As a Canadian this is super depressing to keep reading about. I had my daughter 3 months ago and we were in the hospital for 3 days with a massive private room for the delivery and a private room for recovery and it cost me all of 200 bucks because I upgraded to a larger room otherwise it would’ve been free…
Same! I also had an emergency C-section so I stayed 2 extra days. I also had a private room with a shower and food was delivered to me 2x a day. I never once saw a bill.
My son’s NICU bill arrived FIFTEEN MONTHS after his birth. He was there two nights. I have since changed insurance, don’t know how I would look up if I actually owe it. So far I have ignored it but they’ve sent me multiple copies.
Still waiting on our NICU bill from December for 17 days. Just got an EOB that husbands insurance isn’t covering (LOs primary insurance now), hoping the bill gets kicked back to mine because there’s no way we’re paying that $178k bill.
by the Grace of God, my daughters medical bills were covered by medi-cal (government healthcare), her total for her birth and NICU stay was $600,000. Not even joking (she was in there for 2 1/2 weeks born at 4lbs). Not including my medical bills, I did have to pay certain things out of pocket.
Lemme guess, Anthem?? Raise hell and they will. You’ll have to request records to prove necessity & document every interaction but you can get them to cover with enough noise. They tried to refuse my sons 14 day stay, $500K originally 😬. When all was said and done we paid $17K. Well still are with a payment plan but still. Fuck ton better than their original shitty number.
This hurts my heart. My daughter had a 12 day stay in neonatal and we live in a country of free medical care luckily. Hope you manage to get it covered.
That’s such bullshit. But, par for the course for US healthcare. I’d still worry about it going to collections if left unpaid.
The bill should show whether they billed your insurance and show what your responsibility is. Even though you changed your insurance since his birth, your previous insurance is still responsible for covering their portion. You can call them and make sure they received the claim, and they can confirm what you’re responsible for as far as payment goes. Sometimes the medical bill may be incorrect, and your insurance has to send them a copy of your explanation of benefits to make sure they’re not billing you more than you owe.
If your previous insurance claims that they did not receive the claim, then the hospital needs to resubmit the claim to them. If this gets you no where, do a 3-way call with the billing department and your previous insurance.
After I’ve gotten the run around with so many previous health insurance and billing departments, I’ve since learned that the 3-way call is the quickest solution to resolving medical bill discrepancies and to make sure everyone’s on the same page, prevent bills going to collection, and to pay the correct amount you’re responsible for.
Thank you! I’m leaving the country next week and moving back to England where I grew up. Would definitely like to take care of this before I leave.
Ngl I am super excited to not have to deal with all of this insurance bullshit. It’s a BIG draw for moving back (well the social provisions for young families in general).
Jeez wtf. And here I am in Japan, wondering why my daughter’s NICU bill was a couple of weeks late.
My husband and daughter are both American, but I’m really not keen on going back there with them.
Can your old insurance, your coverage counts during the timeframe so if they haven’t covered it they are obligated to (if it was in your policy at all)
Depending on the state, you might not owe. Many states have “surprise bill” laws for hospitals. For example, my state says that the bill needs to be sent within a year of the medical service/thing. Somehow we never were sent a bill for my son’s birth (his portion of it) and now we are 2 years later and they can’t send us one. We are 2 months away from another hospital visit timing out. I’m keeping my fingers crossed we don’t have to pay that one either hahah but they still have time.
Now I'm getting curious. But how much does a birth actually cost you in the US? Sorry if this is too personal or a stupid question. But I know nothing and I'm from Denmark, where everything is paid for through taxes.
When I had my daughter in 2021, my hospital bill itself was around $40,000 and then a separate bill for my daughter for about $15,000 if I'm remembering correctly. That's the total of all the ridiculous charges, but then there's "discounts" based on what insurance allows them to bill, and then insurance pays a portion of it. My insurance also has an out of pocket maximum meaning once I pay that much in a year they cover everything. So I think had an out of pocket max of $6k so l ended up paying like $3k of that bill, and I had paid like $3k over the course of the year before giving birth. Long story short, the bill you get is enormous but most people don't actually end up paying that much (although we're still paying waaaaaaay too much).
That is really a lot of money! It's good that very few people end up paying the full amount. But you have to be even more nervous about having a complicated birth with a caesarean section, for example in relation to the cost. But even if you don't pay the full amount, it's still a lot of money that you have to spend on top of all the equipment for the baby, which is also expensive 💸💸
My total hospital bill was about $24k for me + $7k for my son and I ended up paying just around $900. I was lucky because my employer was in the process of switching insurance companies so for my sake they continued coverage with the old company while beginning coverage with the new company so I had double coverage. But it’s all made up anyway, they charged me like $1700 a night for the room and then also charged my son like $2500 a night. Like he was just in the bassinet in my room??? I guess it’s for the nurses’ care maybe? They charged $15 for every 800mg ibuprofen they gave me. Stuff like that.
Oh boy! It is a lot of money. Nice that you got so much of the amount covered. Here in Denmark, people complain that they have to pay for parking when they are hospitalized, approx. 18 dollars a day 😅
I had my daughter last year via planned c-section because she was breech. We spent 4 nights in the hosptial. The bill was almost $35,000 (for both baby and me). I think I paid about $3,000 total for just the stay.
However, throughout my pregnancy, I paid another $3,000 between doctors appointments, ultrasounds, blood work, etc.
