Totally incompetent vets - what to do!?

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Patterdale

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Am FUMING.

Trying to claim for treatment on one of my horses. Claim not being processed because of 'incorrect information from vets' when insurance has asked for medical history.
After much digging have found out that my vets have put ALL treatments for ALL my horses under just one horse's name. This is apparently their policy. God knows how they ever sort claims out.

So now the insurance don't know what to believe and I don't blame them.

Idiots.
 
Can you sit with the practice manager, with your bills for the relevant horse, to extract the case history?
 
This is not on .
Have you paid for the treatment yourself or are the insurance company paying the vet directly ?
If it's the first speak to the practise manager at once and demand they sort it or your off taking your business with you .
If the insurance company is paying them simply email them explain the issue and let them sort it.
This is not normal .
I always get bills itemised to each animal .
 
I too would be fuming. I would go into the practice and refuse to leave until someone went through it all and sorted it out.
 
amymay said:
Can you sit with the practice manager, with your bills for the relevant horse, to extract the case history?
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I've suggested this but the insurance are being funny about it because to be fair I could just pick and choose anything! This one hasn't had any treatment apart from that pertaining to the claim, the other one at home has never had anything either, and the other 2 are now dead but it's just a huge mess. I can't believe that this is actually their policy!
 
Oh NO! I wonder if they will be able to sort it out via a day book, or modern tech equivalent.

On a smaller scale I insured Jay on his value, which was quite high, and my insurers needed a declaration each year from my vets about his health, as well as a long questionnaire from me.

One year the insurance company were a bit funny about my other horse "Tizzy Busy Wizzy Giggy" or some such silly name, as it had apparently had an arthroscopy and I had not declared it on my records of any previous vet treatments for any horses owned by me.

I only have one horse, Jay, and quite frankly don't know what exactly an arthroscopy is, other than Tizzy, Raged, Mad Wizzy had apparently had one on her knee.

I called my vets and they insisted that the vet had seen Tizzy, Giddy, wizzy Whatever, and it was my horse. What????

I asked them to provide what method of payment I had used, as I knew jolly well that I only have Jay boy, and he has not been seen.

I thought we had sorted it all out, when a few weeks later I had a Vaccination reminder.

Dear Ruth, May we remind you that the annual vaccination is now due on your horse "Not Her Horse". It is important to vaccinate "Not Her Horse" before 7 June to provide full protection.

I phoned again, as this would still present problems, and they said they would look into it again.

This year I reduced Jay's insured value substantially (he has not been out and about due to my hip injury) so I will probably not find out if my new ghost acquisition "Not Her Horse" would be a bar to future insurance as they no longer need an annual vets report.

One good thing, their paperwork is so rubbish I don't think they sent me an invoice for our last vaccinations. I rang up twice a few months later as I did not remember receiving one, and they said they would look into it........

Maybe the real owner of Tizzy giddy has paid it?????
 
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One of the worst things is that this is for a sarcoid on his sheath which will require ongoing treatment. I'm only insured a year from the first treatment and this has so far dragged on for nearly 5 months so my window for paid for treatment is getting smaller and smaller, due to no fault of my own!

If the insurance decide not to pay out because of this, I'M certainly not paying!
 
If you have not paid you are in better shape .
Just make them sort it .
My monthly bills are all itemised by animal so technically I could sort this manually myself assuming of course I could find the bills !
Hope it's sorted .
 
I am quite hoping for another free vaccination this year too :D

On the downside on that visit the vet was not asked by the practice to bring his chip scanner, which I had requested as I like to check it each year, and he took a dropping sample for a worm count, but that never happened either.

But, for free vaccinations I will use a postal worm count company, and fingers crossed for the chip. :p

In all seriousness, for your vets I would go in, and as others have said I would refuse to leave until it is sorted out. Presumably each vet will have a record of what they attended on each day? Even if it is in a diary? I am afraid that if it were impacting on my horse's treatment there would be tears and everything.

