Does anyone think vets are 'running up' insurance claim bills?

minmax

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As title, just wondered if you think the question 'is it insured' should affect the amount charged. Would the bill/treatment be considerably different without insurance. Bearing in mind most of us would treat the horse anyway...
 

galaxy

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If I thought my vet was doing that I wouldn't use them!

Sure I didnt think twice about getting more blood tests etc done when I was getting desperate for my boy because the insurance was paying, but had no pressure from my vet
 

JessandCharlie

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I think some do, although I don't have any experience of this directly.

That said I have had vets tell me to wash bandages and reuse them to keep a bill down for an uninsured horse in the past, had it have been insured they would have given me stacks to use a new one every time.
 

cptrayes

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Yes and no. You can negotiate the bill down if you are not insured, and you can't if you are (or you wouldn't bother if you could, since it's not your money) , so a qualified yes.

Are they doing all sorts of diagnostics and treatments which are not strictly necessary because the owner doesn't have to pay? For sure. A recent example is a horse in a thread on HHO recently, finishing full of running when it events but it's making a slight noise. The vet is going to scope it. If it was uninsured no-one would even think of doing a £150 scoping on a horse which is galloping fit and eventing with no issues except a little whistle. They would be told to continue to compete until the horse seemed to lose some performance.

But having scoped it, the horse will have to be tied back, because laryngeal hemiplegia can be progressive, and if it gets worse in future then it will be uninsured once it's been scoped and the insurance renewal date passes. The vet must know that, surely, so is he scoping it in the expectation of then getting £2,500 fees for a tieback?

The treatment would also be, from my experience, very different. I had a horse with spavins and the vet suggested xraying them. I asked him how the treatment that we might give a mildly lame horse would change depending on what we saw on the xrays, and he replied "it wouldn't". So no xrays.

I currently have a horse who was kicked so badly we thought for a day that his leg was cracked. He was sound within the week, but not surprisingly he has a filthy great lump on his leg over his knee. I know that my vet would just love to scan it and xray it, at a cost of around £300, to which my answer is - he's sound, what would we gain? I could find he has a bone chip but I'm not having a sound horse operated on to remove it, so what's the point in scaring myself by knowing he has a bone chip*? A scan will tell us that he has severe damage to the tendon running down the front of the top of his leg. Thanks, I can SEE that, he's got a huge lump!

A physio has confirmed that I am not imagining that he is perfectly sound, he is a tiny bit less lumpy every day, so no scans. But of course if he was insured I'd scan it and xray it, since it's already been treated and would cost me nothing.

And that's why insurance is now so extortionate that it doesn't make economic sense to insure three and mine are uninsured.







* for the veterinary minded among you, yes I know that a sequestrum can turn septic and cause osteomyelitis. But he has a 1 in 100 chance of being killed by a general anaesthetic if they were to remove it, so I'll take the smaller risk of osteomyelitis instead.
 

Maesfen

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I think some do, although I don't have any experience of this directly.

That said I have had vets tell me to wash bandages and reuse them to keep a bill down for an uninsured horse in the past, had it have been insured they would have given me stacks to use a new one every time.

Ditto this. Now I always say 'it's not insured' almost before they step out of the car; it does make a difference in some of the drugs and procedures they will use too I have found. If you're not insured they're more likely to use less well known or older types of drugs which do the job just as well at a fraction of the cost because at the end of the day, they want the horse better but they also would like some chance of you paying your bill which could be unlikely given how expensive some new drugs are.
 

Honey08

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I strongly agree with cptrayes.

I also think that they react to the type of owner too - ours, for us "old fashioned" types who aren't insured for vets fees, but are able to stand real emergencies, they take slower "rest it and see" routes. For one of our liveries, who was a "Oh my god its dying do something now!!!" type they would send it straight off for scans and physio. The horse had over £10k of work done when it was worth £2k, but the owner was happy.

I think that vets are probably more catious and cover their backs more today - which contributes to it too.
 

