baby delivery costs??

[BadgerGirl84]

$8000 seems like a lot of money to me--I hope you can find a way to get that cost down!

With DH's insurance, I didn't pay anything for my prenatal visits or my delivery at the hospital. Nothing. We were so grateful for that. The only thing I payed OOP for was my doula (like a birth coach) to help me with my natural medication-free delivery. We paid her $500 but it was well worth it to me because I was successful in my plan to have a medication-free birth. If we had to pay $8000 to the hospital, there is no way I could have been able to afford the doula.

Good luck to you, OP.

 

[StitchesGr8Fan]

OP, since your life circumstance is changing, you and your husband need to reevaluate you health insurance. When your company has open enrollment, look at all the plans they offer and find the one that works best for you and your plan to start a family. Your health priorities change over the years, so everyone should do this. There was a time when DS had severe asthma, so we went with a plan that would cover ER visits. Now that DH and I are getting *ahem* older, we get a plan that covers specialist visits (dermatologist and such) Find one that covers maternity 100%. You may pay more each month, but it would beat the $8000 or more they are quoting you now.

That is excellent advice, and exactly what we did when we were planning to have a baby. However, open enrollment is over for most people and the plan they have now is the plan they will have for the year.

 

[averysmom]

We paid about $8,000 12 years ago (no drugs, in hospital with nurse midwife, no complications). Our insurance decided not to cover most of it and is still in a class action lawsuit because they did the same thing to many people. All I remember was my husband being told that I was not authorized to give birth as the hospital was admitting me in labor This was after they covered nine months of prenatal care. I have read more and more articles telling people to shop around for any medical procedures. Costs can vary so widely even in the same city. So when shopping for a doctor or midwife also check into where you will be giving birth and the costs involved. Or do what my in-laws did. Drive to Canada. (yes they really did)

It would probably be cheaper...(since our medical costs are cheaper) But it certainly wouldn't be free. Non-citizens pay in full.

 

[SandyinMonterey]

Is the $8000 you out of pocket or "basic" hospital costs? At my local hospital, it's about $20.000 to have a baby at the hospital. Yes, $20,000. I live in California. A friend of mine whose mother works in the billing department in a hospital in Ohio said they charge $4000 to $6000. With our insurance, we have to reach $10,000 out of pocket before they start to pay. My daughter was premature, very premature...born at 28 weeks and weight 1 lb. 7 oz. Born at my local hospital but flown to UCSF NICU. I was working full time at the time and had my own insurance thru work and my husband had his policy thru his job. I had my daughter put on my insurance and my husbands. One just has to be your primary and the other secondary. Mine was primary. I must say for the most part, my husband's insurance didn't "kick in" that often. I think because in my case the bills added up so quickly. Just the flight to UCSF when she was born was $18,000, and they charged for fuel too. Months after, when my daughter came home, we got the detailed record of UCSF and our local hospital bills. It was delivered by UPS. It was over 1.2 million dollars. Yes, that's right. Out of that, we paid our $10,000 and was covered for the rest. Now, this is unusual circumstance and with all the recent changes in health care and insurance, I'm certain more difficult. But I'm happy to say that my daughter is now 8 years old...healthy and happy in every way.

 

[MSLRAC]

OP, since your life circumstance is changing, you and your husband need to reevaluate you health insurance. When your company has open enrollment, look at all the plans they offer and find the one that works best for you and your plan to start a family. It might be with your company or with your DH's.
Your health priorities change over the years, so everyone should do this. There was a time when DS had severe asthma, so we went with a plan that would cover ER visits. Now that DH and I are getting *ahem* older, we get a plan that covers specialist visits (dermatologist and such) Find one that covers maternity 100%. You may pay more each month, but it would beat the $8000 or more they are quoting you now.

With all the Affordable Healthcare stuff now, we were offered one plan as a company. There was no shopping plans for the best one. It was the same with DH's office. No one was happy because it costs more and is worse coverage but it was take it or leave it and shop for private coverage.

But having another baby would cost us $5,000 if we went with the coverage at my work because it has $2,500 deductible for each family member. It would cost $7,500 with DH's coverage (what we went with for this year) because they have a family deductible. Those numbers blow my mind because we paid $250 for each of our 3 kids and ended having that refunded after delivery. Good thing we're done have kids.