If the other cases of your horses do not involve Sarcoids would this affect this one? Maybe the insurance company could give you a "Worst Case Scenario" for if all ailments were counted on this horse?
 
Sent a mare to stud and ended up with the wash out bill for a post foaling trauma my mare was a maiden so had never had a wash out. It was soon sorted as their were two mares with the same stable name so it was easy fixed
Worst incompetent vets were when I was told my lame mare had a splint in the knee joint so they were coming later to shoot her as it was incurable I loaded her into the lorry for a second opinion at the local equine hospital to discover she had a badly balanced foot and it isn't possible to get a splint in the knee. I did know that but I am so pleased I didn't go with the first vet She is approaching 20 and has been sound for many years now
 
What a mental policy. If I didn't already appreciate my own vets to the utmost, I would after reading that nonsense.
 
Not only is that a completely ridiculous way in which to do the invoicing it is downright negligent and would probably interest the department of Ag as to how on earth they manage their drug traceability. I would point out to the vets that you pay insurance for a reason and if they want payment then sort it out. We always keep a record in the diary as to what horse has what and get the vet to sign the page at the end of each visit to ensure that we have a solid record in the case if an invoicing error.
 
How on earth do they reference the history of each horse's past treatment. I can just imagine them looking for last years xray's for comparison and saying, 'well, it's a horse's leg, ok, so it may not be Dobin's leg, but it's one of yours.'
Scary thought.
 
We've got 3, and they're all kept under their own names on vet records, never anything different. However, there are two people with my mum's name using our vet practice...that made for some interesting invoices until we worked out what was going on and invented mum a pseudonym to keep it separate!
 
dogatemysalad said:
How on earth do they reference the history of each horse's past treatment. I can just imagine them looking for last years xray's for comparison and saying, 'well, it's a horse's leg, ok, so it may not be Dobin's leg, but it's one of yours.'
Scary thought.
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Well yes, this is pretty much it I think. They are completely useless in all ways with horses but due to geography I'm stuck with them.

Last time I had a claim for a different horse they sent the insurance company all the bills for my dogs mixed in with the horse stuff. I had them ring me up and say that they would not be paying for worming tablets and microchips, clearly thinking I was trying to pull a fast one. It's just dire.
 
Goldenstar said:
This is not on .
Have you paid for the treatment yourself or are the insurance company paying the vet directly ?
If it's the first speak to the practise manager at once and demand they sort it or your off taking your business with you .
If the insurance company is paying them simply email them explain the issue and let them sort it.
This is not normal .
I always get bills itemised to each animal .
Click to expand...
I would not even consider using them again.
Demand the case record for your horse.
 
Wow, all my bills had my horse's name as part of the computer reference and always showed her name on too. SHe did cause a bit of computer confusion as it was a mixed practice and she was on the equine database but using a small animal drug and the computer, he no like!
 
How ridiculous of your practice - Ive never heard of anything so stupid! Id certainly remove my business from them once I had got this sorted

Okay, from experience from working with the largest Pet Insurance company i Would either:

Get vets to write a letter explaining what has gone on, split what conditions each horse has had and gets vets to split treatment to each and submit to insurance company to then sort their records (and include the whole veterinary history)

or

Get vets to write a letter explaining all, you split each condition per horse and submit all records to insurance company to then sort treatment per condition themselves


This isnt the first time this sort of thing has happened, usually not because the vets just lump all animals treatment together, but because sometimes just error. I spent many a time untangling a veterinary history and if its one of the major insurance companies, they have veterinary trained staff who can sort it all out - although it can take a little time :)
 
It'a appallingly bad practice, and not just because of the insurance angle. Each animal needs its own separate veterinary history which the vets can refer back to at any time, when they are treating it.

It'd be like turning up for an appointment with your GP, and them having all your family's ailments lumped in together, with no record of who has what condition.

