Three Big Myths Concerning Affordable Veterinary Care

With the cost of veterinary care increasing every day, pet owners are searching for ways to lower these costs and find more affordable options. A flood of advice and recommendations for finding affordable veterinary care can be found across the web, yet in many instances, the information offered is not always true. Here are three myths concerning affordable veterinary care that need to be dispelled.

1. Veterinary Teaching Hospitals Are More Affordable Than Regular Veterinary Hospitals

If you search the Internet for ways to save money on your veterinary bills, you'll find this one mentioned quite often. While veterinary teaching hospitals might offer diagnostic and treatment discounts for highly unique cases that offer teaching opportunities to the students, the vast majority of cases that present do not fall into this category. A veterinary teaching hospital does not exist to compete with or undercut the local veterinarians; its job is to complement the veterinary private sector. So don't expect competitive discounts and affordable veterinary care when you go.

2. A Prepackaged Pet Health Care Plan Is More Affordable Than Paying For Each Veterinary Service Separately

Many clinics offer their own prepackaged health care plans for pets, similar to the "meal deal" of the fast food industry, claiming that these plans are more affordable than paying for each veterinary service separately. The problem is that some of these packages contain veterinary services that aren't always needed by every pet. In addition, you pay upfront for an ongoing discount on the veterinary clinic's services, yet the regular price of these veterinary services is sometimes artificially inflated. So be sure to do your homework and compare prices with other clinics on your area. Make sure you won't be paying inflated prices or for veterinary care your pet really doesn't need.

3. Pet Insurance Can Always Save You Money on Veterinary Care and Make It More Affordable

Pet health insurance sounds great and in some instances, it can keep you out of the financial dog house if your pet is faced with a major illness or injury. But understand that these "major" situations are the exception rather than the norm. To make matters worse, they may not be covered by your policy. It's imperative that you scrutinize a pet health insurance policy very closely. By the time you take into account exclusions for pre-existing conditions, deductibles, and premium costs, it may not be worth it.

Keep in mind that insurance companies need to make money. The human health insurance model relies on insuring a large number of healthy individuals over a long period of time, with a portion of these premiums used to pay claims, with the balance allocated to administrative expenses and profits. The key words here are "long period of time" and "large number of healthy individuals". Unfortunately, a pet's lifespan is only a fraction of that of a human and, to date, there really aren't a large number of "healthy" pets covered by insurance. So how do the insurance companies cope with this? Simple. High premiums, high deductibles, and lots of exemptions for pre-existing conditions.

It can cost over $5,000 to insure a pet over the course of its life, and that's not including additional medical costs (deductibles, pre-existing conditions) that the insurance fails to cover. If your pet sails through life without a scratch, that's money you'll never see again. However, if you would have paid those same premium fees into a savings account for your pet that was dedicated strictly for veterinary care, you'd have a pile of cash, plus interest, left over that you could apply to your next pet or simply use however you choose.

Finding affordable veterinary care can be labor-intensive, but it's certainly possible. You need to do your research and weigh the validity of each option you encounter to determine if it's a "fact" or a "myth". By doing so, you'll save yourself lots of money in the long run.