TarrSteps

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I can't say for here, but I know in Canada, where comprehensive veterinary insurance barely exists in the same way, there is definitely a more conservative culture, at least as far as tests and procedures are concerned. I'd say, on average, it's also more common to use medication/shoeing/rest vs surgery or other invasive treatment than it seems to be here.

Of course the more cutting edge/invasive options are there, and there are big residential vet facilities (often universities) if the owner wants to go that route, but it doesn't seem as standard to do a "full work-up" for relatively minor reasons. I was a bit amazed at the investigative enthusiasm and willingness to go straight to quite high end procedures when I moved, not to mention the sorts of horses submitted for them. (Not trying to insult anyone, just saying if people have to pay out of their own pockets they seem more likely to weigh various factors, such as the potential value of the horse, when making care and treatment decisions.)

Also, the culture and even the laws regarding animal treatment are different, so there's not as much pressure to proceed aggressively or go straight to high tech diagnostics and treatments. I find vets here seem to feel that they might be in more trouble for NOT finding something (anything ;) ) wrong than racking up a huge bill, so they keep looking until something shows up. In that way, yes, it would seem there's pressure to spend as much as possible, as it were.

It's also potentially harder for practices to collect fees if people run them up privately rather than through insurance, which probably makes vets a bit more cautious. These days they often require proof of ability to pay before starting down a particularly expensive route. :(
 

Herpesas

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In a word, yes!

A vet I've used asked if I was insured before they would say how they wanted to treat my horse. When I said I'd rather not claim they said rest and see, otherwise it was bone scans, MRI scans, nerve blocks, the full works. They'd already said they was 99% sure it was muscular, identified the area and that doing all those scans probably wouldn't provide any further information. Apparently it was just so we could be 100% sure, to which I told them I wasn't prepared to line their pockets by approx £2k to be 1% more sure than they were already!

Haven't used that particular vet since.
 

loopylucifer

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think would say being insured does make a difference on how things get approched but they would not run a bill up especially (maybe this depends on the vet?). I know with mine having had quite a bit of stuff done recently at first we did not know if it was related to a previous issue so we could not go down bone scan route as insurance would not have paid for it if it was so went for x rays and ultra sound. a bone scan would have been in the region of 1100 but we spent 700 on scans/xrays as it turned out it was unrelated so insurance will pay. if you are insured you might go the extra mile if you like, like scans every 6-8wks for a tendon injury to monitor progress instead of waiting 12 at least that way you can pick up problems. having delt with both insured and uninsured horses would say its how you approch the problem: insured throw everything at it uninsured be conservitive and hope its cheeper but its not always.
 

teddyt

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One of our local vets totally take the p!$$ if the horse is insured. Its always their first question! For example, my friends horse is going this week for a full body investigation because he was lame a couple of weeks ago. The horse is now sound but the vets want to x ray, scan, etc! It keeps them in business and the owners often dont mind because they arent exactly paying for it.

But then the insurance put on exclusions and up the premiums so you pay in the end.
 

Brandy

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My vets know my old horse isn;t insured and are quite good about not suggesting ridiculously expensive treatments. i think they do go all out sometimes when they could be a bit more sensible about testing and treatments.

Also, a friends vet does free visits to our area on a wednesday, but they are still charging her for the (regular) visits as its 'on the insurance' surely that doesn;t make sense? She will so get to her upper limit with every visit being charged.
 

Allover

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It is always the first question vets ask when they see a lame horse, they see pound signs. I recently heard of a farrier charging 240pounds for a pair of front shoes after finding out that it was going on insurance, just because it was having silicon and pads, no wonder peoples premiums are going up and renewals are being refused!
 

minmax

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Our local vets are getting a name for running up insurance claims. As they have recently built swanky new premesis and a new house everyone feels they are paying for these new builds! Wonder what will happen if people stop using them? I am moving vets now, they have run up to the limit 3 claims now, no more!
 
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