Do I need to pay?

[LifeIsGreatForUnicorns]

My dog ate Christmas cake. Had to go to emergency vets.
paid £592 for dog to be sick - had to pay at vets directly as it was out of hours…
no problems with this (was a very small piece of cake but you never know!)

Have now claimed via insurance (petplan)
so submitted the receipt (that I had paid directly to the vets) directly to PetPlan and now the out of hours vets I used have said I owe them £35 for them processing my claim….(not sure what they processed as I paid them directly on the night)

YANBU - i shouldn’t pay the £35 to the out of hours vet for doing nothing and challenge the charge
YABU - I should pay the £35 charge for them processing the claim

Well I suppose that’s not too bad then.
If ours needs surgery( probably will eventually) we’re looking at about £6k 😔😳

You paid the vet full cost, and you're making the claim yourself? Then you shouldn't owe then any admin fee and it must be an error.

If they're processing the claim for you, it's a service, and they can charge for it.

However, I'd not pay for this service. Very easy to make a claim yourself without their help.

You only pay £35 if they submit the claim - you can do it yourself
My vet charges £15 - the CF OOO one charges £35

I think you probably do owe the vet the 35 for the admin they’ve done for your insurance claim.

592 for the dog to be sick sounds ridiculous though. A proper rip off IMO.

It doesn’t matter that you pay direct , the vets still have to fill out forms( online ) they won’t take your receipt as proof because people forge them . Therefore you do need to pay the £35 .

Come on, cut it out.
Preparing invoices is part of any business

My vet will charge you £25+ to deal with the admin around dealing with pet insurance. I think they have some sort of upper limit of over £75 on a year before it's capped. So no surprise on this tbh.

It's steep for an admin fee, especially as you settled the bill at the time.

An insurance claim to petplan takes for something straight forward like this takes minutes, not hours.

Check the ts&cs at the vet.
My vet only charges a fee for insurance claim handling if you're not paying the vet directly. They provide a service (form filling, corresponding and - of course - not being paid for several weeks) so there's a fee.
However, if you pay my vet directly and then claim the cost via the insurer then there's no separate fee to pay the vet and the business absorbs the cost of sending supporting information to insurers in their appointment fees.
Other vets that have a different pricing structure will do it differently.
So check what the policy is with the vet and if it's in their ts&cs then you'll need to pay.

The admin fee is only if the vets are submitting your claim directly to the insurance company & you're told about it & it's added to your bill at the time. Definitely challenge it

I've never had to pay my vets. But i don't think you have much choice in paying if that's their policy

If you filled out and submitted the whole claim form then yep, challenge it, its probably a standard charge as most people don't do that, particularly for an EOOH visit.

Our boy’s current chemo is £8k and I’m the biggest fan of pet plan right now.

Preparing invoices / itemised bills to the client isn’t chargeable.

Preparing invoices and a clinical history to a third party is chargeable. I’ve had to engage in email tennis with insurance companies before to clarify/explain why tests were recommended, why this cancerous tumour isn’t related to the pulled muscle in 2018 and therefore can’t be excluded from the policy…

Vet practices are businesses at the end of the day, if something takes time and manpower, it is going to be paid for by the customer, whether that’s a discrete ‘insurance fee’ or by increasing prices / cutting services elsewhere.

I'm surprised the insurance paid out under the circumstances. I don't think £35 is very much in view of the cost of the treatment,

Rather be happy that my dog is still alive and pay the £35..imagine if you hadn't been insured.

I work in a different industry but we have a similar set up for making insurance claims. We only charge an admin fee if we submit the claim, if the customer pays us directly and then submits the claim we do not charge the admin fee. Customers are also made aware of the admin fee verbally and in writing.

I wouldn’t be paying them the fee.

I’ve never known a vet to charge for this.

I would challenge this. That's the amount my vet would have charged me for dealing with everything directly with Petplan. It sounds as if they are charging you for the thing they can and often do do, but didn't do this time.

Even if you fill out the forms they still contact the vet practice to check all the details / get history etc so the vet / secretary still has to do the same as if they’d submitted the claim. Insurance companies do not take a photocopy of an invoice / receipt as proof of treatment because these documents are easily forged.

I hope your boy is doing well. ❤️❤️

Thank you! He’s actually doing remarkably. He’s only 4 years old but super healthy in every other way.