Sadly, the immigration situation in the U.S. is not helping here. My former equine vet was a lovely woman from Canada who moved here with her husband on a visa a few years ago. Unfortunately, her husband wouldn’t be able to work in the U.S. legally until she could get permanent resident (green card) status. That was supposed to happen this past spring, but she was told by Immigration that they were pushing her application back a year at minimum. They made the decision to return to Canada instead.
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This morning I found out my equine vet clinic sold to a corporation. I’m shocked, or maybe not. The owners want to retire in five years. I don’t know what will change right now or in the near future. I’ve have made the decision my current horse will be my last horse.
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Yep- I can’t imagine anyone wanting to come to the US currently
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I am nearly positive my guy will be too. He is 8 and still hopefully has many years left, but I’ve gone from wanting to buy property to bring him home to and foster a fjord or two from the rescue network to…not wanting to take that risk. At least anytime soon.
DH and I are still mid-ish career in fields that are taking hits, so we’re playing things as safe as we can from here on out.
Not that anything was ever guaranteed, but were living in a whole new reality today.
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I spend a lot of time at both small and large animal vets and imho small animal vets bring a lot of problems on themselves by the way they run the practices- letting poorly trained and paid employees who turn over frequently be the “face” of the business. As more of them become corporate this is getting worse. It leads to mistakes, loss of trust and often bad outcomes.
If I call my large animal clinic I will talk to a competent long term employee who has been trained on how to triage and handle calls, they take notes, I send them video or photos and am called back by an actual vet in a reasonable timeframe so we can make a plan. Sometimes that’s a few days, sometimes its 5 minutes but I trust them to make that call. I would be more than happy to pay for these phone calls because I know their time is valuable but they rarely charge.
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My experience is the opposite as yours.
Though I will not complain about either practice because I get how hard that job is.
My small animal vet has lots of long term employees who always take great care of me when I call there.
As much as I love my equine vet, the front office frequently does things that have me scratching my head.
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The challenges are getting greater in regard to animal ownership. I retired in 2014 and we bought a small property for our ponies. Once they are gone, we may sell. I’m not sure, though.
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I understand the challenges with large animal medicine as farms and livestock become fewer.
But pets are a multibillion dollar industry. You’d think animal ownership in that sense would be getting easier!
Yes, and the products and services are increasinly under the control of megacorporations (looking at you, Mars).
Seems like they’re verging on shooting themselves in the foot.
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Our small animal clinic was bought out by a corporate entity a few years ago. Some things are better, but others are worse.
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A few years ago my vet clinic, small animal and equine, was sold to a corporation. One year later, after they hired an additional equine vet and remodeled the small animal clinic, the practice was closed with very little notice.
That’s terrible! Geez I can’t imagine scrambling to find a new clinic.
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I wonder if we’re in a transition period where pet and equine insurance will adapt and evolve in North America to more closely resemble US human health insurance. Where is will become a necessity for virtually everyone, but could potentially mean that veterinarians and staff will be paid adequately.
I’m in Canada. I don’t currently have a pet insurance. Horses have always been insured, have only ever made one claim which was last year for an MRI. Two of three horses are “aged out” now though.
My dog is 11 now. She was over a year old when I got her. I recall getting some quotes for insurance and deciding that the premiums seemed expensive and I had enough savings for an emergency. I haven’t regretted that decision, and she’s old enough now, and doesn’t tolerate NSAIDs well, so at this point if anything serious happens we’ll likely choose to euthanize.
But I will likely get insurance for the next pup. It seems that insurance premiums haven’t changed a whole lot over the last decade, but the cost of most diagnostics and treatments have gone up substantially.
I could believe this for small animal, but equine health insurance still has a long way to go before it could be considered standard.
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Equine (and pet) “health insurance” is actually property insurance. And that’s how it is regulated in the US. There’s no right to that kind of insurance, and no reason that an insurance company would want to carry unprofitable risk. Human health insurance is also very expensive - $1k/month per person is not atypical.
But that’s why they can say “oh, your horse was lame in the left fore once, we won’t cover any lameness in the left fore going forward.” (Which is something they used to also be allowed to do with human health insurance, but can’t now.)
Without a substantial change in regulation, and also substantial increase in cost, I can’t imagine American insurance companies choosing to offer a product like that.
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Yes it falls under property insurance under the Insurance Act in Ontario as well. I didn’t mean to imply that it would be regulated or that they would have to cover everyone and everything. More that it would become the norm that if you own a pet or an equine you have a comprehensive insurance plan. I don’t see veterinary care becoming more affordable for the average family. And I don’t necessarily believe that it should. If we want top notch care, especially diagnostics, someone has to pay for it. So it seems to me that we may be entering an era where the options for owners will be to have insurance, be independently wealthy, or euthanize if anything major comes up.
It also wouldn’t surprise me if clinics start requiring proof of insurance to become a client. And I wouldn’t blame them for it.
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I certainly hope not, I’d be out of pets for the rest of my life. Insurance is a scam and I resent that I’m mandated to waste my money on it as much as I am already. They wanted $49/month to insure my puppy, I’m not spending $600/year for that when I could save the money just as easily.
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I have zero firsthand experience with dog insurance. I briefly looked into it for my dog, did the math, and realized it was more than I spend most years on veterinary care and I’d just assume the risk.
But I have a new-to-dogs friend who swears by hers and seems to have had a positive experience. She is paying $70 a month, which includes all preventive care and emergencies. I think she pays a small copay for each visit. And she has taken her dog to the vet a number of times for “minor” emergencies (stuff like diarrhea that an experienced dog owner might choose to watch and monitor, but scared the heck out of a new dog owner). In her mind, it is completely worth it, and I can understand the appeal. Personally, I’m not shelling out $70/month for dog insurance, though. While it’s not a bad price, most years it would still be over what I spend.
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Right, and that’s great if she’s happy with it. But if it becomes a condition necessary for treatment…a lot of animals won’t be getting seen.
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We’ve got 2 senior dogs that are still going pretty strong, but when they pass I think we’re done, at least for a while anyways. Cost isn’t the main reason, but it’s part of the big picture at this point.
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