Crowdfunding Cardiac Care: The Reality Behind Canine Pacemaker Campaigns

A dog needs a pacemaker, the estimate is five figures, and the family’s last lifeline is a GoFundMe link. We wanted to know what happens next when veterinary teams suggest crowdfunding as a way to cover the cost of canine pacemaker implantation and whether it truly works often enough to be responsible advice.

We sit down with cardiologist and researcher Dr. Mark Rishniw to break down what he found by mining publicly available GoFundMe campaigns for dog pacemakers. We talk about how “success” gets defined, why reaching 80% of a target can still be a huge gap, and the uncomfortable headline: only a small slice of campaigns come close, while many never reach even half of what they ask for and some raise nothing at all. We also explore a pattern that changes the timeline for decision-making, with most donations arriving early and then fading fast.

From there, we widen the lens to the rising cost of advanced veterinary procedures, the reality that some interventions now rival the price of a car, and what that means for client conversations when the choices feel like treatment or euthanasia. We also discuss where pet insurance fits, why “friends and family” may be the true engine of most fundraising, and how to set expectations without taking hope away.

If you’ve ever wondered what to tell a client considering veterinary crowdfunding, this one will give you data and language you can use. Subscribe, share this with your team, and leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen.

JAVMA article: https://doi.org/10.2460/javma.26.03.0160

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Transcript

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Why Study Crowdfunding For Pacemakers

Lisa Fortier 0:32

Welcome to Epic Award-winning Veterinary Vertex, the Avium Made Journal's podcast where we delve into behind-the-scenes look with manuscript authors. I'm editor-in-chief Lisa Fortier, joined by associate editor Sarah Wright. Today we're discussing a very interesting and cool topic: how crowdfunding campaigns for canine pacemaker implantation costs very infrequently meet fundraising targets with repeat guests and my friend and Cornell colleague Mark Richard. Thank you for joining us, Mark.

Mark Rishniw 1:01

Hi, thank you for having me.

Lisa Fortier 1:02

Mark, I'll start us off here.

Mark Rishniw 1:17

Interesting question. And um, it all started because one of my colleagues on a platform that I consult on, um, Veterinary Information Network, uh, was commonly recommending people look to pacemake to crowdfunding for expensive cardiac procedures, pacemaker implantation, PDA occlusion, things like that. And I just wanted to know how likely it would be if somebody does this that they could in fact raise funds that would be considered hopefully sufficient to cover the costs or a substantial portion. Otherwise, we're telling people to go look for things that really don't exist. And so that's that's how it all started. So rather than just saying, yeah, go do crowdfunding, it works. And using a single case example, I wanted to look at it like just how successful is it.

Sarah Wright 2:07

Why is pacemaker implantation a particularly interesting procedure to study in the context of veterinary crowdfunding?

Speaker 1 2:14

Pacemaker implantation over the last 25-30 years has uh increased its costs considerably. Where, you know, when I was doing them back in the early 2000s, it was somewhere in the order of about three to four thousand dollars. Now it's um in a lot of places over $10,000. And that becomes, for a lot of people, uh just an untenable amount of money to spend on a procedure that might extend in most cases an animal, the pet's life by three or four years. So it was a high financial burden procedure. And it's not the only one. I'm just using it because I know about it. But I'm sure there are a lot of other equally costly procedures now that are performed in tertiary care that would be similarly priced and uh would encounter the same sort of issues where it becomes essentially a, you know, a luxury item.

Lisa Fortier 3:14

Yeah, it's a good point. Costa care is, especially for those, like you said, those niche sort of procedures. Uh I know you're a very data-driven, evidence-based

How The GoFundMe Data Were Built

Lisa Fortier 3:23

person. How did you identify and evaluate crowdfunding campaigns? And importantly, what metrics did you use to define success?

Mark Rishniw 3:31

Yeah, so um, there's been a few papers uh in the human field looking at similar things where the crowdfunding can help off or defray costs for people with either expensive procedures or chronic lifelong conditions like diabetes, where insulin costs now are expensive. So, and they used metrics of success being meeting at least 100% of the target ask amount, essentially. So if you're asking for $2,000, how often did you make that $2,000 target? Um the data that I used were based exclusively on one single platform, which is called GoFundMe. Um, and that's because when I looked at it, I suddenly realized that yes, I could actually pull data from there. One case by case, if I did a search for pacemaker and dog, I could find cases of dogs where people had uh requested funding for pacemaker implantation. And their data go back, um, well, as far as I could find, go back to almost the inception of the platform, which is somewhere in the uh early 210s. So um I think the earliest case I found was 2014 or something like that. Um, so I could then search those, collect them, identify the ones that were truly asking for canine pacemaker uh cost defrayment, um, and uh just analyze those as as best I could with what was publicly available on the platform.

Lisa Fortier 5:01

Yeah, it's interesting. I didn't you could mine data off of GoFundMe.

