Thursday, May 22, 2008
The Baby's Smile... Priceless. Getting the Baby Here: 17 Grand
Yowzers! We just received the full hospital bills. $12,000 for mom and $5,000 for baby. (Insurance should pay most of it.) The only things that were at all different from other births were that he needed antibiotics for Strep B ahead of time and Em had an epidural. $17,000? What? The doctor was there for, like, 60 minutes max, and they charged $17,000? We checked in Thursday at 11:30pm and checked out before noon on Sunday. Healthy mom and healthy baby. $17,000?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
i'm not surprised. M's birth - hospital and doctor's bill (does that include the ob's universal charge?) was $18000 or so. That was one reason I was glad to be at a birth center for C's birth - the total fees for that were under $5,500 - and i know i got more personalized, one on one care with C. (one nurse and one midwife there with me the whole time - as opposed to in and out and shift changes at the hospital).
I actually read someplace that a huge part of the out of control healthcare costs in this country stem from all of the unnecessary interventions in labor and birth. In general (I'm not talking about Emily's experience specifically) there is so much done "just in case" to laboring women and to newborns in the hospital - from EFM to putting them in incubators - and all of it costs money and gives little, if any, benefit to normal, healthy moms and babies. Which is why birthcenter and home births are as safe or safer than hospital births for many women -
okay, rant over. Sorry - but - I'm not surprised. Thank goodness for insurance, right?
Yeah, this makes a lot of sense to me. Now that I think about it, at one point they put a monitor on his head (in utero), and there was some pretty invasive clean up after the birth (whisked the baby away for several hours and put him under a light). Hmmm.... It is just such a funny system. I agree with the rant.
Now, just wait and see if any more bills pop up -- baby might just cost more...
Post a Comment