What's bumming your stone today?

[DanaC]

Because hydrotherapy is classed as a 'complementary treatment', Carrot's insurance only covers up to 12 sessions across his lifetime.

We reached that limit about 6 weeks ago. I've been in contact with them, emails and phonecalls to try and negotiate more. For many dogs hydrotherapy is a complementary therapy designed to run alongside their medication and other therapies, particularly if they're suffering from arthritis: it provides impact-free exercise.

The thing that is annoying me is that for hip dysplasia dogs like Carrot, the hydrotherapy isn't a complementary therapy. It is the primary treatment for early diagnosed dysplasia. It is what retrains their foot movement and builds muscles. It is the best intervention available for this condition.

Anyways: finally got an answer yesterday. There's nothing can be done because of the way their policies are worded with the underwriter.

On the upside, they have passed my emails and those from my vet to the team that looks at this sort of thing, and hopefully sometime in the fture they may reword to take account of this relatively new (only really been used as a first response for about the last 10-15 years) use of hydro therapy as a primary treatment for dysplasia.

Isn't going to affect me, because my policy wouldn;t be affected, only new policies. But, at least there's a chance this anomaly will be ironed out for others.

Annoying though. It's the only thing they can actually do for him that treats the underlying condition.

And the thing with insurance is...they have a captive customer the moment you have to use them. From the moment I walked into that vet's surgery and said, 'I'm concerned there my be something going on with his back legs', I was effectively tied into this insurer for the rest of Carrot's life.

Ah well. They're probably all following the same script on hydro therapy anyway.