 

[mieuxmew]

QUOTE "Child #3 cost us around $5,000. The primary reason we had to pay that much is that my OBGYN sends ONE bill for service. Nothing for the entire 9 months, just one big bill after delivery. Well, when you've already met your deductible, and then have a baby in January, you don't get "credit" for any of that on the prior year. So, we had to pay the entire amount of our deductible, plus 20%. I don't know if this is typical practice. [/QUOTE]"

This is typical. Obstetricians are paid by a flat global fee which includes all of your prenatal visits, your delivery and your post partum care. Insurance will not pay the global fee until the baby is delivered. Ultrasounds are extra and billed at time of service. In my area, the global fee is almost the same for a routine birth vs a cesarean. There is a higher global fee if there are more prenatal visits (high risk).

The ob/gyn doctor fees are small compared to all of the hospital fees!!

The birth rate in the US is declining and has been for the past few years.

 

[JennyLynn21]

Yes you are right about the six months of interest. Makes no sense after we looked at it! I plan to take money out of savings to pay off the CC and then all of our extra money will go into savings! Good point.

Thank you everybody for all of the wonderful advice. This thread has gave me lots of tips, as well as a little more of a panic attack!! lol

I am pretty sure we will be paying $8,000 for baby. I spoke again with our insurance company and she said for everything to go normal and have a pretty uneventful pregnancy we should we prepared to pay $8,000. How do people afford this? The joke is we HAVE insurance.

We are really kicking ourselves because in 2013, our deductible was $600 and our Out of pocket max was $3,000. We felt we should wait one more year to save more money and felt we weren't ready just yet. Well now we are kicking ourselves. After looking at our different plans for insurance there was not much of a better choice for us. There was not one really that would have been more better to have a child under.

I hate to complain but all of this obamacare stuff is really hurting those who WORK HARD to get what they have and PAY for their own insurance.

I feel very annoyed when I know people that had 3-4 children that they state payed for, food stamps, this that ... and then they have more money to blow then I do. They go on vacations, buy big tvs, ipads, this that. I feel anybody who has more then 2 children the state pays for they should automatically have their tubes tied/vasectomy. They should not have iphones cable tv. And they should be drug tested. It's NOT FAIR my tax dollars are going to these people who can't plan accordingly. My husband & I are VERY HARDWORKING and pay for EVERYTHING ourselves. No help. No nothing. We waited to get married till we knew we were ready. we saved for a good down payment for a house we could afford, we work hard for things and we save money and do everything right and now we learn that even though we have insurance we have to pay $8,000 for a child.

I'm not trying to offend anybody. I just needed to vent. I'm in tears and sick over it. I know nothing in life is free and I know medical stuff is expensive. I just thought that was what INSURANCE was for.

 

[AZMermaid]

My kids are 17 months apart. My first cost about $6K. We were all on my husbands insurance. My second cost us $7500 since she was on his and I had my own, so separate deductibles. It was pretty frustrating when I talked to friends who it cost them $500 or friends on the state system who it cost nothing. My kids are 3 and almost 2, so this wasn't that long ago.

Very long story, but my son had possible pink eye the day before vacation. We went to urgent care but as a cash pay due to a snafu. It cost me $250, and he didn't have pink eye. But.... Once the insurance kicked in, I got another bill for another $200. So because I had insurance, I had to pay almost double. I tired to just say, okay, don't bill insurance, but I couldn't at that point. This was last year.

 

[AZMermaid]

By the way.... I totally agree with your vent. I actually think there should be a minimum, like $500 or something. If I have to pay $7500, how do so many people get away with paying nothing? And you can say they could never pay $500, but it's not like I had $13K in 17 months. If you don't have $500, how are you (global you... Not specific) going to pay for diapers and everything else? It's maddening!

 

[clh2]

I will agree, that the current healthcare situation is just hard on many people.

To the OP - sounds like you have a high deductible plan. Are you able to make pre-tax contributions to an HSA?

There is some info here:
HSA's, HRA's

The HSA would allow you to save this money in advance, and quite honestly - if you have a high deductible plan, you should try to get about 1-year of potential payments in the bank.

And - an HSA doesn't need to be used up by the end of the year. You would never "lose" money in an HSA - that money is yours - even if you leave your employer.

