Anyone Have Experience With Maternity Card?

[markbebe]

Hello all,

I'm new here, but am a big fan of the Fields' books. One thing that I haven't seen addressed anywhere in Baby Bargains or the forums is the Maternity Card. This is a card for people with too little or no insurance. It is not insurance, but as I understand it, they will help you negotiate with doctors and hospitals for lower costs. My wife and I have medical insurance, but maternity is not covered, which we are finding is quite common with individual health/medical policies (we're business owners and sponsor our own insurance). Of course there is a monthly fee involved.

Does anyone have any information? Searches on the internet have yielded little that I have found helpful, though some people have had negative experiences. At this point it is too late for us to look into it, as my wife is in her 7th month and we have paid for everything except the hospital (she is going to negotiate the price of hospital delivery up front).

Thanks,
Mark

[deannanb]

I called and talked with someone there -
and it is just like you said - you pay the company a fee and they call the dr. and hospital to negotiate a fee for you. It costs more as you get closer to your due date (I think).

If you haven't already negotiated a price with your dr. - or paid up front - then talk to the front office person in charge of that - or talk to the dr. and tell him/her that you are "self pay" and do not have insurance.

as for the hospital - I just talked to mine last week about paying and they have a set rate - there is no negotiating - or at least it seemed like there was no negotiating -

others I have talked with have "a friend" who paid x amount of money to deliver a baby. It might vary with different hospitals.

one thing you might want to check with your insurance company is to see if you have maternity insurance for "complications due to pregnancy" - it would cover a c-section if there were "complication" - high blood pressure, fetal distress - (not sure what else at the moment) -- it might even cover sonograms if the dr. was worried about the baby.

hth

[markbebe]

Thanks for the help. Our insurance does not cover anything for maternity, including complications. So we are just hoping that all goes well, but we know that there is always a risk. One thing we did learn, just by accident, is that certain types of emergency visits to the maternity ward are covered, if the original visit was because of something else not related to the pregnancy. Weird, but fortunate for us!

[lmariana]

Digging up an old thread here...did you decide to purchase the Maternity Card? I am in a similar situation now. We thought my individual plan had maternity coverage, but it doesn't.

So, I am exploring my options! The negotiated prices from the hospital are about $7-9k for the c/s and hospital stay + $3k for my OB and prenatal care, and then additional fees for the anesthesiologist.

[markbebe]

We did not end up getting the Maternity Card, since my wife was already too far along and I could not find enough reliable consumer information about it. I think we did not need it after all. I am sure that if you have the time to do it, you can get the same value as they can provide.

We ended up doing what deannanb recommended, which is talk to her OB's office staff about options. It just happened that they have pre-negotiated rates with the hospital. We were able to get $3,800 for the hospital for vaginal birth, and about $7,000 for c-section, all inclusive (room, delivery, nursery, anesthesiologist, everything!). The only requirement was that we either pre-pay or pay within 10 days of birth (I think we may have gotten a discount for pre-paying, too). The OB bill was about $3,750.

Anyhow, the pre-pay saved us a lot of anxiety and money, if you can believe it. By way of comparison, to add maternity coverage to my wife's policy (we are self-employed), the total cost would have come to over $9,000, since there is a twelve month waiting period before conception. So it was cheaper to pay out of pocket in the end. Figure that one out.

Also, you may want to shop around hospitals, if your OB can accommodate it.

FYI, as I mentioned last time, if you have to go to the emergency room for something, make sure that they do not automatically classify it as a maternity expense. My wife had to go twice, the second time for a kidney stone. They hooked up fetal monitor and made sure the baby was fine, and they ended up classifying the whole visit as a maternity cost. My wife contacted them and the insurance company picked up expenses related to the kidney stone, since it was not maternity related.

She gave birth a week ago Monday and we have a healthy baby boy! Best of luck and I hope I helped.

[kijip]

Anyhow, the pre-pay saved us a lot of anxiety and money, if you can believe it. By way of comparison, to add maternity coverage to my wife's policy (we are self-employed), the total cost would have come to over $9,000, since there is a twelve month waiting period before conception. So it was cheaper to pay out of pocket in the end. Figure that one out.

She gave birth a week ago Monday and we have a healthy baby boy! Best of luck and I hope I helped.
Congrats!!!

Just want to say that self pay is usually a lower cost option barring no complications. Our insurance premiums were pricey when I was pregnant with my son 5 years ago and we at one point considered self pay (and saying bye bye insurance). I was 22 then and had no health issues whatsoever. By all accounts, I was as low risk as mothers can be and took it for granted we would have a low cost experience. Thankfully we did not drop insurance because when all was said and done, my son's birth, my recovery and my son's NICU stay cost nearly 2 times our then annual income. The insurance company actually paid (not was just billed, paid) over 60K. I learned then how insurance works. :ROTFLMAO:We would have been paying that off to this day...no actually we would have been paying it off till we received an inheritance and then all of the money that went as a downpayment on the house we bought last year would have gone to the medical bills and we would not own a house. Which would have been livable and fine but obviously we are better off financially saving, education and property wise than we woul have been.

[markbebe]

Our hospital was really good. They have a price schedule for complications (NICU, etc.) which was simple and up front (and in my opinion, reasonable). It may be because they are a not-for-profit, but we aren't complaining. Their service was phenomenal and we never felt like we were rushing them. I have seen some hospitals nickel and dime parents to death, though that may be an old trend that is dying away. As if childbirth is not stressful enough!

Of course, having a baby is expensive (and I'm drifting a little off topic). There is a really good website I found when we were making our family budget late last year, to anticipate the cost of the new baby. This link is from the Idaho Department of Health & Welfare and is geared towards teenagers (and teen pregnancy prevention), but it gives a good idea of the first year cost of having a baby: Life in the Fast Lane - Baby Budget (http://www.teenageparent.org/english/costofbaby2B.html)