Did you hear about the dog who came to the Foster Hospital for Small Animals at Tufts with acute kidney failure and needed tens of thousands of dollars for treatment in order to stay alive? His owner raised the money through crowdfunding, where you publicize your cause or project through a program on the Internet and people send in small (and sometimes large) amounts of money to help you meet your goal. His pet would have definitely died otherwise, either from natural causes or euthanasia to end the suffering.
“I’ve had several owners do crowdfunding campaigns,” says Tufts veterinarian Linda Ross, DVM, MS, DACVIM, an internal medicine specialist and member of Your Dog’s editorial board. “Through Kickstarter or some other crowdfunding source, some of them have raised quite large amounts of money” to save their dog, which they otherwise wouldn’t have been able to do.
Indeed, the crowdfunding industry has grown to more than $5 billion worldwide, with some funds that even specialize in helping animals.
Of course, you don’t want to have to resort to crowdfunding, especially if time is of the essence in treating your dog with medical care. “That’s why I encourage people to think ahead of time,” Dr. Ross says. What’s “ahead of time?”
“Before they even obtain a dog,” the veterinarian advises. “People think of the cost of purchasing a dog,” Dr. Ross says, “and maybe food costs. But I find it’s unusual for people even to consider the cost of veterinary care beyond routine care such as wellness exams and yearly shots. They don’t think of the fact that their dog could get bladder stones — or something else. But they need to address that in their minds. Pet ownership is not a right; it’s a privilege. And once you bring a dog into your home, it becomes your responsibility.” Yes, people want to give dogs good homes, and that’s laudable, Dr. Ross says. But you have to be able to tend to the responsibility you take on.
She understands the emotions that play into dog adoption. “Somebody’s dog had puppies, and they are so adorable — and your children have seen the puppies. It’s hard to think abut the costs ahead” in a situation like that.
But then when people are hit with a substantial veterinary bill, they can be very surprised. “Many people never see the true cost of their own medical care because it is covered by insurance,” Dr. Ross says. “They only have a co-pay or deductible. If they don’t see or request an itemized bill, they don’t realize how high the charges can go. That’s all to the good. But unless people have health insurance for their dog, they have to pay the full costs for medical care out-of-pocket. And the costs for veterinary care are typically the same as costs for a person. A CBC [complete blood count] or MRI — the same type of lab, or the same machinery, is involved. A veterinary practice, just like a medical practice, has to be able to pay for that equipment and maintain it.”
Add into the mix that hospitals for people get some public funding from state and/or local government to help cover costs while veterinary hospitals are essentially on their own, and it makes the situation all the more difficult. The same bills have to be paid, Dr. Ross points out — mortgage or rent, electricity, drugs, staff salaries.
Anticipating a ‘rainy day’
There are a number of ways to prepare for the unexpected when it comes to paying for your dog’s health or recovery from a medical emergency.
Wellness visits. Taking your dog for regular wellness visits and paying the couple of hundred dollars for the check-up and the annual shots can help insure that a costly emergency doesn’t happen in the first place — or at least happens much later in the dog’s life.
Health insurance. We all have car insurance although we may never use it,” Dr. Ross says. Yet a minuscule percentage of the more than 43 million American households with dogs have pet health insurance, even though the chances are virtually 100 percent that it would be used if bought. Dogs, like people, don’t live their entire lives without ever getting sick. For that reason, people should seriously consider pet health insurance, which costs not thousands of dollars a year but hundreds. Purchasing health insurance for your dog is a particularly judicious choice in light of the fact that even finding out why a dog has been vomiting for a couple of days can run into the hundreds of dollars — and doesn’t always yield a clear diagnosis. The dog might recover on her own, and then you’re out that money with no possibility of recovering it.
Plans vary widely in terms of what they cover. Some pay for a good portion of routine care in addition to medical emergencies. They also vary in the degree to which they’ll cover it (although most cover at least half, if not much, much more), so you need to look over the different plans carefully, just as you would for yourself or a human member of the family. Bear in mind that the older the dog when you start, the more costly the monthly insurance is going to tend to be. Companies will also look at your pet’s pre-existing medical conditions and probably exclude them from coverage — another good reason to start your dog on pet health insurance when she’s young, before problems have manifested themselves.
