Why Our Pets Have Better Health Care Than We Do
Why can’t doctors be more like vets? With medical breakthroughs quietly taking place in the field of animal medicine, it’s a question more Americans should be asking — whether or not they have pets.
Thanks to advances in veterinary medicine, pets have access to more superior medical care than humans do. Dogs that suffer from arthritis may undergo stem cell regeneration therapy, in which their own autologous (adult) stem cells are harvested from their own fatty tissue and then injected into their joints. The healing benefit is remarkable, as I have witnessed myself with two of my own dogs. Unfortunately, this particular therapy is not yet available for humans in the United States.
Meanwhile, in Florida late last year, a Yorkshire terrier underwent a routine spay procedure, but something went very wrong during the anesthesia process and the dog emerged from resuscitation with cortical blindness. Veterinarians advised the dog’s owner that euthanasia might be the kindest option in this case. Then, a quick-thinking vet at Calusa Veterinary Center in Boca Raton suggested hyperbaric oxygen therapy; with nothing to lose, the dog’s heartbroken owner consented. Thirty-five HBO2 treatments later, the dog’s blindness was reversed.
Meanwhile, hyperbaric medicine is available to human patients with one of 15 Medicare-approved conditions — but alas, cortical blindness is not one of them. Dogs, on the other hand, may receive hyperbaric treatment for a much broader range of medical conditions — about 50 — so the chamber is being used to address problems ranging from Lyme disease to pancreatitis.
Veterinarian Diane Levitan, of Peace Love Pets Veterinary Care in New York, also offers her clients hyperbaric medicine for their animals. “Hundreds of thousands of people have been helped by HBO2, and it will help innumerable animals,” Levitan says. “Most of what we vets do is a result of what’s practiced by doctors on people; experiments are performed on dogs and mice and other animals, but this is one of the few situations where that’s reversed, and we’re applying a treatment modality to animals that humans tried first. It would be great if the human medical community would embrace HBO2 more. Hyperbaric medicine is not in the forefront of people’s minds, but it would be great if it could be in the forefront of physicians’ minds. That would create more cases, so that Medicare could see evidence-based medicine — and more people could be helped.”
It doesn’t help matters that the mainstream media reports on HBO2 with the same disparagement it normally reserves for stories on adult stem cells. The MSM sensationalized HBO2 by showing the late Michael Jackson asleep in his own private hyperbaric chamber, then trivialized the treatment by citing Keanu Reeves’ use of HBO2 for insomnia. If you get your news only from the MSM, you’d be convinced that HBO2 is just another one of those dangerous, experimental treatments that smack of quackery, just like adult stem cell therapy, and should be avoided like the proverbial plague.
Years ago at an EPA conference, one of the problems identified included the slow growth of technology in the environmental methodology, but they were unprepared to comprehend the reason. By the time the technology gets approved for use, the patent time has expired so the researching company does not reap the benefits, their idea/technology has been copied. The same thing also happens in medicine – by the time the approval rolls along for the research it’s copied, so few are willing to invest in research. Veterinary treatments do not suffer such interminable time lags.
Bureaucracy costs. Regulations cost. At some point as a society we’ve got to ask if we can afford the time and money and technology they cost us. Either that or we’re all going to have to learn to bark like a dog to get good medical treatment…
I’ve often mentioned to my wife that I wished our vet would take people patients. I can have my dog in for an exam including lab tests and x-rays for under $200. It costs $100 just to go see my doctor and tell him I’m sick. Then we have $300 for x-rays, a $3-400 for lab tests. I recently had a sprained ankle, and it was $1500+ before I went to the Orthopedic surgeon who charged me another $200 to look at the x-ray and tell me everything looked good and should heal without any problems. My vet probably could have done the whole thing for less than $300.
In addition to the points made in the article, the fact that our insurance is linked to our employment, and not open to cross state lines competition, it stifles competition and no incentive to cut costs. My employer provided insurance restricts me to certain doctors & hospitals, and I have no say in which plan covers me. It’s like college education and students loans. As long as they know you will pay the asking price, and if it goes up, the student loan limits go up a like amount, there’s no incentive to be efficient.
Something you kind of have to bear in mind is that if your dog has an injury and the vet thinks he probably has a sprain, he can say “Your dog probably has a sprain.” If it turns out to have been something more, you probably won’t sue him, and if you do you probably won’t get millions of dollars as your windfall… er, judgement. Much of diagnostic medicine is necessitated by the insane tort system we have.
