Someone else just mentioned it in another thread, and I also remember my sister-in-law had to spend the last month of her pregnancy in the hospital on bed rest. That’s got to add up to a lot of money. Does insurance pay for that? Or does the poor pregnant mom have to come up with the money? What about poor people; they can’t just take a month off work to lie down in a hospital anyway, but say they can, who pays for that? People without insurance?
(FTR I am totally in favor of making sure these women get the bedrest they need, even if we as a society have to pay for it. It’s been conclusively shown that the most brain development in a fetus happens in the last month and especially the last two weeks of pregnancy. I think it will pay for itself in the long run if we have less pre-term babies. I’m just wonderin’.)
That is a great question. I am currently pregnant and I have a history of preterm labor, so this could be a distinct possibility for me. I assume my insurance would cover the hospital stay IF I could somehow come up with the monthly premiums while being out of work for how ever many weeks. I only get 120 hrs of PTO a year, so when that ran out I would be out of luck except for the $200/mo FMLA, which wouldn’t cover much at all, maybe the premiums. So I would be having to beg family, friends, church, for money to help cover not only the hospital costs but also my living expenses. Talk about stress, so I am hoping it doesn’t come to that because we would be financially destitute if it did.
And I’m sure all of that stress will just help the baby and your health and the delivery. :rolleyes:
I’ve always wondered how blithely doctors just say “bedrest for six weeks”. Who can do that? Most of the pregnant women I know work right up until birth, or as close as possible, so they can use all of their leave with the baby. That can’t really be healthy either.
That is ONLY if you signed up for Short Term Disability, which is optional at most employers, and I myself didn’t think I would need it since it will be almost 6 years between my twins and this baby and we weren’t planning on another baby. So no Short Term Disability is not a given in most situations, only in planned pregnancy. You can’t already be pregnant and try to sign up for Short Term Disability. Also, the question is about if a woman is put on medical bed rest, which is not by choice. The ideal would be, yes to work until the baby is born, but if the doctor tells you to go on bed rest and only get up to pee, then working is pretty darn impossible.
If the doctor can justify to the insurance company’s satisfaction that the hospitalization is needed, then the insurance should (I said should) cover it.
Most insurance has a copay, though, and that’s your problem.
If you have a rinky-dink coverage, there might be a limitation on the NUMBER of hospitalization days per calendar year.
Some States have “Non-Industrial Disability Insurance” which will cover pregnancy and complications. It is typically not adequate, but better than nothing.
The HUGE problem is: what about any kids in the home? If Mom is in the hospital, who takes care of them?
And this is where the AFLAC commercial usually kicks in.
Any private insurance is pricey. And people gamble that everything will be hunkey dorey and usually forgo extra insurance, for silly things like rent, utilities, food…
If the doctor tells Mom to go HOME on bedrest, she can collect NDI if her State has it.
Disability insurance (long or short term) doesn’t typically pay for hospital stays or medical expenses in general. It’s income replacement only. So, it might help keep your paycheck coming while on bedrest (typically only 60% or so of your salary), but it won’t help pay the hospital.
My wife was put on full-time hospital bed rest for the last three months of her last pregnancy. Health insurance covered the basic care at the hospital, though there were lots of other charges that added up, and all of the usual business with disputed claims, deductibles, co-pay and the like. We don’t have any sort of ultra-premium plan, just a usual sort of Blue Cross / Blue Shield HMO thing.
In the end it cost us over ten thousand dollars and huge chunks of our sanity. And yes, having to care for other children at the same time was quite a challenge. Along with the stress of nearly weekly health scares. All in all, it was an incredibly taxing experience.
The hospital portion would be paid by health insurance, as it’s medically necessary. Obviously insurance has different copay rules - one person’s “500, then insurance pays the rest” is another person’s “we pay 80% of the negotiated rate, you pay the other 20%”.
Disability insurance doesn’t pay the hospital, it pays you - it’s intended to replace some fraction of the money you’d earn if you were able to work.
I spent several days in the hospital prior to Moon Unit’s arrival, and was slated to spend more (then they decided they’d better deliver the baby, as my death would have complicated things a bit!).