/seaford-dog-death-lawsuit/
https://www.ibtimes.com/dog-euthanized-after-vet-conducted-unnecessary-procedures-maximize-profits-lawsuit-2805470
https://radiogunk.com/forums/index.php?threads/beths-go-to-vet-is-as-questionable-as-nsal.17903/
https://patch.com/new-york/westislip/couple-suing-west-islip-animal-hospital-following-dogs-death
Social media-
https://www.facebook.com/regretavetveterinarynegligence/posts/july-31st-2019-plainview-new-york-second-dog-dies-after-having-an-mri-at-long-is/2629357300421902/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Island_Veterinary_Specialists
Lawsuits-
https://meaww.com/dog-left-paralyzed-and-dies-because-of-expensive-unnecessary-mri-lawsuit-claims
https://law.justia.com/cases/new-york/appellate-term-second-department/2015/2015-ny-slip-op-50486-u.html
https://law.justia.com/cases/new-york/appellate-term-second-department/2014/2014-ny-slip-op-50611-u.html