This morning, my awesome tech told me her lab injured his eye while they were on a hike. She brought him over and I lifted his lid, expecting signs of a corneal scratch, maybe a bit of plant material.
“Something’s wrong,” I said, looking more closely with the ophthalmoscope. We both took a sharp inhalation at the same moment as we realized that there was a cactus thorn going straight into his eye, poor guy.
We sedated him for a better look, hopeful that the little tiny bit still protruding would allow me to get a grasp and pull it out. Miraculously, I got a hold of the end of the offending particle and oh so very gently, applied a bit of traction.
Nothing.
I tried again, one more time. No dice. It’s become clear at this point that despite my hopes, the thorn has actually penetrated more deeply that I suspected and is stuck in there pretty darn firmly. That’s no good.
People often lament the passing of the good old days, when a kindly bespectacled old vet with a beard would rumble over in his old pickup on the way back from a dystocia and take care of the ailments for $50 and a carton of eggs. I suppose I could have just yanked, hoping I didn’t rip too much of the iris on the way out and figuring I’d worry about the damage later. Maybe I’d break off the part that stuck out and hope the body would just take care of things. Those were the good old days. The other option might be to remove the eye entirely. Ah, good times.
Fortunately for us, and for this pup, we have the good new days, where it’s a 15 minute drive to the veterinary ophthalmologist, who has much better tools and expertise than I. She has toys I can only dream of, big headlamps and operating microscopes and teeny, tiny scissors. She can determine the extent of damage to the lens, gently dissecting the foreign body away with her miniscule instruments. She can inject substances to break up the clots and retain vision and do all sorts of things that don’t involve removing the eye or the old “learn as you go” method.
This expertise, or course, comes at a price.
That’s the rub, isn’t it? Veterinary medicine is so much more advanced than it used to be, with specialists and ultrasounds and MRIs and gonioscopy. The price of care has increased accordingly. The standard of care has increased accordingly as well, the expectation of what even your most rudimentary clinic is supposed to offer and do. Woe be the vet who fails to offer every option out there.
My tech, an experienced and smart woman, had long ago purchased an insurance policy for her dog, which is the reason she was able to go over to the specialist and accrue the large bill that accompanied this delicate surgery. If she hadn’t, it would have been a long morning for all of us.
There’s no going back to the old days, and thank goodness for that. The increasing cost of care is a direct reflection of the demand for advanced care we now possess. The gap between what we can afford and what we want to afford grows more every day, and without a bridge, pets pay the price. If you don’t have a plan to address unexpected expenses, there’s no time like the present to make one. (“Taking him home to shoot him”, as I’ve heard twice in the last year, does not count as a plan.)
Every day I grow more fond of pet insurance. It really is a handy thing to have. What’s your emergency plan?
I was burned really badly by vet insurance years ago. I inquired about using it and before I could even make a claim they said “that claim will be denied so don’t even bother filing it.” When I made a complaint, they said “Well she didn’t even file a claim so how can we respond?” Um…? I had spent over $150 per month for two years for pet insurance and thought to myself “I could have saved that up and paid for the surgery myself.” Maybe it is better now but I was $3600 in the hole for insurance and then another $3000 in the hole for Piper’s surgeries.
Right now we pay everything out of our savings. Yeah, it kind of hurt when we paid NC State and saw a big chunk go ba-bye but at least I knew it was paid for and I didn’t have to fight with anyone/depend on anyone to determine whether a procedure could be done or not. It was just done because it had to be. I may revisit the insurance thing but last time I looked everyone is now too old to start coverage (between 8-10 years).
Oh wow Kim, that sucks big time. I havent run into that yet with the pet insurance . I have had that run around with human health insurance. Seems like no matter which policy you get, the insurance company always has an out clause hidden somplace in the print and the onus is always on the individual to chase the perverbial paper trail and figure it all out . You make a good point , My pups are young now but I do worry as old age catches up with them, how the policies will work then and is the best strategy to save for that rainy day. Wow.
Oh My , I am glad that result was a positive one for your techs pup.
My 3 babies are on a prevention wellness plan at the the vet , which takes care of a lot of things that , individually , would otherwise be expensive .I have been quite happy with the program. They get regular comprehensive checkups at reasonable intervals and includes shots and and a very reasonable price. I feel I am getting the best bang for my buck. For me , and the pups , Its money well spent. I do have insurance for them through my policy which is also quite reasonable. While prvention is always the best policy , ” stuff happens ” no matter how major or minor.