It's mind bogglingly incompetent. OP, is there really no other more clued up practice around that you could switch to?
 
Tiddlypom said:
It'a appallingly bad practice, and not just because of the insurance angle. Each animal needs its own separate veterinary history which the vets can refer back to at any time, when they are treating it.

It'd be like turning up for an appointment with your GP, and them having all your family's ailments lumped in together, with no record of who has what condition.

It's mind bogglingly incompetent. OP, is there really no other more clued up practice around that you could switch to?
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This! 100%. What an absolute mess.

Would definitely not be paying them. Tell them to sort it out with the insurance company themselves.
 
Not sure why they would do that and I would say it's a flaw in their admin system. I would site down with office manager and go through everything and then insist they keep a record of each horse separately.
Good luck
 
That is a nightmare! My vets OCCASIONALLY muck up a billing thing but it's usually a silly cock-up - I once got a bill for treating a wolf's broken leg! I get a separate invoice for each horse treated - occasionally - if it's one of the junior vets - they forget to write down the horse's name so I once got a bill for vaccinating Jaws (the horse was a biter!)

The BEST one I recall was when I was working in racing - answered the phone to an owner who said: "We have a bill from the vet for the horse Gone Beserk - we don't have a horse called Gone Beserk! I was able to explain that was the vet's diagnosis - and who the horse actually was (an unnamed filly). Explaining WHY she went beserk was a bit harder, lol!

I would INSIST the vets sort this out with your insurance company - and if it's too hard for them - look for a new vet!
 
JanetGeorge said:
I would INSIST the vets sort this out with your insurance company - and if it's too hard for them - look for a new vet!
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I know *sigh* trouble is that the longer this takes, the more my year of (potentially v expensive) treatment is fading away. If I leave it up to them I doubt they'll do much.

As for changing vets - I wish! There is literally no other practice for 1hr 20 mins and they won't come to us :(

I really need to know whether the insurance will pay as it will affect how he's treated. If they'll pay I'll carry on with the Liverpool cream/poss lasering etc, but if they won't it's getting a band on it. Sounds tight I know but this is why I have insurance - I don't have endless £££££ to throw after treating complex ailments!

2 visits, sedation, removal by blunt dissection (ie being yanked off with bare hand), lab tests to see what type of sarcoid, and one Liverpool cream treatment has so far come to £450.
This was about 4/5 months ago and it's since grown back, slower but to the same size and is more ugly looking. I think a band would work well but the flies on his sheath would be awful.
 
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Patterdale said:
I know *sigh* trouble is that the longer this takes, the more my year of (potentially v expensive) treatment is fading away. If I leave it up to them I doubt they'll do much.

As for changing vets - I wish! There is literally no other practice for 1hr 20 mins and they won't come to us :(

I really need to know whether the insurance will pay as it will affect how he's treated. If they'll pay I'll carry on with the Liverpool cream/poss lasering etc, but if they won't it's getting a band on it. Sounds tight I know but this is why I have insurance - I don't have endless £££££ to throw after treating complex ailments!

2 visits, sedation, removal by blunt dissection (ie being yanked off with bare hand), lab tests to see what type of sarcoid, and one Liverpool cream treatment has so far come to £450.
This was about 4/5 months ago and it's since grown back, slower but to the same size and is more ugly looking. I think a band would work well but the flies on his sheath would be awful.
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Sorry if you've already said this but I'm guessing you've already paid them?

Other than marching in and refusing to leave the office until they sort it out I'm not really sure what to suggest! Can you not make a complaint to BEVA or RVC possibly? How frustrating for you :(

You'd be surprised how bad some vets accounts are, although I've never come across any that just lump everything together without putting the relevant horse name next to each item!

I used to work in small animal claims and there was one firm that still had hand written receipts! They would submit them, the vets writing was awful and I couldn't make it out. I'd ask the receptionist and they'd send me a "translation" that more often than not didn't tie up and usually had extra/missing items!
 
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