 

[Gracie09]

Yes you are right about the six months of interest. Makes no sense after we looked at it! I plan to take money out of savings to pay off the CC and then all of our extra money will go into savings! Good point. Thank you everybody for all of the wonderful advice. This thread has gave me lots of tips, as well as a little more of a panic attack!! lol I am pretty sure we will be paying $8,000 for baby. I spoke again with our insurance company and she said for everything to go normal and have a pretty uneventful pregnancy we should we prepared to pay $8,000. How do people afford this? The joke is we HAVE insurance. We are really kicking ourselves because in 2013, our deductible was $600 and our Out of pocket max was $3,000. We felt we should wait one more year to save more money and felt we weren't ready just yet. Well now we are kicking ourselves. After looking at our different plans for insurance there was not much of a better choice for us. There was not one really that would have been more better to have a child under. I hate to complain but all of this obamacare stuff is really hurting those who WORK HARD to get what they have and PAY for their own insurance. I feel very annoyed when I know people that had 3-4 children that they state payed for, food stamps, this that ... and then they have more money to blow then I do. They go on vacations, buy big tvs, ipads, this that. I feel anybody who has more then 2 children the state pays for they should automatically have their tubes tied/vasectomy. They should not have iphones cable tv. And they should be drug tested. It's NOT FAIR my tax dollars are going to these people who can't plan accordingly. My husband & I are VERY HARDWORKING and pay for EVERYTHING ourselves. No help. No nothing. We waited to get married till we knew we were ready. we saved for a good down payment for a house we could afford, we work hard for things and we save money and do everything right and now we learn that even though we have insurance we have to pay $8,000 for a child. I'm not trying to offend anybody. I just needed to vent. I'm in tears and sick over it. I know nothing in life is free and I know medical stuff is expensive. I just thought that was what INSURANCE was for.

Ahhhhh the elusive I know someone on welfare who is beating the system. I always love that argument. Although if you actually look at the numbers the population with the highest percent of people on govt assistance (and what do we want to include in that term because in one way or another we are all on govt assistance) is children. I would rather a woman be able to access prenatal care regardless of her financial situation because then she will have a healthy baby. Lack of prenatal care is one of the causes of prematurity and disabilities in children. And who funds the services that disabled children need, taxpayers. It cost $128 an hour twice a week, so $256 a week for my daughter pt. this was for two and 1/2 years. At three she started a special needs preschool that is taxpayer funded. And I had good insurance so she was only four weeks premature. If I didn't have insurance she would have been born much earlier at a much higher cost both in initial delivery cost and ongoing therapy costs. As a taxpayer I would rather pay a less up front and have a healthier baby come into the world than say screw the poor because they are taking advantage and end up paying much more over the lifetime of the child.

I'm sorry your insurance choices aren't what you want but that was the company's choice. We get insurance through dh and we had no changes this year and a very small increase (under five dollars a month) because his company choose to keep their plan intact and keep their funding of the plan at the same level.

 

[KalamityJane]

You are figuring it wrong. In order for it to cost you 8k OOP, your delivery total would be 28k plus, and that is not factoring in the out of pocket max per person. 28000 - 3000 = 25000, 20% of 25000 is 5000 so that would make your total 8k. We had a $1000 ded per person and a 4k max OOP per person with a Nicu baby. It was 70/30 coinsurance, iirc. The bill before insurance was over 40k, just for the baby, our bill together with both of our bills was 6k.

You need to find out your max out of pocket per person.

 

[KalamityJane]

Oh and ask what your family max is, I didn't hit the individual max OOP for my stay, but because the baby did, it went towards the family max out of pocket total.

Insurance is complicated.

 

[AnnaS]

My dil's obstetrician ob/gyn price is $10,000. This is his fee. Not sure what it includes besides the "natural" delivery. I know sonograms are billed separate and the 3 d ones are an extra $500 which their insurance does not cover (I don't think they will be having this done).

 

[MillauFr]

Not sure about other places, but here I can see why medicine costs so much. Every single hospital has had some huge construction project over the last few years. Seems like many of the hospital administrators are more interested in building a Taj Mahal than providing affordable health care.

 

[AZMermaid]

Ahhhhh the elusive I know someone on welfare who is beating the system.
I'm sorry your insurance choices aren't what you want but that was the company's choice. We get insurance through dh and we had no changes this year and a very small increase (under five dollars a month) because his company choose to keep their plan intact and keep their funding of the plan at the same level.

