Not sure if this is the right area.

Anyway, my dog was diagnosed with "medium" luxating patella when she was seven months old. She's now ten months old & the symptoms are the same if not a touch worse. I left it at the time in favour of seeing if it sorts itself out, it was only a recommendation that surgery was required & I had heard of many dogs so young growing out of it. Clearly, this hasn't been the case & I would like to have this surgery done.

Now, I'm a student. I have no money to speak of, I don't have thousands or even hundreds in my account (this includes my overdraft limits) to pay for the surgery however temporary. I do have insurance & I can afford the first £50, like required.

My question is, is it common for vets to turn this down to pay outright? I know some like to have it paid for first.. but I really cannot nor can see myself ever affording such things however temporary it may be as I do not have access to money like this whatsoever. Is it just me who sees this as a HUGE flaw with the concept of having pet insurance? If I could afford to pay temporarily for the fees, I could probably afford it full stop.  I'm a bit worried about this now that I am in a situation to see it as a problem, I will be phoning my own surgery to ask them directly but just wondered what other people have experienced & what to expect.

Messyhearts - I do sympathise.  I have insurance but have little leeway between income/outgoings.  I now have a credit card just for vet fees, so I can pay and the insurance has always come through quickly, but that has not always been the case, and it was a real struggle.  Sometimes, I paid a certain amount and the vet then claimed directly (although vets tend to allow this with some insurance companies, but not others).  I would speak to the surgery - hopefully they will be sympathetic.

Our vet charges £16 to the owner if they want the insurance company to pay the vet direct, and of course the excess has to be paid when the bill is written. They used to do this for free but found that some insurance companies take a long time to settle a claim so have now introduced a blanket charge if you wish direct payment to the vet.

our vets let us pay the excess then claim the rest, when we saw a specialist for a cruciate they wouldn't except the insurance and we had to pay by credit card and they claim ourselves. your maybe better of asking them where you stand.

Thanks everyone. I called them this morning & the receptionist was very helpful. She said that they accept payments directly from the insurance companies & recommended that I did everything for her leg within the year. I'm going to have another apointment to check up on her leg to see what they say within a week or two.

I was at the vet the other week about fixing a luxating patella and asked the vet how much it would be.  he told me that he could do one of two ops and both cost approximately £350 so not totally extortionate.

£350?? Really? I thought it would be over £1000! I had forgot to ask that exact question.

I was surprised too as I thought it would be a lot more expensive

I paid more than that in 1993, so I am gobsmacked!