Healthy Paws | Pet Insurance Review

Following a trip to the vet's emergency room, I was presented with an invoice for services provided for our dog.I paid the invoice, and submitted a claim to healthy paws insurance the next day - easy to submit a claim - just took a photo of the invoice on my phone and emailed to the helpline. Less than an hour later I received confirmation of our coverage and a week later received a check. All very professional and quick. Also a few days later we received a follow up email asking how Sage was.

After being extremely disappointed with our other pet insurance, someone recommended us to healthy paws and we have been extremely happy with the services. They pay promptly without question.

We had a scare with our 2.5 year old Bernese Mountain Dog over the weekend. He just wasn't acting himself, nothing in particular. Took him to the vet on Friday. His physical was suspicious for a disc problem. We were immediately referred to a specialty clinic. He was seen Friday night, and stayed overnight for an MRI scan. The claim for that visit was submitted Sunday night. On Monday we got the check for the Friday night visit. Just a few minutes ago (Tuesday night), I got the email that the check for the weekend visit is in the mail. Remember this calim was submitted less than 48 hours ago. These folks are simply incredible. A couple of things differentiate them from most of the other insurance companies. Most importantly to me is that there is no annual or lifetime limit. Almost as important is that the deductible is annual, not per incident/illness. They have recently released a smart phone app. to submit a claim, you just take pictures of the invoice and exam with your phone hit send and that's it. It couldn't be easier. For our first two Berners we had different insurance, but were not impressed with the amount of reimbursement, as they worked from a fee schedule which was unrealistically low. I did a lot of research before we went with Healthy Paws and thought they were likely the best. My experience over the past three years has proven my initial opinion right. Theya re a top notch company that does exactly what they say they will do. It has never taken more than 4 days to receive the check. (admittedly part of this is due to the fact I live about 40 miles from the "mother ship")

I have had healthy paws for a few years now and haven't really had to use it so I wasn't sure how it would all work. Then my dog ruptured a disk in his spine leaving his back legs paralyzed. He spent the night in the emergency room and the next day he went into surgery. The whole thing ended up costing $5300. I still would have went through with everything even if I didn't have insurance for him but its a breath a fresh air to get that check. Also I sent the claim in and a week later I had my check in hand. They sent me a message asking how oscar was after his surgery. They really treat you like family!

In late October of this year (2014), I took my 3 year old dog into our local emergency vet when he started acting very lethargic. After having x-rays and blood work done, they found that his chest had an excessive amount of fluid in it and that the x-rays showed possible lung lobe torsion. The emergency vet told us that we needed to take our dog to a specialist as they didn’t have the facilities to take care of such a dangerous situation. I took my dog to a specialty vet hospital in San Diego that we have used many times in the past. The vets there confirmed that my dog did have lung lobe torsion and would need a left cranial lung lobectomy. At that time, it was also determined that the fluid in the chest was consistent with chylous effusion. Both of these issues left unresolved would have killed my dog within a short amount of time. His doctors felt that if they could fix the lung lobe torsion then there was a good possibility that it would also stop the chyle fluid from leaking into the chest. Two weeks later, the doctors found that the clyle fluid was actually getting worse and not better. This meant going in on the other side of his chest for another major surgery to do a thoracic duct ligation to stop the chylothorax. At the time of this review, I still am not certain if the chyle is still leaking into the chest as x-rays are pending in about one week. My dog is home and recovering very well. He has huge scars on both sides of his chest from two major surgeries. The current total cost of my dog’s medical bills from the time I took him to the emergency vet up until now is $31,477.71. Yes, over $30,000. My Healthy Paws coverage on my dog has a $250 deductible and 90% reimbursement. Each and every time that I got an invoice from the vet’s office, I took a photo of the invoice the same day and used the Healthy Paws app to submit my claim. That’s it. Take a picture of the invoice (in my case I had multiple pages) and send it off. Within 12 hours I would get an email from Healthy Paws that said they had received my claim. Within 24 hours I had another email that said that my claim had been completed. Within 6 to 7 days (not working days but actual days) I had a check in hand. They never refused to pay for even one item on any of the invoices. Without Healthy Paws, I would’ve been in debt for many, many years to come. I’ve had to take many dogs to the vet and I’ve always hated that time when someone from the front office a