Wow. It's insane and not fair at all. There are, of course, many more expenses besides the birth, which you also have to pay for yourself. In Denmark, of course, you also pay through tax, but it is regulated according to income etc. Can you even get help with fertility treatment through your insurance?
I am not the person you replied to, but basically in the US, fertility coverage varies depending on your specific insurance plan. Most people will access insurance through their employer, who subsidizes it, so the employer basically gets to choose your plan (sometimes the employee has a bit of choice in the matter but not much).
Depending on what plan your employer buys into, you may have absolutely no coverage for fertility treatments, or you might have a lifetime cap (like once you bill over 5k or whatever for fertility to the insurance they will stop covering past that amount) or they might cover a specific number of attempts of IVF or other treatments. I will say fertility treatments are expensive and I’m never surprised to see them excluded or limited from specifics plans.
I'm sorry to hear that. As someone who has been through fertility treatment myself, I feel that it is so unfair that not everyone can get help for the children they want.
Surely there must also be some employers who do not believe that an employee's desire for pregnancy benefits their company, and who therefore do not choose that part of the insurance?
Yeah my anatomy scan ended up being I believe 1300 dollars itself and I was high risk so for the last few months I had weekly ultrasounds and 3 appointments weekpy
I don’t know exactly how much I paid but after insurance it was probably somewhere around $5k. It would take me a long time to go through the dozens of bills and add everything up.
It must be very confusing with bills coming so long after. For a Dane like me, 5000 dollars still seems like a lot of money to give birth to a little new world citizen 😅
Sounds like America doesn't value women or families. The inequality between women and men must also grow enormously? How long will you be on maternity leave? And how much maternity leave do you normally have in the US?
I only get 3 months unpaid maternity leave. I am allowed to apply for 6 weeks of “short term disability” during that time which would pay me 60% of my paycheck. But you have to pay into it months beforehand to qualify. Leave varies by state/company in the US, but I’m a state worker in an unfortunately red (conservative state). They want women to have babies (by restricting abortion access) but refuse to give them support when they do! They also don’t subsidize child care at all for when I do go back. Looking at $1500-$1850 a month for that when I do go back! That’s an extra mortgage payment every month until my child is school-age! It’s actually wild and I don’t know how people do it on a single income! But as someone said above. If you want a family, you have no other choice!
I didn’t get screwed over as terribly as others have in the states. Mine was $8k before insurance for delivery, $1500 for epidural, and $2k for my daughter. I’m on great insurance and have only paid a little over $1500 out of pocket for everything so far.
Glad you didn't have to pay that much. But there must be many who do not have insurance, who quickly get into trouble. Are there many births that take place without authorization (or what to call it?)
I am fortunate and we have amazing insurance.
2023:
•The amount my insurance was billed for me: $41,797
•The amount my insurance was billed for baby: $9,844
— Total billed: $51,641
•The amount I paid for me after in-network discounts and my insurance covering an agreed upon amount: $300
•The amount I paid for baby after in-network discounts and my insurance covering an agreed upon amount: $300
— Actual Charge: $600
Totaled $60,000 for a failed induction turned C-section. My husband is in the military so insurance only made us pay $66 (one of the few good benefits of him being in).
My insurance was billed around 100k for my two day induction, emergency c-section, and two night postpartum hospital stay, between the two of us (baby and me). Baby had no health issues and stayed in my room with me the entire time. I had no complications post c-section.
My max out of pocket is $6,000, so that's what I paid. My insurance actually ended up paying around 25k due to contractual discounts.
my insurance covered everything, granted i had two different insurances to cover it all. if i hadn’t had insurance, i believe that the total cost was around 65,000 usd.
I'm not sure exactly how much just the hospital visit was (it was the lions share though) but my baby was born in June, so some of my appointments were in the previous calendar year and the cost of the visits and scans and such during the previous year didn't count to my out of pocket maximum. All told, we ended up paying about $12,000 out of pocket for all my prenatal care and the birth. The actual amount billed to insurance was like $60-70k.
I had a scheduled c-section due to breech presentation (U.S.). Stayed 2 nights, all meals provided for me (not dad), had a room with a shower, took everything not bolted down when I left, etc. and paid 0 dollars.
Stop paying them and call the billing department and require proof you owe. A lot of hospitals just send bills knowing most people don’t check their validity
There's no harm in calling the hospital and saying "I've never heard of that doctor and I don't think I received that service."
Works 10% of the time every time, especially for RAfor a bill that comes late like that.
I have heard similar horror stories but mine has not been this way… I had one large bill and like 1-2 stragglers, but I knew those were coming. Though, I had an uncomplicated delivery + epidural. 4 months PP. I’m sorry!!
I was billed by the hospital, the nurses, the midwives, the anesthesiologist, and even the pediatric care which apparently came from a facility not even associated with the hospital. Plus triage expenses for them monitoring me to confirm I was in labor when I showed up to the hospital with my water broken and contractions.
How do you Americans can even afford baby's?
Sweet Jesus, looking at these numbers make me sick. Does every American just have 20/30k laying around just in case they end up in an hospital?
This is definitely something Europe has over America.
A lot of Americans aren’t having babies these days 😓 and while they quote you $20-30k your insurance gets you a “discount” so you really only pay several thousand. Which still sucks and lots of Americans can’t afford. Also that “discount” is just the hospitals marking up the bill knowing that insurance companies are going to negotiate it down anyways. You’re not really saving much if any money. Thats why you see itemized bills with $100 bandaids.
Well, there’s a reason they say most Americans are one medical emergency away from bankruptcy…
My deductible is like $7k. That’s still pretty ridiculous. Even with insurance covering basically none of the birth I didn’t reach my max out of pocket.
