RE: [RC] health insurance for vet care - Susan E. Garlinghouse, DVM
Our clinic accepts most of the pet insurance---or at least, we
provide the care, fill out the forms for you, you pay for the services provided
and are reimbursed by your insurance company. On some catastrophic
things, requiring major surgery and the like, we often will just verify
coverage and then eventually get paid directly by the insurance carrier.
VPI has been pretty good from our end, and we haven’t
heard any negative feedback from our owners about it. ASPCA has a
relatively new pet insurance program that seems very good and has multiple
levels of coverage---the most basic only covers major traumas and diseases,
while the most comprehensive policies also includes routine work, including
dentals and such.
I do NOT recommend CareCredit---it’s basically a secured
line of credit that you can use for veterinary services, but only if the vet
clinic has an account with them. Not every vet will accept it (I don’t),
because the company charges an arm and a leg to even set up an account, and
then takes a big chunk of the invoice, which drives my costs up considerably.
It’s much cheaper for the owner (and the vet) to just use standard credit
card accounts.
I haven’t a clue if VPI or ASPCA will cover horses,
though. They do cover dogs and cats up into their teen years, which is
good.
Susan Garlinghouse, DVM
After
just signing away my life savings for routine annual check-ups for the cat, dog
and horse, I wondered if doing the pet health insurance I've seen advertised
might be the way to go. Was curious if anyone out there in ridecamp has
used this for their horses? Pros? Cons?
What
about you vets? Are there a lot of restrictions about what's
covered? Do all vets accept the plans? Or depends on the
veterinarian and company, like people's HMO's?
Any
recommendations from anyone for a good company to use (if the health insurance
is a good idea)?
