Back when I was a vet student in the early 80's, equine medicine was the bane of my existence. It was the longest rotation of my entire senior year, it started at the hideously early morning hour of 5am, evening rounds and treatments were never finished till 8 or 9 pm, and it often involved huge, mean, or painful animals who frequently seemed to have a vested interest in trying to kill me. Plus, I had drawn the 11pm to 4am colic watch shift and for the entire 9 week rotation, there was never NOT a night where we didn't have a colicky horse. Colicky horses are often excruciatingly painful, and so you often have to endlessly walk them, except that they often have secondary laminitis, a disease that threatens to separate their hooves from their feet. That makes them even MORE painful and reluctant to move. Treating such animals generally required a very nervous and seriously sleep-deprived student approaching a very big and painful horse in the middle of the night, with the intent of sticking needles in its painful feet to inject a nerve block to deaden the pain. Neither I nor the horses ever thought that this was a good idea, and my life frequently flashed before my eyes when I had to "nerve" such a horse.
Suffice it to say, I didn't like equine medicine much as a student! But I had a great teacher and mentor - Dr. Gordon Baker. Despite my lack of interest in anything horsy, his keen intellect, dry sense of humor, and compassion for all creatures great and small never failed to capture my interest. He'd often share stories when we'd be sitting in the equine barns at the end of a long day. A frequent feature of those stories involved his "back home in England" senior clients and their devotion to their canine pets - much like Mrs. Pumphrey of James Herriott fame was devoted to her demanding and obese Pekinese. Dr. Baker was of Scottish-English descent, and easily reverted to the accents of his childhood when telling us about veterinary medicine and surgery "back home" - so we heard a lot about ladies of a certain age who were unfailingly devoted to their "wee broon dugs."
And now I'm one of them. MY wee broon dug (small brown dog) is Jack, the little guy that some of you read about in Lizzie's column a couple of months ago - and he's taken over the household! "Magic" was nicknamed and rescued by Col. Potter's Cairn Terrier Rescue Network after he was found laying in a St. Louis gutter, in deep shock and with both hind legs leg dangling. Initially, he was expected to die, so his treatment was confined to a quick clean-up and pain meds. When he didn't die that first night, he was worked up and the full extent of his injuries was catalogued: a pelvis smashed to smithereens, one hind leg literally pulverized, extensive abdominal crush injuries, and lots of "road rash," the kind that happens when several car tires pass over a small, rapidly moving body. Col. Potter's, who was footing the bill for this little stray, was told that surgery would probably kill him. But there wasn't much of a choice, so when Magic didn't die overnight, he went to surgery for the first time. His shattered pelvis was moved back into position as much as was possible, and a steel plate was screwed into one side to stabilize it. And he didn't die after that, so when it because clear that his mangled leg had too much dead tissue to survive, he had a second surgery in which that entire leg was amputated at the hip. He survived that one, too. It was touch and go for awhile, because it looked like he might never regain use of his remaining hind leg, but he finally improved enough to go home to a foster home in St. Louis, where he was lovingly cared for, given the "house name" of Jack, and nursed back to health.
When I met Jack, he responded to that name, so it stuck. And while he was still recovering from his wounds at the time of adoption, he had grown a little hair and was already starting to use his remaining hind leg a bit. Now, three months and a lot of acupuncture and chiropractic treatments later, he scampers up and down stairs, runs like the wind, pesters Lizzie and Hebert endlessly, and is best friends with Dr. Tartof's dog, Piper. Piper comes to work with Dr. Tartof, and Jack always looks for her as soon as he arrives at work with me. When Piper leaves with Dr. Tartof at 6pm, he fusses until someone eventually lets him out, and then he runs up and down the length of the clinic like a crazy dog, blasting into the reception area if anyone leaves a door open. Now that I see the speed he's capable of, it's easy to see how he found himself loose and alone in St. Louis traffic. He was probably having the time of his life, right up until that first car hit him!
I've talked to orthopedic veterinary friends about Jack's surgeries and what his medical and surgical care must have cost Col. Potter's. We estimate that, if the vet hospital that treated him charged full fees for everything they did for Jack, that his bill would easily have topped ten thousand dollars. Now, I don't know about you - but I could never have afforded that. Oh, sure, I would have done my darndest to come up with the money, and I probably would have offered to paint the entire vet hospital or clean it for the next 10 years or something to offset the bill, but here's the reality: in the end I would have ended up with an enormous credit card bill. I would have done that, and then worked to pay the credit card down just as fast as I could. But a lot of people simply don't even have that option, because they've already over-extended their credit. That's why dogs like Jack are often simply put to sleep instead of being treated. I see Jack flying around the clinic now, as happy as any dog with four legs and a lot faster than most of them, and I think....little guy, you wouldn't be here today if it wasn't for someone at Col. Potter's Cairn Terrier Rescue Network taking a chance on you.
