United Health Care and Midwives

If you have no other alternatives, I would recommend that you pay the midwife out of pocket. If you have a serious problem and end up HAVING to go to the hospital, you'll be covered for the extra expenses. Make sure you have that contigency lined up.

There's another poster here, Pamela, who was adamant that she would not have a hospital birth either. However, nature didn't work with her, and it turned out that her baby was far too big for her to birth vaginally. She and her little boy would have died if they hadn't gone to the hospital. I've never met anyone more opposed to a hospital birth than Pamela, but she and her midwife knew when to throw in the towel and protect their lives. That's what you need to be prepared to do too, if it comes down to it.

In a case such as this, your insurance will be a financial lifesaver for you. It's a shame the $4000 won't be covered, but at least you have a cushion beyond it.

Have you written the insurance company a letter? If you try to get permission outside of the regular rules, maybe you'll get somewhere. You have some time to work on it now. Get a lawyer's help, if you need to.

Good luck!
Dawn

We've had three homebirths, and we've always paid cash and filed with insurance afterwards. With our first the insurance rejected the claim entirely, with the second we got a substantial amount paid back, and our third is still being processed. We were able to withhold a good amount in our flexible spending account with the first two, so we could pay our out of pocket with pretax money, but the timing didn't work out with our third.

It really does irk me that insurance is fine with paying 15K+ for an elective c-section, but can't possibly pay <5K for a home birth. No wonder insurance costs so much.

Unfortunately, I have only heard of a few very, very rare scenario's where insurance covered any type of homebirth. :(
4k sounds about right to me (inquired a bit myself).
It's wrong (as homebirth's are generally safe and obviously cheaper)...but it's the way it is.
Are there no birth centers in Chicago?
I had a very good (waterbirth) experience here at our birth center w/in our hospital...if that is an option.
GL! Hope you find a workable solution.
And congrats!

Better start saving.

If it were me, I would talk to my midwife and find out how much it is for private pay. Basically approach it as if you were someone without insurance and see how much it would cost you and not file with your insurance, but do file with your flex spending account so it is at least not taxed dollars you are spending
OR speak with her and see why and if her practice can be added to the UHC plan (they can do that if they choose to).
on a side note, I am floored that it costs so much in IL. I used midwives and gave birth in a hospital (my choice) and paid less than $4k and the bulk of that was my midwife bill.
Good luck. Insurance changes stink!

I know. It's so sad. I would have considered homebirth or a birth center, but my insurance wouldn't cover it. It's sad that it's cheaper for me to go to a hospital and rack up more charges.

Out of network = $$$

United Health Care (and ALL insurance companies) have contracts with hospitals, physicians and laboratories to name a few. This will mean less out of pocket costs for the patients for most services and lower costs for the insurance companies. Midwives will charge much less but that is your option to use the service. What the hospital or laboratory bills is not what the insurance company pays. The window may have passed for the flexible spending account election.

Keep your options open...never say never. We have read about it happening on here.

added: You're not even pregnant?? You totally have time to save :)