Vet prescriptions and pet insurance questions.

[Dontbesilly]

Hi. We had to take our youngest cavalier to a cardiology specialist. He is an amazing little fella and we are devastated. Unfortunately mitral heart disease has been diagnosed. We have pet insurance which will only cover us for this year. In time we will need to buy him medication which the vet quoted at around 100-120 pounds per month.
The vet mentioned that it's possible to buy this online with a vet prescription and it's cheaper.

Has anyone got any experience of buying veterinary medicine online. Will I have to pay a prescription charge and a consultation fee for this every month?

Also I am looking around for pet insurance to cover my other cavalier so that should he contract mitral heart disease too in the future, I can have him on a lifetime condition policy? Has anyone got any experience of these types of policy?

Thanks for your help. Anything to help us prepare for the future would be greatly appreciated. We used a breeder who was reputable and the puppies and parents were all tested and clear with certificates showing this too. He's only two and a half and we are absolutely gutted for him and us, he's wonderful. It's so heartbreaking.

[daisy5569]

Yes I used online pharmacy both human and veterinarian for my old boy who had cushings and heart disease. Vet gave prescriptions for 3months at a time and I only paid fee for the prescription not a consultation fee too.
Was much cheaper as he was on really expensive pills for his heart. I used viovet, not the cheapest but very efficient. No advice re the insurance though, if i could afford it I would always go for lifetime cover though.
Hope this helps and sorry to hear your little dog is poorly

[MsAdorabelleDearheartVonLipwig]

Pet Plan are a very good insurance company. They will give you life cover on continuing illness. A lot of companies will only pay out once, which is completely useless for an ongoing condition. Sorry to hear about your little boy.

[TheoriginalLEM]

Am sorry to hear about your dog, you can get him prescriptions from your vet - you will have to pay a prescription fee. We charge £10, whether this is a "repeat" prescription is down to veterinary discretion but will probably not be in the first instance as you may well need to vary dosages. Things like frusemide are relatively cheap so you wont need that on prescription, but vetmedin and benfortin are £££ and it will be SIGNIFICANTLY cheaper online. The only caveat is that insurance companies wont cover for the cost of medication bought online. You will need to have a consultation wiht the vet every six months to a year, but you would need to do this if you were buying the meds direct from them anyway. I would imagine they would want to run regular ecg and poss ultrasound scans until he is stabalised.

Petplan is expensive, but they do have advantages. They do tailored levels of insurance, depending on the policy. So, the more expensive ones are lifetime cover and i would definately recommend this for a cavalier. They also offer time limited and money limited policies, which would pay out for one condition only up to a year and not pay out again on that condition should it recurr. Or will insure up to a certain amount of money say £4000 per condition. We deal directly with payplan which means we can claim directly from them and converse with them regarding any claim issues. Many other insurance companies will not discuss claims with us outside of clinical issues so it there is a delay in payment we can't chase it up. Due to this, we only accept direct payment from pet plan and require the client to pay upfront from other insurance companies. This can be really difficult if the bill is expensive.

Also, Mitral valve insufficiency is very common in cavaliers so do check that your dog would be covered for this condition as some companies will have exceptions to their policies.

[Dontbesilly]

Thank you everyone for your advice. Daisy, I am so sorry that your old boy was poorly too.

We currently are insured with Animal Friends, as they got very good reviews in a poll type survey and they help animals with their profits. Anyway, I rang them up regarding the diagnosis of the youngest, with our policy they pay out for this year only and next year they will exclude this completely. I explained that we were looking for a policy to cover the oldest incase he got the disease etc for a lifetime policy. The lady explained that for only 1.50 more a month I can insure the oldest for lifetime cover and it continues and refreshes yearly, covering the same illness again up to 2000. It's 10.40 per month. I am gutted that I didn't know about it before as I would definitely have taken the policy as we have cavaliers. At least the oldest is on it now. Pet plan are really good looking online, my fil swears by them. Although they are quite expensive. As I said gutted that I didn't know that they did a lifetime policy. My logic is that the meds will cost a lot of money and if the oldest one is covered by the animal friends policy it frees up extra cash to invest in better meds. Does that sound sensible?

The vet advised us now to start saving money for the future of the condition. They said 100 a month would help while he is currently covered and to expect to pay 100-120 per month after the cover ends. I am a bit worried about what is the actual cost might be. Can anyone give me a guide. What should I expect to pay per month for the meds, scans (thanks LEM I didn't consider extra scans throughout) consultation fee and prescription costs? How much does an online prescription save? I want him to have the best treatment and I want to be prepared and plan for this now.

Sorry for all the questions. This is all new to me and we are still upset about it. He's only two and a half years old and I am gutted that he won't be around for as long as we hoped. The cardiologist said that they had never seen it in a dog this young before and couldn't give a life expectancy but I guess that he is halfway through his shot little life now and that's so heartbreaking. At least now he has no clue.

[TheoriginalLEM]

vetmedin for my mum's dog (huge dog) was £79 a month. (heart conditions) online £23.99 i shit you not!!! so its definitely worth it. just make sure you buy from a reputable uk site. they will have "the veterinary medicine directorate" logo on their site.

its a staggering difference. The vets pay more for their meds than the ycan be bought for online so it's not the vets greed.

[TheoriginalLEM]

i used animed direct pharmacy - my only comment. don't bother with express delivery.

[TheoriginalLEM]

i had a chihuahua cross with mitral valve disease. He lived to be 18! its the whole piece of string argument. regular monitoring so medication can be altered according to need will definitely prolong his life.

[Dontbesilly]

LED, thanks for your advice. That's reassuring about the cost of the meds online. It's a huge worry as I want the best for him and that's just reassured me.

Glad to hear that your dog lived with the condition til a very good age. There is hope for my little boy yet.

I will check out the website you suggested and look for the logo too. I completely understand about the vets prices. Our cardiologist was fantastic about getting as much done in the time left on the policy and mentioned online medicines to us, we didn't know you could even do that. I am just grateful for the vetinary care he's had and will need in the future.

Thanks once again for your advice it's much appreciated and has made me more positive I terms of cost and outcome for him too.