We have pet insurance for our two kittens, and it’s already paid for itself through them getting neutered. The surgeries for both of them totalled almost $500, but we only had to pay $88 of that out of pocket.
We just had an experience with this. My kitty had to have her abcyssed anal gland fixed and then passed away a month later. The bill 350$ for the anal gland and 200$ for the euthinasia and cremation. Now my Bella had to go to the vet yesterday for what we thought was an obstruction. She had stopped eating and had thrown up everything within the last 24 hours. The x-rays were no help so we decided to put her on an iv and give her a sedative to relax her. That night she passed a pair of my underpants. No surgery luckily but the bill is still over 300$.
I’m sure you see some people that are not even willing to pay for vaccinations and others that will do anything. We are in the middle. We don’t want to do anything unnecissary that we might not have the money for but the vet had our approval to do whatever was necissary if for some reason she took a turn for the worse. I saw the relief on his face when I said that.
We are grateful for all that our vets do, most of the time when I ask the cost of something it is only to know what the bill will be or to make a decision on what to do. You never know, there are some vets who take advantage of their customers. I trust my vet so most of the things he tells me I follow. Anyway this is long now. Thank you for all that you do to help us owners, it is not easy to make the decision when your pet is sick.
Karen
I like the idea of pet insurance. Unfortunately, we don’t even have human health insurance right now. I’m self-employed, and my husband is unemployed… It’s tough! Thankfully, our cats are healthy (knock wood) and our vet bills have been relatively small so far.
I don’t like having to base medical decisions (human or pet) on money, but I do right now. Even for myself, I have to take the minimalist approach.
I live in CA and we have insurance for our dog at Pet Smart store. It costs $35/month. Chipper gets free microchip, one free teeth cleaning/year, comprehensive checkup twice a year and discount cost for anything beyond coverage (knock on wood, we haven’t had anything serious that would cost more than couple hundreds). We started the insurance since he was 6-week old and are happy with the service.
I’d love to know, for those of you who have had good experiences with your Pet Insurance, who do you use? I have VPI, and so far I feel like I haven’t gotten my money’s worth at ALL.
I’m open to switching, but to who? Please let me know why you all use! And I’d love to know who your Tech uses too, Dr. V! 🙂
This is the company we used to use. The other thing we despised about them was their payments were incredibly low. Even if we got the surgeries covered, they would have covered about half of the cost. Unlike human insurance (unless I’m mistsaken), vets aren’t obligated to the take the insurance’s rate. Vet prices are really high in my area as well (I’d say about 25% more than when I lived in CT).
There’s definitely some major differences between vet and human insurance. In human medicine, when doctors agree to accept an insurance they are agreeing to the negotiated rates and are paid directly. I haven’t found a vet insurance yet that works that way- you still have to pay everything out of pocket, and are reimbursed (to varying degrees.)
It’s a new world out there. New companies popping up every day- and who knows if they are good or bad?
I went with PetPlan for my two dogs after doing a ton of research. http://www.petinsurancereview.com/ was very helpful when I was trying to make my decision which company to go with.
Luckily, I haven’t had to make a claim yet.
I too would like to know if there are a few choices out there on pet insurance and how people have liked them? Dr. V- could this be a potential post topic?
We got pet insurance for Darwin our great dane because she seemed to get sick/scraped up often. As soon as we got it, she stopped getting sick and hurt. OI.
But we like the company we chose, Trupanion.
ugh, if you’re gonna get it, make sure you don’t have pre-existing conditions! My pup Sue is a bluenose pitbull, who as a breed are really susceptible to skin allergies & food allergies. He’d already been to the vet a few times due to the food allergy and trying to get that under control. We thought about getting pet insurance, but we didn’t actually do it until he had to go to the ER TWICE in a month for ingesting foreign objects (the walls of his dog house and his bed). We got Trupanion, which came highly recommended from the techs at our local vet office. I pay $40 a month for 90% reimbursement, a $0 deductible, and hip-dysplasia coverage just for fun.
