It’s been a rough year. Rough couple of years, actually. My girlfriend and I are both out of work – I’ve been laid off since July, she’s been out of work for slightly longer.
Last January we purchased health insurance for both of our cats through Pumpkin Pet insurance, and a few months later, Sidhe – our twelve year old calico – was diagnosed with early-stage kidney disease. This was, initially, covered, which is a good thing because lab visits, testing, and renal food are expensive. With proper care, she can live a happy and comfortable life for five or six more years.
In September she developed what turned out to be a painful ear-ache, though at the time all we knew was that she wasn’t eating as much – due to the pain. The vet considered that it might be a dental or neurological issue, but treated her for an infection – and it worked. Given that Pumpkin wouldn’t cover dental due to a pre-existing issue, we submitted a request that the review our denied claims under the new understanding that it wasn’t actually related to her earlier tooth-pain.
They did, but on further review suddenly decided that her kidney issues – discovered in May and absolutely not present in her prior year check-up before we took coverage on her – were pre-existing and declared they would no longer be covering her treatments.
It’s hard not to view this as punitive, in which they added new circumstances and invented easily disprovable elements with the creativity and ethical qualms of generative AI.
We appealed again, and were denied. Our vet backed us and reached out to Pumpkin for a vet-to-vet consult to assert that the kidney issues were not pre-existing; Pumpkin refused this.
So, now we have an un-insurable but very cute calico with expensive medical needs. We can’t go elsewhere for coverage – because then her kidney issue really would be pre-existing. We’re both unemployed, living on savings, and have other human-related medical expenses to cover as well.
So we’re turning to GoFundMe. If you can help us cover vet costs while we try and find work, we’d be eternally grateful. If not, sharing the campaign would also be very helpful.
Either way, thank you.