Maternity billing question

[ChunkyNicksChunkyMom]

I received sheet today from my ob's office with a scheduled payment plan for her services, total payments of $3070 to be made two months prior to baby being born. My insurance is 80%/20% after a $2000 deductible which we have met several times over for me this year. Why would the doctors office be asking us to pay them rather than billing insurance? No one is in in billing dept to ask til Monday

Susan

#1 Nick 11-18-04
#2 ETA 05-22-06

[o_mom]

Sounds like they are billing for what they estimate you will owe. They can't bill insurance for any prenatal care until after the delivery, so they guess what they think you will owe and make you pay upfront. They also assume that you will owe the entire deductible. Ours wanted a payment plan also, but I arranged to make the entire payment one month prior to due date (their deadline). Also, check with your insurance, some plans do not allow the provider to collect ahead of time.

[jd11365]

I think they are just letting you know what the billing is going to be. Holy cow though, a $2,000 deductible? I'll stop complaining now about mine that is $200!

[Calmegja2]

Your deductible will start over again in January, won't it? So I can see that you'd have to pay $2000 (and you know, that's in a perfect world with no other medical expenses from anyone other than her office), and I guess they are estimating that your 20% of the rest is an additional thousand?

I've not heard of paying for services other than regular prenatal checks/services prior to delivery, because what if you don't, for reasons who knows why, you don't get delivered by her?

[Momof3Labs]

My first OB for this pregnancy wanted me to start paying upfront right away for my estimated out of pocket expenses through delivery. They bill insurance for ALL maternity visits plus the delivery after the delivery happens (I believe that this is called group or grouped billing). So even though we met my deductible earlier in 2005, we'd have to start over again at zero in 2006 (when the charges will be billed). Sounds like your OB uses the same billing pattern which is why it won't matter that your deductible is met for 2005 - none of those charges will be billed in 2005.

Does that make any sense?

[daniele_ut]

My OB billed me up front for his services (not the hospital charges) and it was due 1 month prior to delivery. In fact, I think I paid it at my 36 week appt, the day before I ended up delivering. However, my deductable is nowhere near that high! I think it is $200 and I paid 10% after that, so the total from my OB was somewhere around $300.

[ChunkyNicksChunkyMom]

Yep, $2000 per PERSON!!! My husband owns a small business and our days of good insurance are long gone. Thanks for all the replies.

Susan

#1 Nick 11-18-04
#2 ETA 05-22-06

[searchdog]

We have a $1000 deductible, my ob gave us a paper that showed his fee (they call it a global fee) that covered all prenatal appointments and the actual delivery. We didn't actually have to pay it until after DD was born and they billed us after they got the insurance companies part.

[slknight]

I feel your pain. Our deductible is $5000 per person!!! We have an independent plan because I work for a small company.

[DebbieJ]

My situation was somewhat different.

I had homebirth with a midwife. She charged a $350 "deposit" upfront when we signed a contract with her. Then the rest was due before my due date at some point. So yes, we had to pay her the entire fee (I think it was $3200) before the birth. Then she gave us a global bill to submit to the insurance company after the birth and the insurance company reimbursed us directly. Thankfully, we were double insured with two great plans so I think our total out of pocket was around $300 because she was considered an out of network provider.

~ deb
DS born at home 12/03
Breastfed for 20 months and 6 days

http://www.bfar.org/members/fora/style_avatars/Ribbons/18months-bfar.jpg

[amp]

My ob's office routinely fills out a form, which should also include insurance info and only charge us for what we actually would pay, for delivery of baby. They don't charge prenatal stuff till it happens, but for whatever reason, they start billing for the delivery early! We don't pay it early for a number of reasons.

1 - last time we had a miscarriage, and who wants to deal w/ trying to recoup money on a baby that we are greiving?!
2 - The delivery hasn't happened yet!
3 - Last time we were afraid it would screw up the insurance paying at 100% for the more expensive hospital stuff, if we met our $500 out of pocket limit somewhere in the middle of the delivery fee. Does that make sense? Our prenatal visits, at 20% were not going to meet the $500 out of pocket max, but part of the delivery fee would, so we figured if we paid that ahead of time at 20%, we'd lose out on a portion of it being paid at 100%.

They just keep billing us, but they never pursue anything on an ongoing naternity charge until much later. They are just hoping people will start paying before they get the hosptial bill and assure themeselves some income before that!