Vets & Insurance

[Fiftiesfresh]

Hi. Just wanted some opinions to check if I'm being unreasonable.

How long on average does it take for vets surgeries to deal with insurance companies and pass on claims details when the customer has already paid the bill in full? I have been told by my dogs insurer that the surgery must deal with this online. Fair enough in this day and age of fraud etc.

My dog was treated for an injury two weeks ago, and the surgery has not passed on his details yet to his insurer. I have spoken to the member of staff who deals with this today, who told me ''it is on the list'' (in those words, followed by silence which I had to fill by asking when she thought it would be done) Apparently it is usually between two and four weeks as they "always have a lot to deal with". Unfortunately I found her attitude rather abrupt - totally at odds with the other outstanding staff at this surgery - vets, nurses and non clinical staff alike.

Is this a typical timescale across the board? If so then I will have to suck it up...however his insurance company said once they receive the claim they will look to pay out within one to two DAYS, which would be great!!
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I suppose it depends on the size of your vet practice and how busy they are. With ours the vets do the forms themselves and it’s usually done in a couple of days at the most. Last time I had been paid by the insurance company within 5 days of requesting the claim via the vets.

It will vary from practice to practice depending on their size and workload. Some have dedicated insurance administrators, some rely on vets or nurses doing them pretty much as and when they have time to. For what it's worth, the policy where I work is a maximum of five working days to submit a claim but generally speaking electronic claims are done same or next day - that may have no relevance though to a small independent practice with a different staff structure.

Took about three weeks of chasing to get our last claim sent through, 3k. Emergency vet so not our local.

It puts people on very very difficult situations when they have to pay up front. We were lucky we had access to 3k.

Its a decent sized practice..6 lovely vets, 8 nurses, 6 non-clinical staff - one of whom deals with insurance matters I was told.

The bill was the best part o£300...fortunately I dont need it back urgently, however if it had have been in the thousands it would be a different story. Its the staff members attitude thats annoyed me more than the timescale, I was definitely made to feel as though my question was not welcome. It was a query not a complaint.

4 weeks would not be unusual at my place, unfortunately. Ring back in a couple of weeks if you haven't heard.

Ok thanks everyone.

Ddog is due his annual booster coincidentally at the four week point. If i've heard nothing by then I shall ask again, probably this time the owner though...but I will also be asking whether the practise deal with any insurance companies directly, expecting to be told Petplan only from what I have now researched

Our practice has someone in one day a week to deal with insurance claims. If you paid the day after the week's claims had been dealt with there would be a delay and also if they were away for any reason. Our practice dealt direct with our insurer with a large bill (c£2,000) and we've never used Petplan. It seemed to be that they knew us so well that they were sure we wouldn't scarper if the insurance company didn't pay. They did, thankfully.

Well well!! just received a text from my insurer to say a claim has been received!

Happy days if the insurers are as good as their word and pay out in the next few days...but...no need for the attitude from the admin person when none was forthcoming from me, if it was that close to being dealt with, she must have known and could have pleasantly told me it would be done very soon, with the caveat that it usually takes two to four weeks. She knew my name and ddogs name, but I suspect she didnt actually look at ''the list'' to see where we were on it.

Good job the rest of the practice are approachable, knowledgeable and caring. Hope its a good while before he needs more than vaccinations