Friday, June 26, 2009

Got a First Look

Of the charges we'll owe for the ER visit.

Gulp. My insurance company sent me the explanation of benefits detailing what the insurance was charged, what they covered, what was disallowed, and what my anticipated portion would be (I haven't done the math, but it's likely 20% of the allowed charges for the u/s and lab work). All in all, not including the co-pay, it looks to be a little over $300.

Yee-ouch. Still, thank God for insurance, right? The initial charges I'd have had to fight without insurance? $2500. $1200 alone for the u/s. Which is bullshit, frankly. For that kind of money, they should throw in a free dvd of the u/s with optional director's cut commentary!

I know only the uninsured would pay that, or haggle it down, which I think makes it worse.

On top of that, my midwife informed me she would be billing the insurance for the previous pregnancies. Since the deductible for out of network wasn't yet met, I'll end up having it applied against the deductible and forwarded on to me. Fine. But I expect that to be between $300 and $500 as well.

Not exactly planned for, and we still have the deductible/down payment for this little chickie due, plus our portion of the costs which should be about $1500 total. Not quite what we had planned, you know? We'll have to start making payments on that soon, which leaves me wondering exactly how the bathroom will be renovated. . . but I decided not to worry about that right now. Things will happen as they happen, and if it means we need to take out a small home improvement loan, we will. If it means putting it on the effing credit card, well, we will.

No sense in fretting over it now, right?

I was a little bummed out by these developments. But then I used the doppler and Chickie finally obliged and moved into position, so we could hear his/her beautiful lub-dub lub-dubbing away around 170 bpm. Since Tuesday night, we've heard it barely in the background and definitely picked it up on the monitor, but hearing it loud and clear is the most reassuring thing, and as I got to hear my beautiful Chickie lubbing away, I mentally shrugged and said out loud to DH, "It's worth way more than a few hundred dollars." To which, he agreed.

1 comment:

The Washer said...

Wow, why would your mw just now decide to bill insurance...shouldn't she have done that, oh, I don't know...when services were rendered? That just seems odd. Anywho, our trip to the ER last summer with a kiddo cost us a pretty penny as well. It's just $. You'll never have enough, and magically, it normally works itself out.