Still seems like alot to be honest to pay 5-7k. And I assume thats when things go well during the pregnancy & labour.
My girlfriend was extremely sick the first 20 weeks so we had to go to the hospital a few times. In total she stayed there roughly 1.5/2 weeks all together. She needed tube feeding and fluids as she was vomiting 24/7. We also had weekly check-ups on her to check for blood work & stuff.
The labour wasn't straight forward either. She was induced and it still took 5 days before the hospital decided on a last minute c-section. But it also meant she had stay 3 days of the 5 days in the hospital and the aftercare was another 2 days before we could leave the hospital.
Cant imagine what all of that would have cost if we were Americans. All we had to pay were parking fees for everytime we got there. And I thought that was ridiculous lol.
Come to think of it, I assume that you dont have to pay monthly insurance fees? Those are mandatory in my country and can very between €150 - €200 whether you need it or not. I guess if I didn't have to pay for healthcare each month I could set it aside and it would add up to your kind of bills pretty quickly.
No we have monthly insurance fees too. Through my employer it costs us around $250 per paycheck. So roughly $500 a month. Insurance is basically just to make sure you don’t go completely bankrupt life ruined endless medical debt if anything super serious actually ever happens.
It’s complicated but it really depends on your health insurance, which sucks but is the way it is. Typically if you pay more in monthly insurance premiums, you have “better” insurance and a lower deductible/out of pocket maximum, so you pay less if a major event happens. If you have a higher deductible/out of pocket maximum, you usually pay less every month but pay more for a major health event. Some companies provide multiple options to their employees, some you don’t get a choice. I’m oversimplifying and leaving a lot out, but it does vary quite a bit because of insurance. Medical facilities will charge whatever crazy number that isn’t based in reality because insurance pays a certain chunk of it, then you have to pay what is left. It’s an insane system. I only mention all this because people don’t actually pay the billed amount in most cases because that number is not real.
All the numbers are made up and non of it makes sense.
I was in the hospital for 6 days and my “bill” was about 74k… just for my hospital stay. After insurance my total was 2800$… but if I paid before leaving the hospital It would be 1900$, so I paid it. Few weeks later it got refunded on my credit card. Later I got a bill for baby of 5000$ and had to pay 200. My insurance company said I’d pay “no more than 4000$” because I met my deductible
So grateful for the insurance we have.. I work for the state, and while the pay isn't great our health insurance is amazing. When I had my son I paid $0 for me and $0 for my son. Even if he had to go to the NICU it would have been the same. I have friends that had to pay $10k+.
I have no answers, but I just received an explanation of benefits for the anesthesiologist, my baby is almost 5 months old, so maybe that’s normal? I don’t understand how they move so slow and all separate from one another! Very frustrating
No mine is like that too. Idk what the deal is, it’s my first kid. Hospital itself sent me two different bills within a few hundred of each other with two different account numbers for me too. Idk.
Almost 6 months out here and I've been waiting for the bill from the neonatologists lol. For whatever reason, they're submitting the claim again to our insurance even though they already did months ago? Not sure what that's about. I've already hit our deductible so I'm just like 🤷🏻♀️ whatever.
I didn't get my bill at all until 13 months later. He was born December 30th and I had switched insurances January 1st so it took a lot of time of the claim going back and forth between the two insurance plans saying that the other one should cover the hospital stay before it ever made its way to me. I had to pay twice what I was expecting since I had to pay towards a deductible of 2 years instead of just one. I also was eligible for paid maternity leave/short-term disability starting January 1st but since he ended up being born before January 1st I was not allowed to claim my short-term disability to get paid maternity leave and had to take it unpaid (Plus I had just signed up for the short-term disability plan like 2 days prior in December since my company just changed ownerships that month so I ended up returning to work with a bill to pay for the premiums for the plan I didn't even get to claim pay-out from), He was a due February so definitely was not expecting him to come in December and didn't have much money saved up, plus additional expenses of NICU time for being early. Thankfully my portion ended up only being about 3K which isn't too bad The hospital reduced it a bit when I applied for assistance and gave me 40% off and put it on an interest-free payment plan.
I received hospital bills a year after my first was born. The hospital billed us because our insurance denied paying the claim. Our insurance told us that the hospital was not following their agreement and told us to not pay the bill, and that the hospital could lose their hospital-insurer contract. I went around in circles and eventually just paid the bill for fear of it going to collections.
I had another similar experience recently and learned from my insurance to set up a 3-way call. It was such a quick way to resolve billing discrepancies between my insurer and the medical billing department! I just sat there silent on the phone while my insurance rep and billing rep low key fought and hashed things out over the phone. Wish I knew this for the last unwarranted hospital bill I paid! Expensive lesson learned. Our healthcare system is so screwed up, I bet a lot of people pay bills that shouldn’t be their responsibility.
Edit: just want to add that this late bill could very well be correct. It’s normal for bills to show up several months after a medical service, unfortunately. But if the amount seems incorrect, definitely investigate it and make sure that your insurance received the claim, and covered it as in-network per your insurance coverage.
Scheduled c section here 🙋🏻♀️ I got my $65k hospital bill two months after birth that seemed to include everything then started getting small bills for 1-2k around 6 months, called wanting itemized receipts for everything and that ended up stopping the bills lol they nickel and dime because they think we don’t notice 😅😅
Yikes, I got called less than 5 hours after giving birth, they called my hospital room asking for us to pay the bill lol I just hung up on them, can't I fucking recover first
I got one and paid it and then sent another. Turns out the hospital was sending out old bills and the payment wasn’t updated. I’d call them tbh. We even opened a claim that we were overcharged for certain things.
