OB Insurance Question

[jolly321]

Hey all...

My DH and I have decided to start trying to have another baby.

Currently, we have 1 child who is 10 years old. In 2006, I had an ectopic and my right tube was removed from surgery later that year I had a MC. Therefore, insurance is a must have.

My current insurance policy will expire in 5/2011. Therefore, I will be without insurance after this point. There is no option for an extension on this policy so that is out of the question. I have not started calling around about insurance but I need to because this will be a re-existing condition so I need the insurance before I get preggers.

Do any of you have any suggestions or feedback about OB insurance? Also, if you didn't have insurance to cover the hospital costs, can you tell me roughly the cost?

[MrsPinecone]

I wouldn't get pregnant without insurance in a million years. Maternity coverage adds a ton to personal insurance, from what I have seen.

I had perfectly normal pregnancies and c/s deliveries, and the total before insurance was about $25-30K per kid.

[oceanbreeze]

I second what mrs. pinecone said.

There is no way to tell if everything will go smoothly w/ the pregnancy and/or delivery.

I know that without coverage, each OB appt here would have been 300. Ultrasounds were 600 each, the special scan was 1200. Labs and other tests can top out over 1k a piece.

The delivery is another story. An epidural or spinal can cost 1500-3k roughly. My c-section was, all total, about 25k.

Then there is the consideration of if your child is not born healthy and needs to be in the NICU or sent to a children's hospital or needs other surgery, etc.

That happened to my son, and his medical bill alone reached 6 digits. Thankfully our insurance covered almost all of it.

[CW&M Mom]

I looked to have a perfectly healthy pregnancy...and then out of the blue at 33 weeks my water broke...and that healthy pregnancy came crashing down.

My hospital bill was over $10,000. My daughters was over $23,000 and I had to be rehospitalized which was another $10,000. I honestly wouldn't dream of having a baby without insurance.

[couponmommyof3]

We have private insurance. We got a quote for maternity but it would have added $500 to the monthly bill! AND on top of that there would have to have been a waiting period for a pregnancy to get covered. So we decided not to add that extra cost. There's no way we could afford that! THEN we get pregnant! Luckily though we were able to get covered under Medicaid (just barely). When I got the final bill from the hospital, it was 16K. I have no idea what epidural cost or what my OB expenses were. I'd imagine in the total ball park around 25K-30K.

Good Luck!!!!

[jolly321]

Thanks so much! You all are right. Reps to you guys!

[3timesoccermom]

When we had our 4th one we had no maternity benefits and the worst thing about it was that every single medical office that was likely to be associated with the birth wanted payment UP FRONT, well before the due date. I remember some of the offices calling me very early in the morning to tell me how much we needed to pay them and demanding payment NOW.

We were treated very badly and it was extremely humiliating. We started with coverage from both our jobs on our first one so 100% of everything was covered, the 2nd one we had hubs' coverage only but still decent coverage, then he was about to start a new job with #3 and wouldn't have benefits from the new place for the pregnancy so we had to get coverage through COBRA. It was an additional $500 dollars a month that we had not been expecting - this was more than 19 years ago and we still had to pay a lot of our pockets. The 4th everything came out of our pockets.

I would be EXTREMELY careful til you are sure you will have coverage again. Financial worries make for a very stressful pregnancy.

[jolly321]

After reading all of these posts, I will be calling about insurance today. Thank you so much!

[MamaBird06]

individual health insurance with maternity is very expensive and normally there is a 12 month waiting period.

Could you not qualify for medicaid or get a job or your dh with benefits between now and May?

That said even our insurance through dh's work is horribly high, we are paying about 400$ a month for just me to be on his plan and we still have copay/coinsurance. We have to pay the ob/midwife office 1000$ 30 days prior to the due date and that does not include the hospital fees, if i need a c/s, or even an epidural will cost us more. It is not cheap to have a baby these days unless you have a killer insurance plan.

[CJOVANALST]

We are considering having a baby without insurance... probably gonna call the doctor's office to find out what the cost will truly be. We have private insurance since my husband is self-employed and I am a SAHM. To add maternity coverage was going to add an extra $300/month AND had a $5000 deductible of its own. Oh, and the one year waiting period before any of the benefits kicked in.