What you can expect to pay:
| Invertebral disk disease | $2,844 | Foreign body injestion (small intestine) | $1,629 |
| Lung cancer | $2,032 | Urinary tract reconstruction | $1,399 |
| Gasric torsion | $1,955 | Foreign body ingestion (stomach) | $1,391 |
| Rectal cancer | $1,011 | Cruciate rupture | $1,517 |
| Bladder stones | $989 | Intestinal cancer | $942 |
| Cataract (senior) | $1,244 | Hyperthyroidism | $920 |
| Bone cancer | $1,059 | Fibrosarcoma (skin cancer) | $780 |
| Pin in broken limb | $1,000 | Acute renal failure | $565 |
| Brain cancer | $916 | Mast cell tumors | $497 |
Credit: MSN Money, Jan. 2010
MSN Money Online has this to say in a recent article:
The Cost of Your Pet’s Health
“New treatments and monstrous bills:
What’s changed in recent years is the state of veterinary science, as well as the economics of running a veterinary practice. Vets today can offer treatments that were unheard of just a few years ago — and at prices that could make you howl.
Consider:
• Treatments once reserved for humans, from radiation therapy to kidney transplants, are now available for pets. That means once-fatal conditions are now treatable at costs ranging from $1,000 to more than $5,000.
• Vets have access to increasingly sophisticated and costly diagnostic tools, such as MRIs. Such screenings not only boost the cost of exams but often detect problems that once would have gone unnoticed and untreated.
These expensive tools and procedures have helped create health care inflation in the pet doctor world.”
The Wall St. Journal Online says approximately the same thing:
“The cost of medical care for pets is rising as fast as it is for humans, and that’s helping to spur sales of pet insurance. Pet owners are able to choose from a rapidly growing array of policies, featuring everything from high-deductible designs to coverage of alternative-medicine treatments like acupuncture.”
(Wall St. Journal Online, 2010)
This great advancement in vet care, and the burden it can be financially for pet owners, has spawned the lively, growing industry of pet insurance. Pet insurance fills a valuable need because it can save your pet’s life and save you thousands of dollars.
No longer is pet insurance a frill or after thought of responsible pet ownership. Today it is almost a necessity.
