I read Dr. Peter Weinstein’s informative article “Insurance Assurance” in the October/November 2020 issue of Today’s Veterinary Business.
The article was well done, yet it did not leave me — a practicing veterinarian for over 37 years and a practice owner for over 30 years — with the assurance that pet health insurance is good for our industry. I fear that pet insurance could deal a fatal blow to many private practices.
Let’s consider the following scenario. A large corporate practice organization merges with a large nationwide pet pharmacy, and those two merge with a large national pet health insurance company. The insurance company then dictates that policyholders use the “preferred provider” corporate practice for services and the “preferred provider” pharmacy for prescriptions in order to receive benefits. Then obviously, those practices that are not a part of the large corporate giant are left out.
I feel that promoting pet health insurance is very shortsighted, and until measures are in place to prevent such a monopolization, I cannot have any assurance as to the long-term benefits of pet insurance.