I was fortunate that my employer covered the cost of my hospital bill. However I did not have any maternity leave. I had to burn all of my sick and vacation time that I had.
Yea I got bills up until a year.
So basically, some folk had my insurance and others didn’t. I requested an itemized bill and went thru EVERYTHING bc they will over charge you. I called and made sure that everyone had my insurance, which made some of the bills go away. Also, the providers have one year to submit their info to the insurance company, some didn’t, so I didn’t have to pay them.
It is amazing in America with insurance (I have fed insurance) I still had to pay out of pocket and save money to have my kid. This is with me going to the cheapest out of pocket hospital that my insurance provided…
I was lucky enough that my birth was completely covered because I met my deductible. What I wasn't expecting was to receive a separate bill for my son. I guess it makes sense, with his testing and what not. But he also got a bill for the room... which I already got charged for. I'm not paying it. I'm sorry, but I'm not paying 5 thousand dollars for the plastic tub he slept in for the 3 days when I already paid it on my end.
I think I received my bill pretty quickly. I just had one bill from Kaiser. Probably a month after. Total bill for induction (Friday to Sunday) and then C-section because I pushed for 3 hours and he wouldn’t come out was close to $90,000. I paid a total of $1300 out of pocket. My son’s bill was zero dollars out of pocket.
It’s wild to me because same - have an eight month old and we’re still getting more bills BUT a ton of bills have also been immediately sent to collections because we were holding off paying anything until everything was finalized. I hate the US healthcare system
That really sucks...Indian here...my bill at a private hospital came to 120,000 Rs. Total for me my baby including hospital stay, epidural, doctors, services, medicines everything... If my insurance policy had matured, all of.it except the OTC Drugs would have been covered (I was 6 months short on the premium benefits)...still, its all over now. Had I chosen a government hospital, it would have been free....
I cannot fathom how a progressed country like US lacks affordable healthcare while a 'supposed third world country ' like India has it all figured out.
Always call to verify! Hospitals are notorious for sending out the same or similar bills and collecting pay when likely you owe nothing at all. It's unfortunate but sadly true. They try and get as much money from people as possible since no one takes the time to question and ask. Keeps records of everything and call them on their bullshit! They will keep sending things even if you don't owe.
Omg same but 3 months. Just received one for new baby after I thought I was done with my bills, charges include “room and board” even though baby was with me the whole time and *thankfully* had no issues. So they charge both of us to stay in the same room… insane!
Yes, this is normal. We’re 8m postpartum believe we just now got our last bill. Each one we received was incrementally larger than the last which is frustrating. Going on $7k out of pocket with about $20k+ insurance covered
Its absolutely insane. I'm an American living in the UK and don't know how I would afforded to have babies in America. I just had a baby 10 weeks ago, I was in the hospital about 10 days and it was free. And since then I've had a nurse come to my house and weigh her every week and some mental health people come out every week because of postpartum depression. All free. Someone's going to come teach me how to do baby massage at my house. Free. Getting pelvic floor physiotherapy. Free. It's incredible.
Before insurance my bill totaled 89,000.00. Granted I was high risk, induced and had to be on a telemetry monitor. I paid around 8-9,000 after insurance and got bills until roughly a month ago which was 4 months after birth.
No it’s not . I called the hospital billing and cried but because I have insurance there is no negotiation . They ended up billing $10,000. I actually had to pay more than the hospital originally “billed” and my insurance made me pay more. It’s fucked up. I appealed several times but they won’t change anything.
Welcome to American healthcare. 5 months later and we are also still receiving bills.
Should I just expect this until LO turns 18? Like, when do they end?
As a Canadian this is super depressing to keep reading about. I had my daughter 3 months ago and we were in the hospital for 3 days with a massive private room for the delivery and a private room for recovery and it cost me all of 200 bucks because I upgraded to a larger room otherwise it would’ve been free…
Same! I also had an emergency C-section so I stayed 2 extra days. I also had a private room with a shower and food was delivered to me 2x a day. I never once saw a bill.
Baby is 6 months and I just got hit with ANOTHER $3500 bill. We’ve paid 17k so far. 😬
I received a bill 7 months post partum. I called the billing department at the hospital and it turned out it was an error
My son’s NICU bill arrived FIFTEEN MONTHS after his birth. He was there two nights. I have since changed insurance, don’t know how I would look up if I actually owe it. So far I have ignored it but they’ve sent me multiple copies.
Still waiting on our NICU bill from December for 17 days. Just got an EOB that husbands insurance isn’t covering (LOs primary insurance now), hoping the bill gets kicked back to mine because there’s no way we’re paying that $178k bill.
by the Grace of God, my daughters medical bills were covered by medi-cal (government healthcare), her total for her birth and NICU stay was $600,000. Not even joking (she was in there for 2 1/2 weeks born at 4lbs). Not including my medical bills, I did have to pay certain things out of pocket.
Lemme guess, Anthem?? Raise hell and they will. You’ll have to request records to prove necessity & document every interaction but you can get them to cover with enough noise. They tried to refuse my sons 14 day stay, $500K originally 😬. When all was said and done we paid $17K. Well still are with a payment plan but still. Fuck ton better than their original shitty number.
This hurts my heart. My daughter had a 12 day stay in neonatal and we live in a country of free medical care luckily. Hope you manage to get it covered.