Mark Rishniw 5:06

Yeah, uh it takes a while. It's not an easy thing to do. Uh you know, you have to go case by case and open each one up and copy and paste data in. So it took a a couple of days to do, but there were only about 90 cases that I identified. So it wasn't too bad. Certainly if there were thousands, I'd be struggling. As far as the metrics that I used for success, I was a little more lenient than the human papers. And I said, well, if you get 80% of the way there, then you probably can scrounge up the other 20%, even though on a $10,000 bill, that's still $2,000, right? So it's still a big ask for a lot of people. But it's at least putting it into the manageable category.

Success Rates And Why Most Fail

Sarah Wright 5:46

Mark, what were the most notable findings regarding the overall success rate of crowdfunding campaigns for canine pacemaker implantation?

Mark Rishniw 5:54

Um I found that about 10 to 15% or something in that order, maybe closer to 20 to 20%, actually did manage to meet the success metric that I'd imposed. And it's an arbitrary metric. Somebody could say, well, that's too high. Um 50% or so of campaigns failed to make 50% of their target. So half of them didn't even reach half of the amount they were asking for. And then about another 10 to 20% failed to raise any money whatsoever. Um, so I couldn't look at what drives a successful campaign, what factors influence a successful versus unsuccessful campaign because those data just aren't available. But um, it's clear that half of the people who are asking aren't getting the money that they want, and they're still falling substantially short of their target amount.

Lisa Fortier 6:48

Yeah, that's unfortunate, but a very good thing for people to know. Uh, were there other results that surprised you?

Mark Rishniw 6:54

I don't know that there were so the one thing I couldn't do is to say of the people who did raise some amount of money, how often did they actually successfully get their animal treated, their dog uh pacemaker implanted? That would be the ultimate measure of success, right? Even if you raised $2,000 and it was a $10,000 procedure, but you still got it done, some people could argue, well, that's still success. You know, you you you still got the the job done, even though you know at a slightly reduced cost. Um the we also found that just ever so slightly, the the less money you ask for, the more likely you are to make your goal. It's not a big effect, but there was some effect of that. Um and then the other thing that I looked at was just as a measure of um pacemaker costs in general, um, so that I could have a fairly accurate idea of what pacemaker implantation costs are. I did a survey of cardiologists around the world and found that you know the US um was in amongst the most expensive uh procedure costs. Um, Europe was tended to be cheaper. Um, and certain parts of Europe were the most cheap. So you could get it done for under $5,000 in parts of Europe. There was one practice in the states that charged, they claimed $3,500 a pacemaker, which is ridiculously low compared to everybody else. They're an outlier. Um, but if that's if their data are true, then that's you know nice to know that you can do it for that price, although presumably it's being subsidized. Um the other I wasn't super surprised by what I found, other than um that a substantial portion failed to make any real indent into their fundraising campaign and came up with zero dollars. And I don't know what it is that would drive somebody to give or not. Um one other thing that I noticed was that, and it's very difficult to actually analyze because the data aren't really clear, but it seemed like the last gift that was recorded where gifts are visible, you know, publicly visible, um, would happen somewhere within a few months of the campaign going live. So you're basically gonna get, and it's the sort of pareto rule, you know, 80% of your gifts in the first 20% of the time the campaign's up there. And you can leave it up indefinitely and it won't make any more money because people who are gonna give you money do it early. Um, and so if you're not making money within the first six months or so, you're probably not gonna make your target.

Donation Timing And The Early Surge

Sarah Wright 9:53

This is super interesting. I think the next topic that you should look at if you have the time and bandwidth to do so is sub-procedures in cats. I'd be interested to see what the data says. And our listeners know why I'm thinking that.

Mark Rishniw 10:07

And it would be, um, as long as you knew which cat procedures are, you know, likely to incur substantial cost to clients. Um, and I'm not, you know, but even to today, even hospitalization for any emergency procedure is probably going to set you back several thousand.

Lisa Fortier 10:24

Right.

Mark Rishniw 10:24

And so um, and and even that for a lot of people is still an untenable cost. Um, and it's a decision between treating, you know, and euthanizing. Um, so I wouldn't be surprised if we found identical findings that crowdfunding just doesn't seem to work very well as a way to offset the income. One of the metrics, or there was there was a a discussion that started after the paper was published. Uh, there was a letter to the editor that I just responded to, where the author of the letter had claimed, well, you can't really say that those were unsuccessful because you know, even 50% of the income might be enough to get you over that hurdle. And so I did a a reanalysis under the premise that if you're asking for somewhere in the order of seven or eight thousand dollars or more, and you're based in the United States, then you're essentially asking for the entire cost of the procedure to be covered, which means that you probably don't have 50% of that money already put aside. And so anything less than meeting the full amount would likely result in being a failure. It's a it's a it's a it's an assumption, but I think it's reasonably valid. If you're asking for $2,000 on a $10,000 procedure, it's not a huge ask. Um, if you're asking for the full amount, then it's probably because you need the full amount to get it done. And at least 50% of those uh cases failed to raise 50% of the funding. And so, you know, it even and and only a very small number managed to raise uh, you know, close to the full amount. So my my argument would be that no, it's it's uh uh success is the metric that we use for success or that I used, and the ones that the human fields used in their studies are probably reasonable. That people only ask for what they need, not what they hope to

What Vets Should Tell Clients

Mark Rishniw 12:33

get.

