Cost of pregnancy?

[PrincessPerky]

I wouldn't want to deliver without a 'back up insurance' just in case..paying out of pocket for maternity care is feasable if you know where to look (and are willing to fudge rules) but ... I rpolly wouldn't do this for my first.

I have three kids, I have excellent maternity history and 'easy deliveries' (no delivery is truly easy, just some are uncomplicated). So this time around to go without any of the fancy modern medicine and trust that 4th time things will work out is ok with me.

If I had wanted the full modern medical workup paid out of pocket would be a minimum of 10K. For a healthy normal pregnancy..... any complications would be extra even simple things like excema (I always get excema when pregnant, now that I know what it is I don't worry the rash is a sign of pregnancy complication, no need to pay a derm to look at it..but for a first time mom.....)

In short even though I am going with a home birth, midwife assisted, I do not recommend any first time mom do so.

[tripods68]

Wow! I'm still amazed how many people spend on medical cost just to have a baby. But Because we belong to HMO plan employer covered plan, we paid ZERO cost when we had our first child 4 years ago. When we had our daughter 2 years ago, our cost was $250.00 hospitalization. That's it. But all our medical insurance coverages is through my wife employer and I get monthly stipend on top of my base salary; for not electing my employer's health covered plan. Our monthly health care cost is $210 for family of four. The rest is paid by her employer.

[noppenbd]

Wow! I'm still amazed how many people spend on medical cost just to have a baby. But Because we belong to HMO plan employer covered plan, we paid ZERO cost when we had our first child 4 years ago. When we had our daughter 2 years ago, our cost was $250.00 hospitalization. That's it. But all our medical insurance coverages is through my wife employer and I get monthly stipend on top of my base salary; for not electing my employer's health covered plan. Our monthly health care cost is $210 for family of four. The rest is paid by her employer.

Just to clarify, in our case even though the NICU stay cost around $20K, and my wife's delivery was in the $8-11K range, we paid zero out-of-pocket. We have a great insurance plan through DW's employer, costing about $210 a month for family coverage.

[sweeps]

So how does the HDHP work when you have complications like Jim? I have a friend who had something similar happen but everyone I know has regualr insurance.

I just joined an HDHP, and this is what would happen in my case: You would pay 100%* for services until you hit your deductible. Then you would be covered 100%.

Ideally you would have funded an HSA along with the HDHP. You can tap the HSA for all the charges leading up to the deductible, but you don't have to. You can leave the money in the HSA if you prefer.

* Note that you only pay the amount that the provider has negotiated with the insurance company. So a service that might be $200 for someone without insurance might be $120 for someone with insurance.

[stressedmama]

To clarify for myself, I only paid $10 out of pocket for all prenatal care, birth/doctor, post delivery, and pediatrican visits. I'm in a pretty comprehensive HMO plan thankfully. As long as I stay in network, everything is covered.

[lehresman]

I just joined an HDHP, and this is what would happen in my case: You would pay 100%* for services until you hit your deductible. Then you would be covered 100%.

Ideally you would have funded an HSA along with the HDHP. You can tap the HSA for all the charges leading up to the deductible, but you don't have to. You can leave the money in the HSA if you prefer.

* Note that you only pay the amount that the provider has negotiated with the insurance company. So a service that might be $200 for someone without insurance might be $120 for someone with insurance.

Yeah, that's what I love about HDHP/HSA plans. You still get the negotiated rate, and the most you'd pay is your deductible, and it's covered 100% after that. So since we have a $5000 deductible, the most we'd pay is $5000, and that comes from our tax-free HSA which we've been building up instead of paying for expensive health insurance.

The only question I'm a bit concerned about is whether or not maternity medical expenses will be counted toward my deductible. I'm still waiting to hear back from my health care provider for an answer on that one.

[M-squared]

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The only question I'm a bit concerned about is whether or not maternity medical expenses will be counted toward my deductible. I'm still waiting to hear back from my health care provider for an answer on that one.

I'd look into that. I am extremely healthy, but somehow manage to have complicated pregnancies. I'd say each of my pregnancies probably ran $30-$50K. That included dozens of ultrasounds and time spent hospitalized for pre-term labor. My son was born 5 weeks early and required a little extra time in the hospital.

[DebbieL]

Wow! Just - wow! None of this stuff costs anything here in Canada. I cannot even imagine having to think about medical expenses (I've obviously been here all my life). Holy cow.