What about YOUR pet? Are you equipped to handle an injury like Jack sustained? We'd all like to think that our pet would never be that stray in the gutter - but accidents happen. It happened to one of my own dogs many years ago, as I was reminded yesterday by a representative from VPI Pet Insurance. She reminded me that she was the tech on duty at Golf-Rose Emergency when my little Rikki, my first Cairn Terrier, came in on emergency, all those years ago. I had just opened the front door of my Roselle home to collect the mail when he squirted out, flew down the front steps into the street, and was immediately run over by a truck. I rushed into the street after him, just in time to watch the tires roll over his little body. Five days and many thousands of dollars later, despite the best care possible at the time, Rikki died in an oxygen tent at Golf Rose. I was devastated and guilt-ridden. Even today it's hard for me to think about Rikki without that horrible image of truck tires coming up.
I've never been a fan of pet insurance, but in this day and age, with the good companies that have emerged, I really think it makes sense for many of you to think about it. I sure am thinking hard about it. Times are tough for many of us, and vets are no exception. As is the case at most veterinary hospitals across the country, our bills are up and our client visits are down, and money is tight! It's hard to imagine how we'd cover the cost of an accident like Rikki's or Magic's. There are a lot of pet insurance companies out there, so it makes sense to check out their policies carefully. They all work something like this: they collect enough information about your pet to determine if they need to consider any genetic issues or existing or past health issues, then they make the decision to insure or not. The best companies will insure regardless of existing or past issues and genetic issues, but they may exclude some things that are known to occur with high frequency in certain breeds. Or they may have an exclusion period if your pet has an existing or past disease or health challenge. Fees are generally related to age and state of health, but also vary depending upon whether you have a policy focused on treatment of emergency conditions only, or whether you are seeking full health coverage. The latter covers vaccines, routine things like dental cleanings and blood tests, and obviously costs more. Some policies have specific riders for coverage for cancer. Almost all companies have a deductible for each claim, and all use a code book with specific amounts of coverage for specific health conditions or treatments. The coverage is rarely the total cost you will pay, but with a good company such as VPI, the coverage is substantial and 90% of the total amount they'll pay for each claim gets to the insured within 2-3 weeks of claim submission. For example, in the case of Jack, out of his approximate $10,000.00 vet bill, I would have received about $7,500.00. That is, IF I had filled out the claim form properly!
There is one big difference between pet insurance and your own - and that is, YOU fill out the claim forms for your pet, YOU submit them, and YOU directly receive the money back. That's what keeps the costs of pet insurance reasonable, as compared to "people insurance." And, to a very significant extent, that's what keeps the costs of veterinary care reasonable, too. Were we like many Doctor's offices, where up to 40% of the hired staff do nothing but fill out insurance forms, our costs would certainly rise substantially - they'd have to, to allow us to pay all those extra people on staff!
So what do you have to do to make sure that you are completely compensated when you submit a claim? You need to fill out ALL the diagnoses we give you, and you need to make a copy of your vet bill and attach it to your claim. That way, if you miss an item, the good companies will enter any codes you miss - maybe. It's always best to enter any diagnosis or treatment that was established or done for your pet, as it appears on the bill. If a claim is rejected for any reason, make sure to contact the company and ask for a second evaluation - the good companies will do this, even if they have to request records from the vet. And, make sure to double-check your application to make sure that you are being fully compensated for everything that you are due.
I'm not one for recommending any specific brand of anything to my clients very often unless it really does offer a clear advantage, and I've never been the kind of vet who accepts money from a company in return for recommending their product. So you can be certain that when I tell you that I hope you'll think about pet insurance, at least for young pets and at least to cover catastrophic situations like severe illnesses and injuries, I'm not being paid to do so. I HAVE advised my staff to get VPI pet insurance for their pets, and I plan on getting it for Hebert and Jack. And maybe Emmett. Lizzie probably is uninsurable, between her failed kidneys and age, but I'm planning on asking. And I can even get a quote online!
How do you find out about companies like VPI and the others, so that you can compare them? You google "pet insurance," and you carefully compare policies. Do it yourself - don't rely on any one company to do a comparison for you, because the information will be biased. Look at costs AND coverage, and ask questions about anything you don't understand. If you want to know more about VPI, ask any of our Nurses when you next visit the clinic.
And lastly....thanks to all of you, from all of us at Knollwood, for sticking with us through a difficult economic year. We know that all of you are doing your level best for your pets, and we're here to help you as much as we can! We have a talented and dedicated Nursing staff, a fabulous new Doctor in Dr. Jessica Tartof, and a newly re-organized, customer-focused Reception staff to serve you. Plus a very enthusiastic welcoming committee, thanks to Jack and Piper! Happy holidays to all of you, and may a brighter year dawn for all of us in 2010.
Dr. Deb Mitchell
