[NAGDU] Ownership in Germany - for Rebecca and everyone who's interested

[Lisa Belville]

Wow, Lisa, this arrangement has the potential to be very damaging if an 
insurance company decided to assert their ownership rights.  what happens 
when your dog retires or if it becomes too sick to work?  Do they have a say 
so in what happens then?

I guess I'm glad we don't have this system here even if we don't have decent 
healthcare.  Woops, not wanting to be political, but just imagining how it 
would be if guide dogs were handled by our healthcare and insurance systems.

Lisa

Lisa Belville
missktlab1217 at frontier.com
I'm great at multi-tasking. I can waste time, be unproductive, and 
procrastinate all at once.
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Lisa via NAGDU" <nagdu at nfbnet.org>
To: "NAGDU Mailing List, the National Association of Guide Dog Users" 
<nagdu at nfbnet.org>
Cc: "Lisa" <dreamymarmot93 at yahoo.de>
Sent: Tuesday, May 23, 2017 5:39 AM
Subject: [NAGDU] Ownership in Germany - for Rebecca and everyone who's 
interested


> Hi Rebecca,
>
>
> you asked if I could explain how ownership is handled in Germany. I'll 
> try. ;-)
>
>
> Over here, a guide dog is listed as an aid to midigate a disability like a 
> wheelchair or a cane. This means health insurance pays for the dog. You 
> have to get a prescription from your eye specialist, find yourself a 
> school that suits you and then apply for cost acquision with your health 
> insurance company. In most cases, this is a long and annoying process 
> because many people get denied at first. Not because of concerns regarding 
> your ability to take care of a dog but because of the high costs a guide 
> dog brings. But anyway, after you succeeded in applying and also in 
> training with your new guide, your health insurance company becomes the 
> owner of the dog. They remain the owner until you retire your dog. Then 
> you can either keep it and become the owner yourself or find him/her a 
> home.
>
> There are only two schools in Germany that handle ownership differently. 
> They remain owner of the dog and the health insurance still pays for the 
> dog.
>
> The big difference to the US is, in my understanding, that we don't have 
> the opportunity to get ownership for our working dogs at all.
>
>
> I should also add that even though your health insurance company is the 
> owner of the dog in most cases they don't care about it much. I have to 
> send in documents that say Taylor gets vaccinated once a year, a worm 
> preventative twice a year and I have a liability insurance for him. Apart 
> from that, they aren't interested in what I'm doing with my dog.
>
>
> Lisa
>
>
>
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