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Home › Articles › Considering Pregnancy › Insuring a Hassle-free Pregnancy

Insuring a Hassle-free Pregnancy

Know Your Insurance Options Before You Conceive

By Kelly Burgess

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When You're Not Insured
In spite of their well-laid financial plans – waiting until they'd saved the money to have a second baby – the Mehdikarimi's second baby had other ideas, and she's now 32 weeks pregnant without the savings she'd hoped to have at this point.

Instead, the Shopping Queen says she shopped around, but it wasn't as easy as it sounds. "The [former Republican administration] tries to tell us you can shop around, but I have an MBA, and I was confused," Mehdikarimi says. "It's not apples and apples; it's complex spread sheets and conflicting costs and having to do higher level math in your head. Our health care system makes it almost impossible to be an informed consumer."

Still, comparison shopping can be done, but it may result in some difficult decisions. In order to give birth at the local hospital where costs were much lower, Mehdikarimi had to change doctors, because her doctor didn't have privileges at that hospital. Mehdikarimi says as confusing as it may be, a woman needs to contact physicians, hospitals, laboratories and anesthesiologists to get prices and try to make payment deals.

Mehdikarimi also notes that most health care providers have different cost schedules – one if it's paid by insurance, one if it's paid for by the consumer and one if it's prepaid. Prepaying, she notes, can result in significant savings.

Most important, do all of this as early in the pregnancy as possible to avoid stress later.

Don't Get Complacent

Kristi Mendez, of Oak Brook, Ill., says it's not just first-time moms that have to pay attention to the terms of the coverage. After having her first child via Cesarean section, her husband changed jobs. They ended up with a new insurance policy that Mendez calls "less than stellar." In investigating other options for herself, Mendez, who's self-employed, discovered that a Cesarean section now qualifies (at least for some companies) as a pre-existing condition and can make you uninsurable altogether or uninsurable for pregnancy.

"I was able to get coverage, including maternity, but it did require weeks of investigation and research on the part of the insurance company before they would approve my application," Mendez says. "I'm not sure if we're going to have a second baby, but at least now I get to decide instead of some insurance company."


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