Two weeks ago Sue had to go to the vet for a skin allergy, anal gland expression, & ear infection due to some sort of external allergy. Guess what. Trupanion won’t cover his claim because it was a pre-existing condition. And the kicker, it’s “highly unlikely (we’ll) cover ingestion of a foreign object as it’s a pre-existing condition.” WTF!!! That’s WHY I got the insurance in the first place!!! So, now I’m SOL and paying for pet insurance that won’t cover me for anything. But with Sue’s luck, the day after I cancel the policy, he’ll get HBC/cancer/deathly ill. So, I guess I”m stuck with keeping it and paying for something that I’ll never get anything out of…. Grrr
WHAT?? That doesn’t make sense at all! Ingestion of a FB= pre-existing condition? That’s ridiculous.
I know!!! Now I don’t know what to do. Do I keep the insurance and pay out $40 a month for nothing, or cancel it, in the likelihood that Sue’ll do something to injure himself? Or is there another insurance company that I can switch to? I just don’t know… The problem is when they get his full medical records, and all the food/skin allergy stuff and ER visits show up. Any suggestions? I’m seriously ready to tear my hair out….
After having to take my male cat to the vets twice for emergencies (he has UTI problems) I’ve been considering getting pet insurance. I know that his UTI issues will probably not be covered because it is considered a pre-existing condition, but I would be nice to have all of my fur babies covered in case of emergencies. I have a feeling I’m going to be going with PetPlan.
I would love pet insurance for my cats however, it is difficult to get insurace for rescued cats as you dont know what they may have had before you brought them home. As we have two cats which we dont know the medical history AND they are older then 2 years it would be over 200 dollars a month. I would LOVE nothing more then to get it as our little Mini has had many respatory and sinus infections for some reason, however we just cant afford the 200 commitment. We also pay for vet care out of our savings. Its not ideal but they are always taken care of. I would perfer to go into debt and sell everything in my home then ever see my babies suffer.
I had PetPlan for Puzzle before he set foot in our home. I was terrified I’d accidentally bring parvo home some day.
I’d definitely recommend insurance with a similar setup to PetPlan over the setup of VPI. Neither one pays out directly – it’s a reimbursement scheme either way, so be sure you have a credit card with a high limit! But VPI reimburses based on a schedule of “reasonable fees” and I have never ever seen a vet with fees that VPI defines as reasonable – people wind up being reimbursed for ~50% or less of the actual bill. PetPlan does not have set payouts for specific diagnoses – there is an annual limit on payouts, and a per-incident deductible/co-pay. I’ve not had to use my insurance yet, so I’ve no idea if actually collecting will work as smoothly as they claim, but I DO know the system espoused by VPI and several other companies does not work for most people.
How’s did the lab do?
I have insurance, which basically reimburses itself for the yearly stuff and the extra cancer waivers too.
I have no complaints with my pet insurance company thus far. I made sure to research it a lot since it seems relatively new in the US still. I signed my dog up with Trupanion pet insurance and they’ve been really helpful and great. What I like about them is that they cover 90% of our vet bills, cover hereditary and congenital disorders, and their premiums don’t increase with pets age. worth checking them out. http://www.trupanionpetinsurance.com
As you know, we’ve had quite the couple of years for pet expenses at casacaudill. Because we have been fairly lucky in life, we can afford everything that has come our way, but we frequently hope we don’t have to spend any more. Last week The Huzbin asked me how much I’d be willing to continue spending on Dakota’s extra special care and the answer was “whatever it takes” and I truly mean it. I can always postpone a vacation or a new trinket for the house, but I won’t ever postpone necessary and important care because I don’t want to spend the money. Perhaps I’m a crazy cat lady, but when I adopted these buddies, I vowed to take care of them as well as other people take care of their kids (and I not so secretly think I’ve done a better job of it than some parents).
I guess for me, the biggest hang up is that well… the ‘benefits’ outside of emergency coverage don’t do much for me. My obedience dog is already spayed, and my show dog is staying intact for at least the next few years. Pyo-related emergency spays aren’t covered, and mammery tumors wouldn’t be either, if we ever needed that. Titers weren’t and I do really minimal vaccinations. If I could come up with a plan that was ONLY for emergencies with a deductable of about $1200 that was reaosnable, I mgiht well take advantage of it- but I just don’t have enough emergencies that would ever need it- and the most likely emergencies to happen are things that I don’t think they’ll cover, like sports injuries or pyo.