Friday, February 6, 2009

what not to do

It is probably not recommended that you wander over to your insurance website only four weeks after the most traumatic experience of your life and look at the claims that have been lining up. Unfortunately, I am a masochist like that. The bills have been trickling in over the last month, and I thought the hospital bill ($2500 after insurance) was actually better than I was hoping. HOWEVER, taking a look at the claims on my insurance site was an eye opener. It seems that every single person to even touch me at the hospital is billing separately, and most of those are bills I haven't seen yet. And it is amazing how much a doctor who was present at the birth for all of 10 minutes can charge. Not to mention my insurance must have changed at some point, because I now pay 30% of office visits instead of a $35 copay. Perinatologists are not cheap either.

I know it could be worse. It is just such a slap in the face (or more like being stabbed in the gut over and over) to have to go through something so intense and terrible and then have to pay more than you can even afford for it. For reference, we were originally going to be paying $1200 out of pocket for all of our prenatal appointments AND the birth. Now we are probably at 3 times that and WE DON'T EVEN GET A BABY OUT OF IT.

Oh the injustice.

3 comments:

Sandi said...

You're right. Medical costs are so out of control. I hope you find work that you enjoy soon so that you can be done with the medical bills as soon as possible.

Cinderill said...

We just went through a large medical expense last year. Ken was using the electric lawn shears and tried to "shear" his left index finger. It wasn't that huge of a mess but it was his guitar finger so we needed specialists involved. We had no insurance and we were to pay over 3 K dollars for a few stitches. I filed for some financial help with the hospital and we ended up getting 2 k dollars written off for charity. It did take some leg work and some forms to fill out to state our financial situation. I spent (probably) 2 hours total working on it. Pretty good results though. You might give that a try. (guitar finger is still numb after all that, although he can still play)

Sandi said...

Way to go Cindy! Excellent plan!