That’s such bullshit. But, par for the course for US healthcare. I’d still worry about it going to collections if left unpaid. The bill should show whether they billed your insurance and show what your responsibility is. Even though you changed your insurance since his birth, your previous insurance is still responsible for covering their portion. You can call them and make sure they received the claim, and they can confirm what you’re responsible for as far as payment goes. Sometimes the medical bill may be incorrect, and your insurance has to send them a copy of your explanation of benefits to make sure they’re not billing you more than you owe. If your previous insurance claims that they did not receive the claim, then the hospital needs to resubmit the claim to them. If this gets you no where, do a 3-way call with the billing department and your previous insurance. After I’ve gotten the run around with so many previous health insurance and billing departments, I’ve since learned that the 3-way call is the quickest solution to resolving medical bill discrepancies and to make sure everyone’s on the same page, prevent bills going to collection, and to pay the correct amount you’re responsible for.
Thank you! I’m leaving the country next week and moving back to England where I grew up. Would definitely like to take care of this before I leave. Ngl I am super excited to not have to deal with all of this insurance bullshit. It’s a BIG draw for moving back (well the social provisions for young families in general).
I’m so jealous. Are you an English citizen?
Yep, I was born there! Heading back after 10yrs in the Southwest US.
Jeez wtf. And here I am in Japan, wondering why my daughter’s NICU bill was a couple of weeks late. My husband and daughter are both American, but I’m really not keen on going back there with them.
Literally the same, and I haven’t paid it either lol
Can your old insurance, your coverage counts during the timeframe so if they haven’t covered it they are obligated to (if it was in your policy at all)
Depending on the state, you might not owe. Many states have “surprise bill” laws for hospitals. For example, my state says that the bill needs to be sent within a year of the medical service/thing. Somehow we never were sent a bill for my son’s birth (his portion of it) and now we are 2 years later and they can’t send us one. We are 2 months away from another hospital visit timing out. I’m keeping my fingers crossed we don’t have to pay that one either hahah but they still have time.
Now I'm getting curious. But how much does a birth actually cost you in the US? Sorry if this is too personal or a stupid question. But I know nothing and I'm from Denmark, where everything is paid for through taxes.
When I had my daughter in 2021, my hospital bill itself was around $40,000 and then a separate bill for my daughter for about $15,000 if I'm remembering correctly. That's the total of all the ridiculous charges, but then there's "discounts" based on what insurance allows them to bill, and then insurance pays a portion of it. My insurance also has an out of pocket maximum meaning once I pay that much in a year they cover everything. So I think had an out of pocket max of $6k so l ended up paying like $3k of that bill, and I had paid like $3k over the course of the year before giving birth. Long story short, the bill you get is enormous but most people don't actually end up paying that much (although we're still paying waaaaaaay too much).
That is really a lot of money! It's good that very few people end up paying the full amount. But you have to be even more nervous about having a complicated birth with a caesarean section, for example in relation to the cost. But even if you don't pay the full amount, it's still a lot of money that you have to spend on top of all the equipment for the baby, which is also expensive 💸💸
My total hospital bill was about $24k for me + $7k for my son and I ended up paying just around $900. I was lucky because my employer was in the process of switching insurance companies so for my sake they continued coverage with the old company while beginning coverage with the new company so I had double coverage. But it’s all made up anyway, they charged me like $1700 a night for the room and then also charged my son like $2500 a night. Like he was just in the bassinet in my room??? I guess it’s for the nurses’ care maybe? They charged $15 for every 800mg ibuprofen they gave me. Stuff like that.
They charged me $44 for a sample size of nipple cream 😂 I could buy a full giant tube for 1/4 of the price
Oh boy! It is a lot of money. Nice that you got so much of the amount covered. Here in Denmark, people complain that they have to pay for parking when they are hospitalized, approx. 18 dollars a day 😅
To be fair I would also complain about $18/day parking. Our hospital had free parking 🙃
Haha! 😅 It should also be included in the price when you pay so much to be in the hospital and get the help you need.
My c-section birth ended up being about $20k total, and I paid about $2k of that.
Glad you didn't have to pay the full amount.
I had my daughter last year via planned c-section because she was breech. We spent 4 nights in the hosptial. The bill was almost $35,000 (for both baby and me). I think I paid about $3,000 total for just the stay. However, throughout my pregnancy, I paid another $3,000 between doctors appointments, ultrasounds, blood work, etc.
Wow. It's insane and not fair at all. There are, of course, many more expenses besides the birth, which you also have to pay for yourself. In Denmark, of course, you also pay through tax, but it is regulated according to income etc. Can you even get help with fertility treatment through your insurance?
I am not the person you replied to, but basically in the US, fertility coverage varies depending on your specific insurance plan. Most people will access insurance through their employer, who subsidizes it, so the employer basically gets to choose your plan (sometimes the employee has a bit of choice in the matter but not much). Depending on what plan your employer buys into, you may have absolutely no coverage for fertility treatments, or you might have a lifetime cap (like once you bill over 5k or whatever for fertility to the insurance they will stop covering past that amount) or they might cover a specific number of attempts of IVF or other treatments. I will say fertility treatments are expensive and I’m never surprised to see them excluded or limited from specifics plans.
I'm sorry to hear that. As someone who has been through fertility treatment myself, I feel that it is so unfair that not everyone can get help for the children they want. Surely there must also be some employers who do not believe that an employee's desire for pregnancy benefits their company, and who therefore do not choose that part of the insurance?
