I just got back from a visit and planning session at the PurinaCare Pet Health Insurance World Headquarters in San Antonio TX. As usual it was an informative event where our CEO gave us our marching orders for 2009.

I'm in charge of our marketing programs for Veterinarians. In addition, I get to do speaking engagements at veterinary conferences and meetings around the country. The good news is that I should have lots of frequent flier miles. The bad news is that I should have lots of frequent flier miles. Am I the only one that would prefer to drive a thousand miles over the same two and a half hour flight?

As part of my speaking duties I have to get advanced training on pet insurance underwriting from our Chief Medical Officer, Dr Bill Craig. Dr Craig is one of the smartest guys I know, second only in intelligence to our CEO; Dr David Goodnight, which is really amazing considering that they both went to Texas A&M.

This training will be really valuable and I should be able to answer most questions on the fly. Even though we've made Purina Care as simple as we could, I still run into things on the legal/ regulatory side that I have to ask Bill about.

For instance, last week I did a post on stem cell therapy over at the pet blog Scratchings and Sniffings. You can read about it here, but I did learn a few things from an insurance perspective.after talking it over with Dr Craig.

First of all, I learned that it is not an inexpensive proposition. The nice thing about it is that it is less invasive than surgery and may offer good results using the bodies own ability to heal itself. Given all the surgery I've had over the years from bicycle racing and the amount of recovery time on crutches or in casts and the physical therapy afterward, the thought of an injection of my own cells into a painful joint as opposed to more time under the knife, sounds plausible. 

And it may be a great alternative for dogs and cats too but it probably won't save much money over surgery.

My question for Bill was how would PurinaCare cover the procedure? His answer was that it would be covered pretty much like any other medical procedure. The main caveat is always whether it falls under the pre-existing condition exclusion. Pre-existing conditions are of course not covered by PurinaCare, which is not really difficult to understand.

I like to think about it this way. If I don't have insurance on my car and I have an accident, I'm not going to be able to go get if after the crash. Same with dogs and cats.

However if your dog or cat was insured before the condition first appeared and was subsequently diagnosed you would be eligible for coverage under PurinaCare after the deductible and co-pay had been met. 

In the case of stem cell therapy there is usually a long lag time between the original injury and this course of treatment. But, if you had insured your dog as a puppy before any arthritis or lameness had developed, and your veterinarian suggested stem cell therapy as an alternative and you had kept your policy in effect, you'd be covered under the PurinaCare policy.

Just another reason to insure early before some chronic condition develops.