<p>My neighbors daughter has leukemia and a service in our area offers a visit from a nurse with her therapy dog. The nurse is retired and doesn’t do any medical care but she offers emotional support and helps the child relax and have fun. The dog helps the child chill out and she feels better after the visit. The nurse charges an hourly fee but it is not covered by insurance. It should be!!</p>
<p>There seems to be such value to this service. It sure is a shame insurance companies don’t help pay for it. I guess that means that only people who can afford this get to take advantage of it.</p>
<p>But to be fair, a lot of things are of value, but not everybody values them enough to pay for them with their premiums. I hope she goes into remission.</p>
<p>I know quite a few people who enjoy visiting with their therapy dogs. It’s fun for the dogs, fun for the handler, and fun for the people being visited. I don’t know any of them who want to be paid!</p>
<p>Is a therapy dog different than a well behaved social dog that likes people and children? The reason I ask is it might be possible to find such a person with such a dog who would volunteer to visit the child. I know of programs here and elsewhere that involve people and their pets visiting seniors in long term care facilities. Everyone in these program benefits and it doesn’t cost anyone anything. You might try googling to see if you can find such a volunteer service in your area. I hope your neighbor recovers!</p>
<p>I wonder if the lady with the therapy animals that comes to one of our local nursing homes is being paid. I assumed she was a volunteer who wanted something to do with her time and her pets.</p>
<p>I thought most of these kinds of visits were voluntary as well. I sure wouldn’t feel right to charge an ill kid to play with my dog. Even if the person charges for the visit it doesn’t seem that the charge should be very high since all she’s doing is being there with a dog - probably not enough to get past any insurance co-pay or deductible even if it was covered. I think your neighbor should look into similar programs that are volunteer based if any exist in her area or maybe even find a friend of similar age with a friendly dog who can visit a lot. The family could also maybe get a friendly dog themselves.</p>
<p>Is this service being provided in a facility, or at the child’s home? That could make a difference… just saying it could do to liability.</p>
<p>At the hospice agency I used to work for, we offered pet therapy, but it was always provided by volunteers with pets who had passed the therapy certification, which is pretty stringent, for good reason. We also offered other modalities of care, including massage therapy, music therapy, reiki, and art therapy. Those were provided by paid licensed or certified staff members, but since neither Medicare or insurance will cover these, the costs of employing these staff members was covered under the Foundation’s arm so that we could offer these services to our patients and/or families. But we never charged either insurance or the patient/family.</p>
<p>I suggest you contact your local Visiting Nurse Association. My cousin and her therapy dog volunteer with our local VNA. They do a world of good, and hopefully they can help your neighbor.</p>
<p>Speaking as a non-dog lover, I would freak out if someone brought a therapy dog to me. My family has two dogs because I want my kids not to hate them as much as I do but I avoid them. When I’m home alone, I am either locked in my room or they are in their cages.</p>
<p>That said, if a therapy dog is something that this child would benefit from, maybe a fundraiser could be held to cover the costs of some visits with the nurse.</p>
<p>Respectfully, I’m sure as a physician you must be aware this is not how it works. I don’t value Viagra enough to pay for it with my premiums but Anthem doesn’t give me a vote. I don’t know what the evidence base is for therapy animal treatment (there is evidence but I am not sure what level and whether this is a palliative situation or not); insurance companies have a long history of resisting coverage of new treatments, and the evidence has to be in place to force it, not popular vote.</p>
<p>I just read an article about therapy dogs and cancer patients:</p>
<p>“We have had people who have said, ‘I would have stopped treatment if I didn’t know the dog was coming,’” says Stewart Fleishman, MD, the study’s lead investigator and founding director of cancer supportive services at Continuum Cancer Centers of New York.”</p>
<p>Another vote to look around for volunteers with therapy dogs. They may not be medical professionals, but the dogs will be certified. I know someone who does this and it’s 100% volunteer.</p>
<p>Same here, dmd. I know several, too, and none of them is paid. I also have several friends who have well-behaved dogs who make regular visits to the local hospital and nursing homes. All on a volunteer basis.</p>
<p>I have done a little research on this, beginning from how a therapy pet might be affected by housing laws. In my search, I found many sources that consider almost all pets very beneficial to mental health, particulary the stress and calm aspects. Those commonly called therapy pets were no exception.
My studies mostly focused on the difference between them and service animals, but I sure came across many benefits for the pets. I won’t burden this thread with the difference legally that I turned up unless someone asks, but I will say there sure does seem to be a value to pets, though I’m not sure insurance is the proper way to fund them.</p>
<p>I have an 8 month old Borador (Border collie x Lab) and he is starting Therapy dog training this summer. They want them to be past the real puppy stages and to be well obedience trained first. I know of about 20 people here that have therapy dogs that go to the hospitals, private homes, seniors facilities and it is all volunteer. I am doing it because I plan to retire in the next 2 years and will be spending as much time as possible bringing my dog to offer comfort. there is an organization here that actually schedules the dogs to go around so that the sick get different dogs but if they find something special with one dog it can be arranged for them to be the permanent therapy dog. I am sooooo looking forward to this activity, I know how much comfort they can bring just when you have the flu let alone a major illness. I just did some pre-work with my dog because we have a neighbour who was bed ridden over the holidays because of an accident and either myself, wife or D (home from college) would go over with our dog everyday, the dog would climb up on the bed (not jump) and would just snuggle with them and let them pet him.
I can understand the liability issues but a well trained and certified dog and handler should not be problem. I would never dream of charging for this, once you see the look on the patients face (especially children and the elderly) you have been paid in spades.</p>
<p>My cousin-in-law has a miniture horse that is a certified therapy animal. She often visits nursing homes with him! He has seasonal outfits - pajamas or just headpieces that he typically wears.</p>
<p>I looked into getting our very sweet Westie certified as a therapy dog, because I plan to do some hospital volunteer work and thought it would be great (for me, the patients and the dog) to bring her along. Unfortunately, I don’t think my dog would pass the test. Apparently they require the dog to follow commands such as “come”, “stay”, and “heel”… and that is just not going to fly. She only responds to “squirrel” and… “roast beef” :D</p>
<p>NJres---- I love your post. It makes me think of the last dog we had, a cocker spaniel that thought she was human. But thats OK because since we got this Borador we realize that I think our last one was part human, never in 14 years did she play with a dog toy. All she wanted was to cuddle and sit on the couch with us. This one goes through a toy a week and is a going concern. He listens very well though to commands and can be very focused to the point that he tries to think of what I will say next. When I tell him sit you can see him thinking about what is coming next and tries anticipate the next command.
I dont know what I would do without a dog though.</p>