I don't think anyone is beating the system. I know welfare is necessary and helps a lot of people. But if I am expected to come up with $7K on my (7th year) teacher's salary of 38K, why is it too much to ask people up come up with $500. Most would still be subsidized, but at least there is still a cost felt. I think that was more her point.

It is fortunate that your healthcare costs weren't largely affected. Mine actually weren't either. The school district has been a high deductible plan for years. But.... the hospital closest to us has dropped out of our healthcare plan. So, employees of the "Anytown" School District are no longer covered at the "Anytown" family of hospitals.

 

[JennyLynn21]

You are figuring it wrong. In order for it to cost you 8k OOP, your delivery total would be 28k plus, and that is not factoring in the out of pocket max per person. 28000 - 3000 = 25000, 20% of 25000 is 5000 so that would make your total 8k. We had a $1000 ded per person and a 4k max OOP per person with a Nicu baby. It was 70/30 coinsurance, iirc. The bill before insurance was over 40k, just for the baby, our bill together with both of our bills was 6k.

You need to find out your max out of pocket per person.

I hope I am figuring it wrong, but I have talked to two reps from our insurance company and they have both told me that we will absolutely be paying $8,000 OOP even if it is a normal healthy pregnancy. I did not get into numbers with either of them. And perhaps something will be different but it's not looking like it

 

[KalamityJane]

You could call an OB up, tell them you are interested in trying to conceive and ask them to run the numbers for you? You would still have the hospital part but they could give you an idea of roundabout costs for that as well. I could see 8k before insurance easily for a normal delivery, maybe that is what they thought you were asking? From what you have said, other than the high deductible, your insurance is not that bad.

 

[Jedimom]

I don't think anyone is beating the system. I know welfare is necessary and helps a lot of people. But if I am expected to come up with $7K on my (7th year) teacher's salary of 38K, why is it too much to ask people up come up with $500. Most would still be subsidized, but at least there is still a cost felt. I think that was more her point.

Talk to your elected officials. WI recently passed measures which force some welfare recipients (adults in the higher income bracket, which honestly isn't that high if you're on welfare) to pay a portion of their monthly health insurance premium.

That said, I've been on welfare and at the time, $500 might as well have been a million. Being on welfare sucks, it's hardly living the high life. I was grateful to have mine and my family's health covered by the state in full, because let me tell you it was the ONLY thing I didn't have to worry about.

***

OP, I know you keep saying you don't mean to offend when you say it's just not fair, but I guess I'm at my limit. I want to you consider something. If welfare is so great and easy why aren't you doing it? It's certainly an option -- want a baby? Quit your job, go on welfare, have the state pay for it. Why not? Because being on welfare is just plain horrible. It has its disadvantages. Please don't be envious of those who are on it. Trust me, except for those few cheating the system (and it is a relatively few), free health care is the ONLY thing those folks don't have to worry about. Be grateful for what you have is all I'm saying (and I think you probably are a happy and healthy person, you just struck a nerve with me).

As for me, my last employer offered high cost insurance. I paid a good chunk of my disposable income for insurance which covered nothing until I hit a $7k deductible, which again might as well have been a million. I've since left that employer and wound up with great and affordable health coverage. I pay $91/month for my family w/ $35 doctor copays -- I mean that's fantastic, practically unheard of these days. I recognize that it's PURELY by luck that I have it so good. Finding a new job is hard enough (took me nearly a year of looking and applying), it becomes a crap shoot as to what kind of insurance you're going to get.

 

[Gracie09]

I don't think anyone is beating the system. I know welfare is necessary and helps a lot of people. But if I am expected to come up with $7K on my (7th year) teacher's salary of 38K, why is it too much to ask people up come up with $500. Most would still be subsidized, but at least there is still a cost felt. I think that was more her point. It is fortunate that your healthcare costs weren't largely affected. Mine actually weren't either. The school district has been a high deductible plan for years. But.... the hospital closest to us has dropped out of our healthcare plan. So, employees of the "Anytown" School District are no longer covered at the "Anytown" family of hospitals.

As a teacher you are probably unionized so talk to your union about health insurance. They are the ones who negotiate the plan with the school district. Tell them you want a better one.