Sarah Wright 12:33

How can veterinarians use these findings when discussing treatment costs and crowdfunding expectations with clients?

Mark Rishniw 12:40

It's worth having the discussion with a client with it that is faced with a elected, and it's not always necessarily an elective procedure, but with an expensive procedure, that this is an avenue they can pursue, but it's unlikely to um be successful, or it's most likely to raise um you know, less than 50% of the amount that you really need or you're asking for. The one thing they did look at in humans, and I couldn't look at this in the in in my study, is that a lot of the money in the human studies that people got from crowdfunding sources came from friends and family. So in that case, you may as well just ask your friends and family, can you, you know, front me a a a few thousand dollars and not go to a public forum to get it done. And so I don't know what the situation is in veterinary medicine and how often some complete stranger makes a huge, generous gift to you um, versus somebody that you knew uh is asking you, can you, you know, help pay for Fluffy's pacemaker? So it would be interesting to know.

Lisa Fortier 13:52

Yeah, I've definitely contributed to GoFundMe, and it's exactly as you say. It's they're either barn friends or family friends or family, but I wouldn't fund Fluffy's pacemaker if I've never done Fluffy or any relationship.

Mark Rishniw 14:04

Exactly. And and I think some of the other um crowdfunding sources for business startups are a little different, but I think these are um largely friends and family who are making gifts.

The Bigger Problem Of Advanced Care Costs

Lisa Fortier 14:17

Yeah, I think some of the listeners, Mark, might be focused on how much is a pacemaker. Uh and and and the whole concept, which is uh everywhere in our all of our discussions of the concerns about the costs of advanced veterinary care. And so what what are the what do your results suggest about the challenges of advanced uh financing all these advanced cases that we or the advanced procedures that we can do now?

Mark Rishniw 14:43

Yeah, I think it's uh you know, a lot of the cardiac interventional procedures now um, you know, are coming up to the price of a car. So a valve repair or something like that on a dog, you're looking at between $15,000 and $40,000, depending on which type of repair and where you get it done. Um it's it becomes, you know, a unaffordable for the for I would say probably 80 or 90 percent of the public out there. Um, it becomes an elective exclusive procedure. Um it's a shame. And there's nothing that I can do to mitigate those costs. I don't know how veterinarians can address those costs. Um we don't have other than pet insurance, which probably would cover at least some of this, um, because it wouldn't be denied in most cases under pet insurance. Um, we don't have a third payer uh third-party payer option for the most uh pets. And so I think you know it becomes a very tough decision. And we see this every day that varonines will tell me the client can't afford this, we're gonna have to put the animal down when the time comes. And it's something that could be potentially either mit resolved or even cured with something like a uh PDA occlusion, which is a congenital cardiac defect that's easily repaired. Um, and that dog is gonna have a normal life once you get it done, but you've got to front up a substantial, you know, chunk of money to get that to that point. And so um, yeah, it's it becomes, you know, unfortunately something for the rich and famous.

Lisa Fortier 16:25

Yeah, and I think a lot of people too are like, oh, vet care is so expensive, but we're talking heart surgery.

Mark Rishniw 16:31

Yeah. And it's not a super difficult procedure. There are costs, obviously, uh, and I haven't been involved in it for quite a while, so I don't know where the how the costs are um divided up between facility costs and equipment costs and professional fees and everything else. Um, when I had uh cataract surgery myself, I know that the vast majority of the cost were theater fees and facility fees. It had nothing to do with the ophthalmologist or the lenses that were put in or anything else. It was walking into through the front door of that clinic was where the cost came. And I don't know whether our now we have facilities such as this that are charging similar sorts of prices.

One Takeaway And Closing Notes

Sarah Wright 17:14

Mark, you shared a lot of really great information today that's really going to help, I think, our listeners and also our veterinary teams. If you could narrow it down, what is one key message you hope veterinarians and pet owners will take away from this study?

Mark Rishniw 17:26

I think that to me it's you know, have a chat about it. Don't discount it as a possibility, don't expect for it to work. It's a low, there's a low cost of entry. But, you know, the and the award could be substantial, but in all probability it's not going to be.

Lisa Fortier 17:43

Nice and succinct. Mark, thanks so much for joining us again.

Mark Rishniw 17:48

You're welcome. Thank you for having me.

Lisa Fortier 17:50

For listeners and viewers, you can read Mark's article in Javma. I'm Lisa Fortier with Sarah Wright. Be sure to tune in next week for another episode of Veterinary Vertex. And don't forget to leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen.