Help! FTM & insurance issues

I would go right with a midwife and pay out of pocket. You would be paying less than your deductible most likely.

My birth center total is 12,000 for the whole pregnancy and delivery. What's your out of pocket max?

I'm in Texas and my insurance just won't cover a midwife. Even though I've met my deductible, sigh. Total for all appointments and supplies and delivery and postpartum care for my midwife/birth center is $4800. I had a natural hospital birth with my son and it was close to the same (The main difference was that a lot of the bills for my son came after he was born, where as with this baby with the midwife everything will already be paid for).

If there is any way that you can afford it, I still say go with the birth that you want :-) it sucks that money has to be a factor in this decision at all

Thanks for your responses, ladies. I'm going to definitely go for the natural birth, and there is a midwife group in my state that is actually a part of the hospital group covered by most insurance plans. So I'm going to look into their costs and see what can be done to help my situation.

I'm also going to ask how soon I can change my benefits at work. After some research, I found that a birth qualifies as a "life event" that will give me an exception to the "open enrollment" rule. If I can change it before going to the hospital, it may turn out to be a life-saver. Fingers crossed! Thanks, again, for your input and support!!

Some midwives can bill insurance for certain things, such as labs, clinic visits, testing, ultrasounds, etc. and then will work with you for out of pocket expenses for your actual birth. I agree though that if it's going to be about the same cost, even a little more, for the midwife that you want then pay it! Getting whoever is on duty for nurses and possibly getting your doctor (or whoever is on call) is not worth saving a few hundred bucks in my opinion. Ending up with csection because someone is impatient becomes a lot more expensive financially, physically, emotionally, and mentally.

Mary, birth being a life event means that once baby is born you can add the baby to your insurance without having to wait until open enrollment. They don't mean pregnancy.

My high deductible plan views all prenatal care as preventative and is covered at 100% in network and is not subject to my deductible. Have you called to see if that's something your plan does as well? I'll only pay for the actual birth portion of my midwife's care, and the negotiate rate since she's in network, so like $1600.

Thanks for your response, Lauren. I realized after my last comment that the whole "life qualifying event" was just for adding the baby. But I'm hoping I can make the change to the plan before November, so that maybe the hospital bills won't be so crazy.

This whole thing is so stressful. A $6K deductible...out-of-pocket max is $12,000 to answer an earlier comment. And it looks like my insurance company does not consider pregnancy preventative. Ugh.

Oh my! I would pay out of pocket for the birthing enter and save every receipt for the entire year ahead and then next year instead of doing standardized deductions on your taxes, itemize and claim all of your medical bills, including medical miles. You might be able to recoup a lot of your funds that way and since your baby is due in November that is only 3 months or so until you can file. Not too bad.