With most plans, you are required to pay the entire bill to the veterinarian’s office up front and also fill out the insurance paperwork (which isn’t onerous, usually not amounting to more than a page). You then get reimbursed. In some cases, however, your veterinary hospital may be able to bill your insurer directly. If that’s important to you because, say, your credit card limit won’t allow you to cover a bill, see if you can find a plan that works that way.
One piece of good news when it comes to pet health insurance is that there’s no “in network” and “out of network.” You can take your dog to any veterinarian you wish.
For a good list of pet insurance providers to get you started, check out the website of the American Veterinary Medical Association (www.avma.org). Click on the orange “Public Resources” button at the top right of the home page, then click on “Pet Care,” then on “Do you need pet insurance,” which comes under the heading of “Keep them healthy.” You can hyperlink to each of the insurance companies listed.
Under the mattress. Another reasonable way to prepare for an expensive medical emergency is to set aside a small amount of money each month, sort of like a Christmas Club account. This can work especially well if you bring home your dog while she is still a puppy. Thirty-five dollars every month over the course of, say, 10 years, will net your pet more than $4,200. That’s enough to cover a number of expensive-to-treat health complications — not as surefire a way of protecting your wallet as health insurance, but it does buy you some wiggle room if you’re sometimes stretched to the limit and simply can’t put the usual amount in the till.
CareCredit.com. CareCredit is a credit card that can be used just for healthcare expenses — for your pet or for people. The company offers no-interest plans for bills that are paid in full within 18 months, sometimes 24 months depending on the promotional plan, buying critical time for people who need to spread out their payments. They also offer loans for people who need more than 18 months to pay off a veterinary bill — but at a somewhat lower interest rate than traditional credit cards.
Angel Funds. The Humane Society of the United States lists organizations that provide financial assistance to pet owners in need, including state-by-state lists, in addition to organizations that provide assistance specifically for certain diseases, such as cancer. Go to www.humanesociety.org, and type “angel funds” in the search bar at the top. It will take you to a hyperlink called “Are you having trouble affording your pet?”
A candid conversation with your vet. As we said earlier, most veterinarians require payment at the time of the visit. They are not banks or lending institutions. Still, Dr. Ross emphasizes that “we don’t want to euthanize an animal because of the cost of treatment. If an owner’s having trouble because of the price, we’d prefer that they’d talk to us to see if there’s a less expensive way to help the dog. We’d rather know ahead of time if there’s a problem with finances and work with the client. Many times we can come up with an acceptable plan. There may be some risk in it, as opposed to a plan where money isn’t an object, but it can still save a dog. It doesn’t necessarily have to be all or nothing — but without a candid conversation we don’t have any opportunity to work out a less expensive treatment option.”
Crowdfunding. Crowdfunding isn’t for everybody. It takes considerable effort to set up a crowdfunding campaign that will attract people’s attention. And it tends to be small amounts of money — $5 or $10 — from many, many people that gets you to your goal. In other words, it may not happen overnight, which you need to consider if time is a critical factor. Then, too, it has to be a situation that really resonates with people. It’s generally not enough just to have a pet that you love but limited finances. But if you have a beloved dog you will not be able to save without outside help, crowdfunding is worth checking into. There are now a number of sites to choose from.
Euthanasia. Euthanasia is never a happy solution under any circumstances. “But it isn’t necessarily the wrong decision,” Dr. Ross says. “Owners should understand that it’s okay to select euthanasia as a method of treatment. For example,” she points out, “let’s say we have a dog with hemangiosarcoma — a type of cancer with a poor prognosis. And maybe the pet has this particular cancer in her spleen and removing her spleen could extend her life two to three months. But the tradeoff is that it’s going to cost the owner several thousand dollars. It’s not the wrong decision to say, ‘No, I can’t do that.’ It’s okay to put the animal down.
“The more difficult decision,” Dr. Ross says, “is for something that is fixable. A dog gets hit by a car and has a badly fractured leg that is going to cost thousands of dollars to fix. And she will be fine once the treatment is all over and go on to live a healthy lifespan. But if you don’t have the money to treat the leg, euthanasia is a reasonable option rather than letting the animal remain in pain and having the leg heal in a way that will cause her discomfort and mobility problems for the rest of her life.”
What dog owners should realize is that as long as you love your pet from the moment you bring her into your life and take good, loving care of her until the moment you must say good-bye, you have done right by your dog. Yes, it’s better to understand the cost of caring for a dog up front, but without you, she wouldn’t have had every single happy day she lived.
