From Warren Eckstein - Struggling With Vet Bills?
Jul-11-2012

Even before the economy took a nose dive in 2008, our rescue was getting requests for help from guinea pig owners blindsided by vet bills for illnesses and unplanned surgeries. Our friends in other rescues for dogs, cats, birds, bunnies, ferrets, chinchillas, and reptiles tell us that they similarly can't go a month without getting at least one request for help from a pet owner overwhelmed by an existing vet bill, or emotionally strung out because they have a pet that needs surgery but they just don't have the money to pay.
The requests for help fall into one of the following buckets:
 a straight handout that doesn't have to be paid back
 a loan that will be paid back over a period of time
 the chance to let them run their pets through the rescue's often-discounted account with a local veterinary hospital
 surrender the ailing pet so that the rescue can foot the bill, handle the medical care (e.g., antibiotics, wound care, post-operative care), and rehome the animal (or pay to have the animal put down if the problem reveals itself to be incurable)
Cash-strapped rescues rarely (or never) have extra funds to loan or grant to pet owners, and few will jeopardize their own relationships with vets in order to falsely funnel someone else's pet into surgery under whatever discount the vet has extended to the rescue. Some may have special arrangements with vets that allows them to provide "compassionate interventions," but they're more likely the exception than the norm.
It breaks our hearts to have to tell an owner whose guinea pig, say, has bladder stones that we can't help them financially, knowing that the animal may well die because the owner can't afford the surgery bill and the vet, for whatever reason, refuses to work out a payment plan. The best we can do is offer the suggestions we know about, and pray that one of them will pan out.

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Posted by Ken at 6:49 PM - Link to this entry  |  Share this entry  |  Print