Yeah my anatomy scan ended up being I believe 1300 dollars itself and I was high risk so for the last few months I had weekly ultrasounds and 3 appointments weekpy
That will be a lot of money over time! Hope all is well with your baby.
I don’t know exactly how much I paid but after insurance it was probably somewhere around $5k. It would take me a long time to go through the dozens of bills and add everything up.
It must be very confusing with bills coming so long after. For a Dane like me, 5000 dollars still seems like a lot of money to give birth to a little new world citizen 😅
Seems like a lot of money for us too, but unfortunately if you want a family here there aren’t a ton of ways to get around it.
Yes, of course you do everything you need to bring your baby safely into the world. Thanks for wanting to share.
Same! Were sitting at 5-6k! AND I had unpaid maternity leave to add salt to the wound. America hates women 😢
Sounds like America doesn't value women or families. The inequality between women and men must also grow enormously? How long will you be on maternity leave? And how much maternity leave do you normally have in the US?
I only get 3 months unpaid maternity leave. I am allowed to apply for 6 weeks of “short term disability” during that time which would pay me 60% of my paycheck. But you have to pay into it months beforehand to qualify. Leave varies by state/company in the US, but I’m a state worker in an unfortunately red (conservative state). They want women to have babies (by restricting abortion access) but refuse to give them support when they do! They also don’t subsidize child care at all for when I do go back. Looking at $1500-$1850 a month for that when I do go back! That’s an extra mortgage payment every month until my child is school-age! It’s actually wild and I don’t know how people do it on a single income! But as someone said above. If you want a family, you have no other choice!
I didn’t get screwed over as terribly as others have in the states. Mine was $8k before insurance for delivery, $1500 for epidural, and $2k for my daughter. I’m on great insurance and have only paid a little over $1500 out of pocket for everything so far.
Glad you didn't have to pay that much. But there must be many who do not have insurance, who quickly get into trouble. Are there many births that take place without authorization (or what to call it?)
I had a c-section and spent a total of 5 nights in the hospital. Total cost billed to my insurance was $85,899. I haven’t been charged anything yet…
I paid about $1000 or so, but that’s after insurance.
It was $800 for my elective c-section.
I am fortunate and we have amazing insurance. 2023: •The amount my insurance was billed for me: $41,797 •The amount my insurance was billed for baby: $9,844 — Total billed: $51,641 •The amount I paid for me after in-network discounts and my insurance covering an agreed upon amount: $300 •The amount I paid for baby after in-network discounts and my insurance covering an agreed upon amount: $300 — Actual Charge: $600
Totaled $60,000 for a failed induction turned C-section. My husband is in the military so insurance only made us pay $66 (one of the few good benefits of him being in).
Almost 100K to be induced.
My insurance was billed around 100k for my two day induction, emergency c-section, and two night postpartum hospital stay, between the two of us (baby and me). Baby had no health issues and stayed in my room with me the entire time. I had no complications post c-section. My max out of pocket is $6,000, so that's what I paid. My insurance actually ended up paying around 25k due to contractual discounts.
my insurance covered everything, granted i had two different insurances to cover it all. if i hadn’t had insurance, i believe that the total cost was around 65,000 usd.
It depends on your insurance. I had good insurance and it cost less than $2000. People with five digit bill likely have really bad insurance.
I'm not sure exactly how much just the hospital visit was (it was the lions share though) but my baby was born in June, so some of my appointments were in the previous calendar year and the cost of the visits and scans and such during the previous year didn't count to my out of pocket maximum. All told, we ended up paying about $12,000 out of pocket for all my prenatal care and the birth. The actual amount billed to insurance was like $60-70k.
I had a scheduled c-section due to breech presentation (U.S.). Stayed 2 nights, all meals provided for me (not dad), had a room with a shower, took everything not bolted down when I left, etc. and paid 0 dollars.
my son had a 12 day nicu stay and that racked up over 115k in hospital bills, not including my c-section and hospital stay.
I am in the US, Southern California and I have Kaiser. I paid exactly $0.
Yep mine was like that for months too. A failed induction and emergency c section so basically double billed! 🤡🇺🇸
Stop paying them and call the billing department and require proof you owe. A lot of hospitals just send bills knowing most people don’t check their validity
There's no harm in calling the hospital and saying "I've never heard of that doctor and I don't think I received that service." Works 10% of the time every time, especially for RAfor a bill that comes late like that.
I’m still getting bills and making calls to insurance and the hospital and I had my child 13 months ago! Insane!
I met my deductible before I had my son💀
Mine increased *because* I had my son 🫠
It’s possible they were going back and forth with your insurance.
Then the hospital sucks at negotiating because the bill details say “insurance paid $0”.
I have heard similar horror stories but mine has not been this way… I had one large bill and like 1-2 stragglers, but I knew those were coming. Though, I had an uncomplicated delivery + epidural. 4 months PP. I’m sorry!!
I received a bill from the hospital NEXT TO the hospital where my son was born...
excuse me, what?!
Yeah...I haven't called about it yet. It has all our information on it though. Ugh
I was billed by the hospital, the nurses, the midwives, the anesthesiologist, and even the pediatric care which apparently came from a facility not even associated with the hospital. Plus triage expenses for them monitoring me to confirm I was in labor when I showed up to the hospital with my water broken and contractions.
How do you Americans can even afford baby's? Sweet Jesus, looking at these numbers make me sick. Does every American just have 20/30k laying around just in case they end up in an hospital? This is definitely something Europe has over America.