I always say my kid's expensive, but I think you all have me beat before yours are even home from the hospital, lol.

[aida2003]

I read on some other forum that you must be very vigilant to check out the medical bills.
Mommies whose pregnancies+deliveries were covered by insurance co. still requested itemized bills from the hospitals. Then they told what ridiculous amounts hospitals billed their insurances.
E.g. a lady who had a C-section was billed for forsceps (?spelling?). Or another mom who had a natural delivery and didn't have any drugs put in her body was charged for IV, epidural. Anyway, I was reading and couldn't believe it how dishonest hospitals can be. No wonder health insurance is increasing by leaps and bounds .

So, my point was that request itemized bills and peruse them

[FrugalFish]

FrugalFish, we do have insurance.. we just pay for the first $5000 and are covered 100% after that. That's why we were able to get such a great rate ($88/month). The other quotes we got for normal health insurance for my wife were in the range of $300/month, not including maternity coverage which was an extra $150. We still paying about that much per month, except we are putting it in an HSA instead of just paying it to the insurance company. Thus, we have a sizable savings built up. That seemed like a better option for us. The money is still in our control, and we're covered in case of major medical expenses.

OK, I misunderstood. I read it that your insurance did not cover maternity at all. I've known more than one person in that situation.

In that case, expect to spend your full deductible- at least in the year of the actual birth.

GL.

[PrincessPerky]

Now to my actual question. How much does pregnancy cost, and what is actually necessary? I've heard it can cost anywhere from $3,000 to $10,000 depending on where you go and what you do all during the pregnancy. We are open to alternatives to birth at the hospital -- birthing centers or a midwife (but I don't think midwifes are allowed in NC).

Oh, thought I would add, midwives are allowed inNC (and you sound anti dr so doubly recommend one) but home births are not allowed..or rather home births are allowed just not births at home tended by a midwife..makes no logical sense. but that is the law. Finding a midwife may be hard though.

[jIM_Ohio]

Wow! I'm still amazed how many people spend on medical cost just to have a baby. But Because we belong to HMO plan employer covered plan, we paid ZERO cost when we had our first child 4 years ago. When we had our daughter 2 years ago, our cost was $250.00 hospitalization. That's it. But all our medical insurance coverages is through my wife employer and I get monthly stipend on top of my base salary; for not electing my employer's health covered plan. Our monthly health care cost is $210 for family of four. The rest is paid by her employer.

Something similar in our case. Wife will pay a $300 fee, and each kid is also $300 for each kid being admitted (and since DS2 was admitted to 2 hospitals, his fee will be $600).

There is a chance the lab testing and a few similar things will not be covered under the admittance, so the out of pocket max for in network is something along lines of $1000 per individual (per admittance).

If we used my HSA it would have looked like this:

I pay ~$30/check for HSA ($408 per year). The bill is actually $2400/year, company pays almost $2k for me).

I have a $1500 deductable per person. So first $1500 of hospital stay is paid by my wife. Then once kids are born, each addmittance for them is $1500 (so $4500 in our case for 2 kids/ 3 admittances). After the $1500 we pay 20%, incurance pays 80% until we hit out of pocket max of $5200 per year I believe- at that time the insurance pays 100%.

[M-squared]

I will add that I paid $20 for each pregnancy. My very first OB visit required a $20 co-pay. After that, I was charged nothing. There was some funny mix-up when I had to get a referral for the specialist I was seeing, so I had to make an appt with my primary care doc, to confirm that I was indeed pg, who then had to get a fax from my OB stating that I did, indeed need to be seeing the maternal and fetal specialist. It was really silly.

[Spud]

I have a PPO plan.

For Maternity care, I paid a single $20 copay to my OBGYN plus a few lab fees here & there, and some copays for some prescriptions -- probably a couple hundred in total. However, I was hospitalized overnight for high blood pressure. Of course, that was in 2006 which was a different plan year than the birth, so I had to pay another $1700 for that. For one night. A couple months later, I had a C-Section. New plan year of course, so the $1700 did not count toward fulfilling my deductible. My portion of the hospital bills (I had an extended stay due to blood pressure issues) were $4152 and the doctor bills were $2863.

So you just never know.

[tripods68]

Spud--You just made my point why we don't have PPO because of high deductible costs. HMO is far better and more affordable IMO.