Oklahoma Nesties
ostatekris05
member
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
How much $ to have a baby?
H and I have been discussing TTC in the near future. I know several of you have just had babies, so I thought you could help. I am just looking for a rough idea of what to expect, because I have no clue.
If you don't mind sharing, how much were your doctor/hospital bills OOP?
I also remember BoyMom mentioning something about maternity insurance. Do/did any of you have this coverage? Is it a coverage you had in addition to your regular health policy?
Did you have short term disability coverage?
Re: How much $ to have a baby?
Your hospital bills will depend a lot on your deductible, coverage and your birth (c/s, vaginal, anesthesia, etc.) Our portion of DS1's birth was about $3k ($1800 of that was the anesthesia). I had a c/s with him. I'm not sure of our cost with DS2 because we haven't started getting the bills yet.
Our insurance covers maternity, so we didn't have to purchase anything additional.
Also, a lot of doctor's offices (mine did) will have you pay toward the birth at each prenatal visit.
Only practicing for now
Missing our little turkey.
Estimated Due Date 11/13/12 | Natural Miscarriage 4/17/12
Hm...with DS, I think I paid $650 out of pocket for the doctor fee and all my visits/tests/ultrasound. For the hospital stay, we paid about $1500 out of pocket [may have been less if I'd only been in the hospital for two days, but I stayed for three because I tested positive for Group B Strep]. I didn't have to pay extra for maternity through BCBS.
I wish OSU had STD, but they don't - so I had to use all my sick and personal leave. I think I took four weeks unpaid [took seven weeks], but my employer split up the unpaid part over three months so it didn't all hit me at once. I was so grateful for that.
I'm not sure how much all this will cost the second time around since we'll be on Tricare instead of BCBS...
A short term disability policy doesn't give you time off, it just pays you for your time off that you take (unless there's another STD policy that does this that I'm unaware of). I'm using my accrued sick leave to stay home right now.
I won't even tell you how much we had to pay for DD (To be fair I had 2 failed inductions, a c/s, and a 4 day stay in the hospital). Honestly even with all that it wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. We have BCBS and it really has been great.
At the time my co pays were only $20/visit. I did have to pay $100 (I think, it has been over 2 years) for ultrasounds.
My last job was great with my STD leave. I was able to take 13 weeks off. I think that just depends on your company though.
I had United Healthcare when I had B. It was great--the policy was through the company that I worked for, so maternity insurance was automatically included in that. I had to pay my deductible of $500 once I got to the hospital, $15 for my first appointment, and $70 for my lab work co-pay. So $585 total.
Now that I don't work anymore, we have a family policy through BCBS. (H is self-employed, so we had to do this ourselves). It does not automatically include maternity. It is something that I had to add on to the policy before we started trying. I added it on May 1st, and basically from that date I cannot deliver until 365 days has passed. If my OBGYN does global billing (they bill everything at the end, not during the pregnancy) and it is billed after May 1st 2012, then I'm covered. It kind of sucks, but I don't mind waiting since I'm not ready anyway. I hope that somewhat explains it.
With BCBS we will be paying our deductible, $15 co-pay for each doctor appointment, and 20% of the cost up to $10,000. So I'm expecting to be out about $3k the next go round just for hospital related expenses.Yeah - sorry. Should've clarified. Sorry if I confused anyone - basically, OSU offers no STD that would pay me a certain percentage of my check while I was on maternity leave. So, I had to take leave from the very beginning so that I would get paid for time off - once that was gone though, it was all unpaid leave for me.
Thanks for that info! The AFB that H is stationed at only has a clinic - no hospital - so I think I'll have to go off base...? I should probably get that all worked out before we start TTC. :P
We have maternity coverage on our insurance. I would say our OOP was around $1200 because we stayed in the hospital for 1 week in the NICU and had many complications during the labor.
At the time I had STD through my employer, which paid 80% of my salary for 6 weeks to be off work.
Check into your insurance to make sure you have maternity coverage. I know that if you have private insurance (not through your employer) then there is a waiting period sometimes.
That seems odd to me too! Does this include ultrasounds, labs, etc? I just don't see how that is possible?
I didn't realize individual plans didn't automatically include this coverage. Thanks for clarifying.
I have HealthChoice as a teacher, and it should cost us just under $3K total, due to my OOP max and deductible.
I do have a STD policy, and I think my particular one will pay me about 60% of my take home while I'm out.
V's birth (c-section) cost about 1k oop, but his bills were around 120k. M's birth (hospital vaginal and we stayed around 24 hours) cost $2700 (our deductible was 3k so we ended up just paying the whole thing). G's birth (homebirth) cost around 2k and insurance didn't cover anything.
We had private insurance and I can't get maternity coverage privately in Oklahoma since I have had a c/s so when I got pg, we paid a shitton for a group policy through work. If you have a group policy, maternity is generally covered.
I didn't have STD.
This is fantastic news.
And I've got 3 months of maternity leave. Futher proof that I can't quit my job until we're through having kids or DH gets a ridiculous promotion. lol
Our maternity coverage is a part of our regular health insurance. We paid a $10 co-pay that included all pre-natal appointments, ultrasounds, c-section and a 4 night hospital stay.
I wish that we had STD but it isn't offered through our employer. We may look at getting a policy from an outside source. I was lucky enough to have enough vacation and sick time saved up though to take off for three months and still get paid.
When I had B I had double coverage, amazing!
I had an Aetna plan (primary) with a $3000 deductible and United Healthcare (secondary) that has a $2000 deductible. I was not out of pocket one dime for anything, I had three US and one genetic counseling session plus regular mid pregnancy testing. Secondary insurance deductible was NA because they didn't have to pick up the bulk of my bill. All they had to cover was the 3K. Check all of your options and talk to both your and your husbands HR.... Sometimes it is cheaper to pay premiums for the added benefits. Something else to remember.... Pregnancy can not be considered a pre existing condition within a group plan. I worked in HR before I had B and I am happy to help you sort through the info. I kind of miss that part of that old job.
BTW, I did sign up for a short term disability policy exactly 2 months before I got PG and it paid me to be off work for 6 weeks at 80% of my pretax income. I ended up making a chunk off of that because I will not have to pay taxes on it and I didn't pay in near what I got out of it.
Thanks for the info and the offer. I will probably have questions.
I don't know. Prenatal care cost me $10 for the first appointment. In the simple matrix for the different options, it says maternity and hospital care is 100% covered with no deductible. This also covers the epidural. It says routine baby care while I am in the hospital is also included -- not sure what that covers.