I just found out that my wifes insurance will only pay for 60% for her having a baby.?

Question

We don't have the other 40% is there any way I can get help to cover costs?

Answer 1

You can probably work out payment plans with your hospital.

Answer 2

Contact your hospital now to make arrangements. My cousin and his GF had no insurance. They were able to prepay, in cash, $6,000 that covered everything. Even if the bills went over that or she had a c-section, that was considered paid.

Hospitals also have payment plans, but the interest rate was higher than drawing off a car loan.

Medicaid insurance will not help. It is for those without any maternity insurance at all. However, I'd still contact social services in your county, just in case!

Finally, consider a midwife homebirth. The entire cost is about $2,000 plus lab costs in most of the country.

Answer 3

Most hospitals will let you make small payments on the balance. We had to do this because my son was an emergency c-section at 29 weeks and just his protion of the bill for the one night in the NICU at the hospital where he was born was over $1,500 with insurance. He was transfered to Children's Hospital the next morning. My portion for the 4 days I was in the hospital was another $1,500. Luckily, since he was in Children's Hospital for over 30 days the state picked up the rest of what the insurance didn't cover. His total hospital bill was almost a 1/2 million dollars.

Answer 4

Usually you don't have to pay the 40% up front but there are usually low income things that can be done to help or grants that can help reduce the burden. Talk to the hospital and/or Dr. office she is going to have the baby with. They might have some ideas for you in your area.

Answer 5

Get a job with insurance!

If that doesn't work, you need to let the doctors know that you won't be doing a zillion sonograms and blood ests. You might find a midwife instead of a MD and a hospital to have the baby.

And, labor and delivery is only half the cost - you need to separate out what the insurance will pay for baby hospital care if it comes to that.

Answer 6

You can try and enroll into Medi-Cal.... And they will cover every penny of the baby's delivery, and all of the medical visits before that. It's not a bad thing to be on medi-cal, it's just for people that need the little bit of help. And in your case if you can't cover the 40 % of what the insurance company is asking, then I would just enroll into medi-cal instead of putting yourselves in debt with a medical bill that will show on your credit report.

Answer 7

Absolutely. As everyone else has said, talk to your hospital about makign arrangements to pay, as you would a loan.

Another option is to check out the Medicaid plans in your area. They can usually pick up a portion of the costs if not all of it.

http://www.cms.hhs.gov/home/medicaid.asp

Answer 8

Many people don't know this, but if you just tell the hospital about your financial situation, they can help you with lots of arrangements! You just have to ask. The least they will do is work out a payment plan with you.

Answer 9

most of the time the dr. offices/hospitals will work with you on financial arrangements. Check in your area for govmn't help it's worth checking into you pay taxes so why not take advantage of the same programs you help pay for so that others can catch a break. We did!

Answer 10

I'm 18 years old and am still under my mothers insurance and I'm on her insurance and under medicade. I just had a baby 2 weeks ago and anything that my moms insurance didn't cover the medicade did.....Medicade is for people who can't really afford insurance.

Answer 11

my job, in addition to med. ins., offers other types of ins. for instance, they offer a flex spending account you can enroll in that will give you money up front for medical costs and you would contribute throughout the year to that account to pay it back and it's pre-tax so you don't have to pay taxes on it. they also offer additional ins. to purchase, like the accident ins. will cover hospital stays up to $1000/yr. if her work offers things like this and open enrollment would be(and these things will take effect) before she is due, i would look into things like that. other than that, look into assistance from the state, a loan, payment plans with the hospital...