How to pay for labor and dr visits..etc.

bingham101

Hi All. My hubby and are ttc and we are looking at our options to pay for this. Neither of us currently can get group health insurance that will cover the cost of having a baby. I have an individual plan and it will cost me 3x what i pay, plus a waiting period to get insurance that will cover everything. I have heard of clinics at Riverside and Grady hospital but I can't find any information on the cost.

 How are you ladies paying for everything if you dont have insurance through  your employer? Also, we do not qualify for any goverment help. Thanks for your thoughts and feedback.

Athena0809

To cover for the visits, Riverside's clinic charges women w/o insurance on a sliding fee scale, based on your income and household size. There are other health centers in columbus that also have a sliding fee scale, those centers are Columbus Neighborhood Health Centers, with locations on the westside, south, central, north, and northeast. They are very good health centers, particularly the one on the westside, that's where I work   All hospitals have the financial aid called H-CAP to cover sonos and such visits as well as the delivery. Working in OB/GYN in a health center primarily with self pay patients I have learn a thing or to. I hope that helped. Let me know if there's anything I left out.

-Stephanie

melaniemicah

I have an individual insurance plan that doesn't cover prenatal care or delivery.  I probably called 100 ob/gyn offices to find a place that would allow payments in installments.  If you don't have insurance you can expect to pay anywhere from $2,500 to $4,000 out of pocket for your prenatal appointments and delivery.  I was in kind of a healthcare purgatory because I make too much money to qualify for any type of government/sliding scale  program but also couldn't afford to shell out $3,000 at my first appointment (which my ob/gyn who i had been going to for 5 years did).  Some of the doctors I called treated me like a welfare case or told me they don't deal with people without insurance.  If you can stand going to the "clinics" it is a good economical option however I didn't feel that i was getting the individualized experience I needed.  Some of them only have midwives or nurse practitioners and you never even talk to a doctor until you deliver at which time any Tom, *** or Harry could be delivering your baby.  Ultimately I found a Dr. who has a clearly defined payment plan where you know exactly what is included and when its due.  I go to Complete Healthcare for Women and am very happy with my experience so far.