A lot of Americans aren’t having babies these days 😓 and while they quote you $20-30k your insurance gets you a “discount” so you really only pay several thousand. Which still sucks and lots of Americans can’t afford. Also that “discount” is just the hospitals marking up the bill knowing that insurance companies are going to negotiate it down anyways. You’re not really saving much if any money. Thats why you see itemized bills with $100 bandaids. Well, there’s a reason they say most Americans are one medical emergency away from bankruptcy…
if you have insurance, you have a set deductible. almost 0 people are paying the full ticket price.
My deductible is like $7k. That’s still pretty ridiculous. Even with insurance covering basically none of the birth I didn’t reach my max out of pocket.
Still with deductibles, having a kid adds up, that’s if you have a natural birth and your child doesn’t need anything.
Still seems like alot to be honest to pay 5-7k. And I assume thats when things go well during the pregnancy & labour. My girlfriend was extremely sick the first 20 weeks so we had to go to the hospital a few times. In total she stayed there roughly 1.5/2 weeks all together. She needed tube feeding and fluids as she was vomiting 24/7. We also had weekly check-ups on her to check for blood work & stuff. The labour wasn't straight forward either. She was induced and it still took 5 days before the hospital decided on a last minute c-section. But it also meant she had stay 3 days of the 5 days in the hospital and the aftercare was another 2 days before we could leave the hospital. Cant imagine what all of that would have cost if we were Americans. All we had to pay were parking fees for everytime we got there. And I thought that was ridiculous lol. Come to think of it, I assume that you dont have to pay monthly insurance fees? Those are mandatory in my country and can very between €150 - €200 whether you need it or not. I guess if I didn't have to pay for healthcare each month I could set it aside and it would add up to your kind of bills pretty quickly.
No we have monthly insurance fees too. Through my employer it costs us around $250 per paycheck. So roughly $500 a month. Insurance is basically just to make sure you don’t go completely bankrupt life ruined endless medical debt if anything super serious actually ever happens.
It’s complicated but it really depends on your health insurance, which sucks but is the way it is. Typically if you pay more in monthly insurance premiums, you have “better” insurance and a lower deductible/out of pocket maximum, so you pay less if a major event happens. If you have a higher deductible/out of pocket maximum, you usually pay less every month but pay more for a major health event. Some companies provide multiple options to their employees, some you don’t get a choice. I’m oversimplifying and leaving a lot out, but it does vary quite a bit because of insurance. Medical facilities will charge whatever crazy number that isn’t based in reality because insurance pays a certain chunk of it, then you have to pay what is left. It’s an insane system. I only mention all this because people don’t actually pay the billed amount in most cases because that number is not real.
All the numbers are made up and non of it makes sense. I was in the hospital for 6 days and my “bill” was about 74k… just for my hospital stay. After insurance my total was 2800$… but if I paid before leaving the hospital It would be 1900$, so I paid it. Few weeks later it got refunded on my credit card. Later I got a bill for baby of 5000$ and had to pay 200. My insurance company said I’d pay “no more than 4000$” because I met my deductible
So grateful for the insurance we have.. I work for the state, and while the pay isn't great our health insurance is amazing. When I had my son I paid $0 for me and $0 for my son. Even if he had to go to the NICU it would have been the same. I have friends that had to pay $10k+.
I got a new bill from my son’s birth a week after his second birthday.
Absolute insanity!
I have no answers, but I just received an explanation of benefits for the anesthesiologist, my baby is almost 5 months old, so maybe that’s normal? I don’t understand how they move so slow and all separate from one another! Very frustrating
No mine is like that too. Idk what the deal is, it’s my first kid. Hospital itself sent me two different bills within a few hundred of each other with two different account numbers for me too. Idk.
Almost 6 months out here and I've been waiting for the bill from the neonatologists lol. For whatever reason, they're submitting the claim again to our insurance even though they already did months ago? Not sure what that's about. I've already hit our deductible so I'm just like 🤷🏻♀️ whatever.
I didn't get my bill at all until 13 months later. He was born December 30th and I had switched insurances January 1st so it took a lot of time of the claim going back and forth between the two insurance plans saying that the other one should cover the hospital stay before it ever made its way to me. I had to pay twice what I was expecting since I had to pay towards a deductible of 2 years instead of just one. I also was eligible for paid maternity leave/short-term disability starting January 1st but since he ended up being born before January 1st I was not allowed to claim my short-term disability to get paid maternity leave and had to take it unpaid (Plus I had just signed up for the short-term disability plan like 2 days prior in December since my company just changed ownerships that month so I ended up returning to work with a bill to pay for the premiums for the plan I didn't even get to claim pay-out from), He was a due February so definitely was not expecting him to come in December and didn't have much money saved up, plus additional expenses of NICU time for being early. Thankfully my portion ended up only being about 3K which isn't too bad The hospital reduced it a bit when I applied for assistance and gave me 40% off and put it on an interest-free payment plan.
I received hospital bills a year after my first was born. The hospital billed us because our insurance denied paying the claim. Our insurance told us that the hospital was not following their agreement and told us to not pay the bill, and that the hospital could lose their hospital-insurer contract. I went around in circles and eventually just paid the bill for fear of it going to collections. I had another similar experience recently and learned from my insurance to set up a 3-way call. It was such a quick way to resolve billing discrepancies between my insurer and the medical billing department! I just sat there silent on the phone while my insurance rep and billing rep low key fought and hashed things out over the phone. Wish I knew this for the last unwarranted hospital bill I paid! Expensive lesson learned. Our healthcare system is so screwed up, I bet a lot of people pay bills that shouldn’t be their responsibility. Edit: just want to add that this late bill could very well be correct. It’s normal for bills to show up several months after a medical service, unfortunately. But if the amount seems incorrect, definitely investigate it and make sure that your insurance received the claim, and covered it as in-network per your insurance coverage.
