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Pet health insurance?


RedRocket1647545505

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Does it exist? Does anybody have it?

 

My mom's sank over $2,000 in medical bills into her new puppy in the past 3 days, and I would guess that number will keep growing. We were discussing whether or not pet health insurance existed, and if it did, taking out a policy on both of her dogs.

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it is out there but it is not very popular. Most of the policies operate the way health insurance did, you pay the insurance company pays you back. I wish people insurance worked that way health cost would be much lower. Dont look for many vets to start taking assignment(the insurance company pays vet directly), they have seen what has happend in the human side of helth care.

 

Our office only gets a bout 45% reimbursment( $100 bills= $45 in my pocket)

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banfield (or something like that)...petsmart in hilliard at westpointe has it for sure...im sure petsmart at easton has it, or could point you to other spots for it. IIRC, its like 10$/mo and they pay medical bills or something...im not 100% sure, but call petsmart and ask about it

 

and whats the deal with this puppy she would drop 3gs in to it? im sorry, but unless it had been a part of the family for a while, no way would i have a new pet costing me over maybe 200$. just put it to sleep

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Does it exist? Does anybody have it?

 

My mom's sank over $2,000 in medical bills into her new puppy in the past 3 days, and I would guess that number will keep growing. We were discussing whether or not pet health insurance existed, and if it did, taking out a policy on both of her dogs.

 

I know that it exists.......but it makes me wonder.

 

9 times out of 10 the insurance company is going to come out on top. That's the bottom line.......and if it's not, then that insurance company won't be in business very long.

 

Insurance typically covers something that has a low risk of occuring, but can have an expensive price tag. I also would be personally interested to know about the laws regarding "pet insurance"........can companies discriminate? do claims make the premiums go up? or do they stay level?

 

From my point of view it's like playing the lottery, just the bad lottery.....and you have a 1 in 10 chance of at least breaking even.

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and whats the deal with this puppy she would drop 3gs in to it? im sorry, but unless it had been a part of the family for a while, no way would i have a new pet costing me over maybe 200$. just put it to sleep

 

Well, it's 21 weeks old. The first week she brought this 1lb. dog home, I said, ''That dog ain't right." It walked crooked as shit, and it's ass-end would pop up in the air about every 4-5 steps. Well, a week after that, she took it to the vet and found out that, yeah, it does have some serious alignment issues. This upset her (mom). Well, we told her that maybe it wouldn't effect her, and would mostly just give her character...and it did. She's the funniest damn thing I've ever seen. She trys so hard to do normal dog things, and does quite well at it. She's just clumsy as shit when doing them.

 

Fast forward to a couple weeks ago. We noticed that there was some (what looked like blood) in her shit. This upset my mom again, as by this point, she's gotten quite attached to the little thing. Her dogs are basically her replacements for us (her grown children). Again, I said, lets give it a couple days and see if it gets better. Maybe she's got some ulcers or something that are bleeding. We'll change her diet just to be sure she isn't allergic to anything. A few days go by and the bleeding goes away. All is good.

 

Fast forward to last week. She started to eat less and less. She ususally goes crazy when you give her food. She normally out-eats the over-weight 12lb. Chihuahua (the little one weighs ~2lb.) We thought maybe she's growing out of her crazy eating habits. Well, Saturday night she wouldn't eat anything at all. This worried my mom. Sunday, same thing. She walked away from her food and went back to her bed and layed down, which was really unusual for her (she's quite spunky). Mid-Sunday, she became quite dull and lithargic (sp?). No vets were open, so they took her to the animal ICU in Worthington.

 

They immediately took her back to start scoping her out. At first they thought she had something lodged in her throat. Throat and airways were swelling shut, and she was having trouble breathing. They stuck her in an incubater (sp?) with pure oxygen to help her get some air. They then thought that maybe she had been bit by a spider or stung by something and was having a reaction to it. They later canned that idea. Basically they were up in arms about what the hell was going on with this dog. Well, as of about 30 min ago, they called to get another $1,300, and to get authorization to put a feeding tube in her, since she hasn't had anything but an I.V supplement for the past 3 days. They are now at the thought that maybe she has some type of stomach conditon that is causing an excess build up of acid and could be causing her airways and throat to swell up, as well as some stomach ulcers, which could have caused the bloody shits she was having a couple weeks ago. (Damn I should have been a doctor).

 

At this point, they're going to scope her throat while she's knocked out for the feeding tube, and take some biopsies (sp?) to make sure she doesn't have any type of cancer that's causing this. They're leaning towards some type of stomach condition that could be fixed with medication. So, hopefully this is the problem, since it does seem to be fixable.

 

 

Damn that was a story and a half. /rant

 

BTW, thanks for the info guys. I'll pass this along.

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even if you get insurance now she (the dog) will not be covered under pre-existing conditions.

 

Unfortunately I would say if after this round they are still not sure of the problems you may want to say your goodbyes and cut your loses. :(

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2lbs at 21 weeks = rat dog. Chris posted the correct picture!

 

But doggie insurance...hmm. Dexter is 16 now, and about do for his yearly checkup (though this one shouldn't require any major shots, and he isn't having any issues). Might have to look into this.

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