Ulcers and Petplan

Haphazardhacker

Haphazardhacker

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Does anyone have any experience of claiming from them?

I and my vet are suspecting ulcers as my mare has become very girthy. She has been on a bute trial for a week to try see if maybe it was pain elsewhere that is bothering her, she has got more girthy during the trial so we are getting more certain that it is ulcers.

After asking around everyone , including my vet has said that insurers will want scoping before agreeing to fund the gastroguard. I phoned petplan this morning and she said no scope needed for them to agree the claim for gastroguard and if the vet decided that straight onto gastroguard was the preferred course of treatment then that was fine.

Am I right to trust this? I had been presuming a scope was required for an insurance claim so am prepared to scope. My vet is happy for us to try her on a course of gastroguard and see if she improves.

I am just worried that we will do a gastroguard course and then submit the claim and they will refuse to pay as she hasnt been scoped.
 
I didn't claim for ulcers specifically but when my pony had chronic grass sickness he had boxes and boxes of Gastrogard to prevent ulcers as his stomach was constantly empty. My vet worried the insurers would query this but Petplan paid no problem
 
Why would you not scope? The insurance will cover the scope so better to confirm the diagnosis ?
 
SusieT said:
Why would you not scope? The insurance will cover the scope so better to confirm the diagnosis ?
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Because scoping requires overnight starvation, which is the last thing you really want to be doing a horse with ulcers.

OP , email Petplan and get their response in writing if you can, for peace of mind.
 
Mine was different as in horse was scoped. I phoned petplan to let them know that horse was getting scoped and they said they couldn't guarantee anything but to submit claim.

They paid scoping, vet visits and guastroguard with no problems
 
I'm not with Petplan but whenever I've had a question over whether my insurer will cover something or not, I've always emailed them so I have their response in writing. I've only ever heard good things about Petplan paying out, but it's better to be safe than sorry. After all, they must say no to a lot of things to still run at a profit.
 
I claimed from them for ulcers. They were great and paid out immediately but I did have horse scoped. They paid for Gastroguard too. We did have some issues when the renewal came though as they wanted to exclude the entire gastro-intestinal tract! Obviously, I was very concerned about a colic exclusion but vet got on to their vet and sorted it out so exclusion is now just gastric ulcers.
 
I am getting her scoped now just so we know for sure what we are dealing with. I am worried about exclusions for colic but if your vet managed to reason with them, hopefully mine can too!
 
Haphazardhacker said:
I am getting her scoped now just so we know for sure what we are dealing with. I am worried about exclusions for colic but if your vet managed to reason with them, hopefully mine can too!
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It took a while to sort out and, at first, it seemed they wouldn't budge but vet argued that there was no evidence for any link between ulcers and other GI problems / colic. He likened it to excluding the whole head after a claim for an eye issue!

Good luck with your horse. I hope all goes well.
 
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