Insurance - direct payment to vets admin charge - anyone else had this?

[MarkB]

I took Kasper to the vets on Friday for his booster. I had worked out a rough total that they would ask for, which included the £85 excess on Ingrid's surgery a couple of weeks back. (+ a 3 packs of small cat Advocate and a 6 pack of large cat Advocate)

When I paid, the receptionist told me it came to £210. I paid and didn't even glance at the total on the card machine. She also gave me a statement. When I got home, I looked at it and I had been charged £226 - not a huge difference, but I thought I could have sworn she said £210-something. Iooked through the itemised list on the statement and one of the items was 'deferred payment plan admin charge - £16.50' - bearing in mind that Ingrid's op was only a couple of weeks ago and the total was about £250, if you look at the £16.50 as an interest payment, they are charging Wonga rates!!!!

Has anyone else had this? - One of the many reasons I went with Petplan is that a couple of years ago, the practice manager told me that they only did direct payment with Petplan and it saved people from having to fork out large amounts - they did the work and you just had to pay the excess, once Petplan had settled with them.

I don't remember paying an admin charge a couple of months back for Kylie's treatment - which was a lot more money and over a much longer period.

[alanc]

My vets make an extra charge if they have to claim direct from the insurance company. The large Vet hospital in Solihull where I had to take Tilly for her leg repairs about 3 years ago also made a charge if they had to claim direct. I don't recall how much it was as in every time I have needed to claim I have paid the bill and claimed back from Petplan myself. My vets are happy enough to fill in the form setting out what the treatment was, what it cost and send it off - they don't charge for that!

[meriad]

Same as with Alan C my vet charges if they have to claim directly from the insurance vs you paying upfront and claiming yourself - I saw a notice quite some time back saying it was £6 at the time but as said that was a while ago so I suspect it's gone up a bit.

They don't - as far as I am aware - charge for filing in their bit of the claim form and sending it off

But £16.50 seems quite extortionate if that's what they are charging for the direct insurance claim. I'm also interested why they refer to it as a deferred payment plan? Or am I misunderstanding?

[MarkB]

They called it deferred payment plan admin fee. So if they file the claim anyway, all I had to do was pay at the time and have Petplan send me the money. I had another look and Ingrid's op was £210 - so they only claimed £125 from them. So I paid £16.60 for £125 over 2 weeks! - I will ask them an another time (hopefully there won't be one fora long time) I may as well just pay at the time - the only reason I didn't was because they said they do direct claims. Lesson learned.