Another goodly chunk of change goes for processing. Human medicine requires vast labrynths of paperwork and regulations to be negotated. Much of this paperwork is required because of Medicare — even if you are not paying with Medicare, the regulations apply if the provider accepts Medicare.
And yeah, the restriction on competition across state lines is a bit crazy, but to be expected in a paradigm of control the likes of which we have now.
The average person has no idea just how much red tape and processing adds to the cost of medical care. I do medical billing. Just to add the NPI number to all claims took YEARS. Office software – clearinghouse software – all had to be changed. Now it is time for the new diagnosis code changeover – OMG.
Interesting, but doesn’t actually address the reason of its title, “Why Our Pets Get Better HealthCare Than Us.” The main reason is that veterinary health care is free market trading between veterinarian and pet owner – clients pay their own pets’ bills for their beloved pets, not the government – and usually not insurance companies. Those who do buy veterinary insurance soon discover that it is love counter-productive. The purchase eliminates owner choice, because essentially the insured pet is now owned by the insurance company, which will not pay for treatment when death is more cost effective. This is the case even though most veterinarians provide not only exams, but lab tests, surgery, hospitalization, and medicine in their fees. There are veterinary specialists, of course, but generally a general practitioner provides it all, unless a pet is referred (client choice) to a university veterinary hospital.
We really should consider all that when thinking about human medicine. We should have considered it long ago before Medicare and Medicaid began. More than anything else, all they have done is drive up the cost of medicine, and feather the bank accounts of lawyers suing the profession, not for malpractice, but for not being God. Why do so many people suppose that everything essential to the “good life”, food, housing, medical care, education, should be paid for by somebody else? Nobody, as far as I know, was turned away from life saving medical treatments prior to government takeover, and at the time it began the cost of an office call was $7.00! It jumped to $9.00 almost immediately after Medicare passed. I recall one M.D. who was asked why he didn’t raise his prices. He replied that he’d earned enough money for his needs and those of his family without it, and didn’t need more.
A bureaucrat does not succeed by accomplishing anything, but by avoiding error “on his watch”. Those who dictate the practice of medicine in the US are effectively bureaucrats. Some because they are literally bureaucrats, others behave that way because of the legion of lawyers watching over their shoulders to take advantage of the slightest error. The lawyers are, of course, empowered by juries eager to disburse wealth from the bottomless bag of money they seem to believe exists somewhere in this nation.
I would not look for things to change any time soon.
Dogs rarely sue.
It is not really about malpractice fears. There are centers where you can get stem cell treatments for arthritis in the US. Insurance will not likely pay for it however. The medical literature on this subject has not been very promising aside from anecdotal claims. Same for hyperbaric oxygen. There are certain conditions with proven benefits and those are covered by Medicare. It is no panacea, the treatment is lengthy, expensive and time consuming.
There is a place where human medicine is practiced much like veterinary medicine. It is just over the border in Mexico and there are many “alternative” treatments you can purchase there if you have the dollars.
There are plenty of quacks out there including vets. One of my dogs died from kidney failure because of one such vet who eventually lost his license. People hear “stem cell” and think that sounds great I heard about that in the news. The media love to hype every new thing although in real life it is much more complicated than that.
The placebo effect is very strong and that includes us pet owners.
When our beagle developed a severe cancer, we paid for chemotherapy (we had extra money at the time). He was part of a trial that was testing the efficacy of a specific drug and regimen. He lived 2 years longer than he was supposed to live. Hopefully, his experience benefitted the greater good.
I’m surprised that no one has mentioned that when a pet is seriously (and expensively) ill, most people have the pet euthanized. Is this the standard that we want to apply to human healthcare?
Re : Euthanized. That’s a core FEATURE of Obamacare via it’s death panels. Read it sometime. (Pelosi didn’t).
I do not intend to denigrate the practice of veterinary medicine in my post above. I have great respect for veterinarians. My daughter is a surgical vet tech. I have a nephew who is trying to get into vet school now. We have been dog, and occasional cat owners forever. It is a fact that it is tougher to get into a veterinary med school than a human one.
Just different animals and different standards of care. There are many similarities but the differences are important ones. Economics matter as do differences in physiology and available options. For example dogs do not get prosthetc hip replacements which is common treatment for advanced hip arthritis or AVN in humans. This impacts on how one would choose treatment.
Why do pets get better (and FAR cheaper) healthcare than we do?
1) 100% User Pays means that YOU are the customer and get the service that customers deserve.
2) Very little Government regulation.
3) It seems to be a far more OPEN market. If you have qualifications you can set up shop and run YOUR business on YOUR terms.