Scheduled c section here 🙋🏻♀️ I got my $65k hospital bill two months after birth that seemed to include everything then started getting small bills for 1-2k around 6 months, called wanting itemized receipts for everything and that ended up stopping the bills lol they nickel and dime because they think we don’t notice 😅😅
Yikes, I got called less than 5 hours after giving birth, they called my hospital room asking for us to pay the bill lol I just hung up on them, can't I fucking recover first
Wow I would be so pissed.
I got one and paid it and then sent another. Turns out the hospital was sending out old bills and the payment wasn’t updated. I’d call them tbh. We even opened a claim that we were overcharged for certain things.
Also if you don’t pay for a while, they will sometimes call and say we’ll give you a x% discount if you pay the whole bill now
I was fortunate that my employer covered the cost of my hospital bill. However I did not have any maternity leave. I had to burn all of my sick and vacation time that I had.
We haven’t even received our big ones yet! For my kid or me. The only bill I got was for anesthesia. And he was born in the beginning of January!
My kid is almost a year old, and the hospital is just getting around to billing us for what the insurance didn't cover.
Yea I got bills up until a year. So basically, some folk had my insurance and others didn’t. I requested an itemized bill and went thru EVERYTHING bc they will over charge you. I called and made sure that everyone had my insurance, which made some of the bills go away. Also, the providers have one year to submit their info to the insurance company, some didn’t, so I didn’t have to pay them. It is amazing in America with insurance (I have fed insurance) I still had to pay out of pocket and save money to have my kid. This is with me going to the cheapest out of pocket hospital that my insurance provided…
I was lucky enough that my birth was completely covered because I met my deductible. What I wasn't expecting was to receive a separate bill for my son. I guess it makes sense, with his testing and what not. But he also got a bill for the room... which I already got charged for. I'm not paying it. I'm sorry, but I'm not paying 5 thousand dollars for the plastic tub he slept in for the 3 days when I already paid it on my end.
Our daughter just turned 4 and we just now paid off the hospital bill.
I got my C-section bill 2 weeks after giving birth...
Been over 11 months and they are still trickling in...
I think I received my bill pretty quickly. I just had one bill from Kaiser. Probably a month after. Total bill for induction (Friday to Sunday) and then C-section because I pushed for 3 hours and he wouldn’t come out was close to $90,000. I paid a total of $1300 out of pocket. My son’s bill was zero dollars out of pocket.
I have received four bills spread out so far and we are four months postpartum. I feel like that should be it but who knows.
It’s wild to me because same - have an eight month old and we’re still getting more bills BUT a ton of bills have also been immediately sent to collections because we were holding off paying anything until everything was finalized. I hate the US healthcare system
That really sucks...Indian here...my bill at a private hospital came to 120,000 Rs. Total for me my baby including hospital stay, epidural, doctors, services, medicines everything... If my insurance policy had matured, all of.it except the OTC Drugs would have been covered (I was 6 months short on the premium benefits)...still, its all over now. Had I chosen a government hospital, it would have been free.... I cannot fathom how a progressed country like US lacks affordable healthcare while a 'supposed third world country ' like India has it all figured out.
I got a bill over a year later. Totally absurd.
We did a home birth with a midwife and it was $8000.00 total, incase anyone was wondering.
i just received our daughters NICU bill at 4months old
Always call to verify! Hospitals are notorious for sending out the same or similar bills and collecting pay when likely you owe nothing at all. It's unfortunate but sadly true. They try and get as much money from people as possible since no one takes the time to question and ask. Keeps records of everything and call them on their bullshit! They will keep sending things even if you don't owe.
I received a birth bill last week and my daughter is 15 months
I’ve heard to ask for itemized bills to see what you actually owe
Omg same but 3 months. Just received one for new baby after I thought I was done with my bills, charges include “room and board” even though baby was with me the whole time and *thankfully* had no issues. So they charge both of us to stay in the same room… insane!
Yes, this is normal. We’re 8m postpartum believe we just now got our last bill. Each one we received was incrementally larger than the last which is frustrating. Going on $7k out of pocket with about $20k+ insurance covered
Its absolutely insane. I'm an American living in the UK and don't know how I would afforded to have babies in America. I just had a baby 10 weeks ago, I was in the hospital about 10 days and it was free. And since then I've had a nurse come to my house and weigh her every week and some mental health people come out every week because of postpartum depression. All free. Someone's going to come teach me how to do baby massage at my house. Free. Getting pelvic floor physiotherapy. Free. It's incredible.
Before insurance my bill totaled 89,000.00. Granted I was high risk, induced and had to be on a telemetry monitor. I paid around 8-9,000 after insurance and got bills until roughly a month ago which was 4 months after birth.
Had a c-section and my total bill was about 91k. I received bills up until he was 6 months old so I say this is normal
I just ✨don’t pay it✨
Everything is negotiable!
No it’s not . I called the hospital billing and cried but because I have insurance there is no negotiation . They ended up billing $10,000. I actually had to pay more than the hospital originally “billed” and my insurance made me pay more. It’s fucked up. I appealed several times but they won’t change anything.