Insurance refusing vet admin fee after emergency visit for insured dog

[OneRealOchreHiker]

Feeling a bit miffed. Had to take Ddog to emergency vets few weeks ago as kept being sick. I paid at the time and as she was insured I had to pay £35 admin fee in order for the vets to process my insurance claim.

The insurance has now refused to pay the admin fee. It’s not a lot but wondering if this is something all the insurers do or just Everypaw? Or is it Vets Now profiteering?

To be honest I never expected that I could claim back that from the insurance so didn't try

Isn't it a convenience fee for the vets to deal with your insurance on your behalf and claim for you?

i.e. you coukd have done all the leg work yourself but the vets did it for you and charge you a fee for that

The admin fee represents the time they spent in processing your claim and sending the claim to the insurers. Not a lot of time. But it's still time. So no, it's not 'profiteering' it's you paying them for their time and chances are by them doing it, it'll be processed faster and more efficiently than you (no offence).

And it's not just Vets Now - it's pretty standard practice. I've seen 'admin fee's well-over £70 so £35 seems pretty cheap to me.

No insurance companies pay admin fees, or a lot of other fees!
The admin fee is for processing the claim, answering multiple enquiries from the insurer, compiling supporting documents, recording it all digitally and reconciling the payments when they come in. £35 is normal for emergency/referral vets. General practice vets often charge less.

I said I’ll do it myself but they said if I don’t pay it their vets won’t confirm she was treated. I had to do it myself anyway and then chase the vet for a response after 10 days of nothing.

It absolutely sounds like profiteering if they wouldn't let you do it yourself and then charged you. Not sure what you can do about it though. A quick Google search shows their parent company has got some pretty big shareholders. Hope your dog recovered and is back on the hiking trails 😀

If that is the case, then they are scamming, rob dogging bastards.

All the vets I have used charge an administration fee if they submit the claim for you. It's usually in the insurance policy T&C that they won't pay the charge. However, none of them charge me to supply information to the insurance once I have submitted a claim.

@OneRealOchreHiker , a vet confirming vet treatment IS admin for them. That costs £35 whether you fill in insurance form yourself or they did. Which is why it’s better they do both for same fee: confirmation of vet treatment and fill in of insurance form. You are paying for the vet time. And a vet is a professional, a trained professional at that.. confirming the treatment requires going into the records et cetera et cetera so it may take 5 to 10 minutes or even 15 minutes but that is admin that could’ve been used to do something else by the vet, so they charge for their time

can you not see that?

How much was the overall treatment then the one that insurance paid for?

Do what yourself? The insurance claim? If so they would then have to check anyway to make sure you were being honest in your claim…or even have the insurer reach out to them to verify, which would probably take up even more time that them just doing it themselves.

Honestly, if you’re using vets now then 10 days or more is about the going rate. They’re busy. The one near me can see 20+ patients a night (covers Sevenoaks - Robertsbridge + Crowborough in terms of geography which is a bloody massive area for one emergency clinic and they have a day clinic as well) because the independent vets outsource their patients to them at night as it’s cheaper and more effective than running their own emergency system. Imagine how many claims they get in a day that all require processing or unfucking because people either lied or misrepresented the truth. Of course it’s slow.

The vets don't deal with the insurance claims. The reception/office/admin staff do. Or at least that has been the case in the 7 practices in which I have made claims.

And the overall cost of OP's pet's treatment is irrelevant.

Vet firm deals with it. Same thing.hence properly mentioned as admin.

It was my first visit to them as my Vet has recently outsourced their emergency cover.

Ive never had an admin fee forced on me before, so maybe I should count myself lucky. My own vets don’t charge it so I was surprised by it and the fact that it’s not considered as part of the claim.

It was £347 just to turn up there, but it was 10 pm at night and I didn’t want to wait until morning so obviously no issue with that. The surgery was more reminiscent of A & E than the normal vets. 5 pets (and a baby hedgehog) were seen in the time we were there so they were very busy.

This is what my vets do. But to be honest it always feels like a bit of a bonus to me as I'm not sure they spend too much less time confirming than they would submitting the whole claim. Although maybe the fact I bunch visits together for claims (several visits for same condition) helps.

Yes, we also had a trip to Vets Now a few weeks ago! We're with Animal Friends and they have a reciprocal agreement where you just pay Vets Now about half the cost at the time, and if the claim is successful then Animal Friends pay Vets Now directly. The total cost was £600 and we ended up having to pay about £300 between the excess, £35 admin fee, and a percentage of the out of hours fee that you can't claim back. It was frustrating as for the admin fee I'd expect them to handle the claim, but I still had to do all the forms and contact Vets Now for them to sign a form. It was worth it for us but I can see why people don't have pet insurance as there are lots of hidden costs.