Does Pet Insurance Cover MRI Scans?

An MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) provides images of the body’s tissues and helps veterinarians evaluate your dog’s nervous and musculoskeletal systems. MRIs are best suited for imaging soft tissues, like the brain, muscles, ligaments, tendons, spinal cord, and intervertebral discs.

MRIs can detect abnormalities missed on a CT (computerized tomography) scan or another diagnostic test. An MRI also allows imaging from all three planes of the body (top to bottom, left to right, and front to back) without moving the patient.

The patient needs to be still during an MRI, so dogs are placed under general anesthesia. Before administering anesthesia, blood samples may be taken to evaluate red and white blood cell counts, electrolyte levels, and liver and kidney function. This can help assess any concerns with placing your dog under anesthesia. After your dog is safely under anesthesia, the MRI takes between 45 minutes and two hours.

Pet insurance covers MRI scans for procedures of eligible accidents and illnesses. Eligible accidents and illnesses include conditions that weren’t diagnosed or presented before the pet insurance policy’s effective date and applicable waiting periods.

MRI scans are excluded from coverage by pet insurance companies if the need is associated with a pre-existing condition or an excluded accident or illness.

For example, let’s say your dog was diagnosed with a seizure condition before you enrolled her in pet insurance. A few months after you purchased pet insurance, she needed an MRI to do further diagnosistic analysis or treatments for her seizures. In this instance, the MRI would be ineligible for coverage because it’s associated with a pre-existing seizure condition.