Veterinarian Cost and Pet Insurance

Health
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Veterinarian cost is through the roof. Even with pet insurance does not include pre-existing conditions. This makes it very expensive to get pet care or emergency care without spending a fortune on adopted animals. A lot of us adopt pets and those pets typically come with some health concerns. All pet insurance should cover pre-existing conditions. Medication for pets is through the roof. We need to see the cost reduction in veterinarian care and medication for our extended families

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Pleaase do some research before venting on here. I’ve already posted this in a few other chats, but the bottom line is there are 300,000,000 pets in the u.s. and 130,000 vets. If anything, the cost of vet healthcare should be much, much, much higher than it is not even counting inflation or other points i made on other similar topics.

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FSA money should be allowed

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Veterinarians are for profit organizations and should be allowed to set the prices that will

  1. pay the staff
  2. pay the bills - lights, water, electricity
  3. products have a starting point and this will be marked up to help pay for 1 and 2.
  4. Service prices are based on staff cost, staff time, and the small things that a hospital will charge individually for like syringes and needles or testing materials.
  5. Cater to the client base.
  6. Have enough left over to make improvements

This allows veterinarians to determine the number of staff members, the products and services that they will offer, and what income level they want to cater too. The government should not be involved in price controlling or setting up payment or insurance programs for the situation.

Veterinarians use a majority of human based products such as antibiotics, antihistamines, anesthetics, bandaging materials, IV catheters, IV fluids, etc. So to bring the cost of veterinary medicine down, the better option would be to bring the human medicine costs down by removing the red tape in the way for US companies to make the products.

Pet insurance is not equivalent to human health insurance as it is a reimbursement program not an insurance program. You are still expected to pay for the veterinary services at the time of service. The pet insurance reimburses you directly on a set amount for the services rendered. It is up to the pet insurance on what it will cover.

Some things that could help with the cost of veterinary medicine:

  1. For medications that are not veterinary exclusive (heartworm medication), see if the veterinarian will write a script for the medication and check with local pharmacies on cost. Sometimes the pharmacies will have medications at a discounted price such as in 1993-2011 (when I was working in vet med), we would send clients to local pharmacies as the medications were on a $4 program.
  2. CareCredit is a credit card that can be used to split up pet, dental, and vision health costs over period of time based on the amount put on the card without interest.
  3. If you have multiple veterinary clinics in your area price check what you want done.
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Since you thumbed me down…Why are you against there being an FSA account equivalent or allowing use of FSA money to pay for vet expenses? If anything help encourage people to take their pet family to the vets and vets get paid.

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@Jane Doe,
FSA funds are to be used for HUMAN medical bills not pet care. If FSA money is allowed for pet bills, why shouldn’t the money be used for utilities or food, which are much more needed for HUMAN health than a pet?

The government does not allow pets to be classified as a dependent and a pet should not be treated as such for FSA, which is for human medical care.

If you want to have a fund to pay for pets, then set up a savings account for that issue.

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you are very concrete lol

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Sure

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Thanks for the detailed response. I really appreciate it