First Year Medical Costs

summer828 · April 2011

Good evening ladies! We're looking at insurance plans, and are trying to estimate medical costs for the baby's first year. I know that we can't predict any major unforeseen problems. What are you estimating would be medical costs for baby's first year for things like doctor visits, vaccines, prescriptions, etc? Thanks so much!

ohfour · April 2011

It seems like a lot of peoples' babies end up on antibiotics at least a few times in the first year. Our LO was on them once, and then we had a hospital stay right before 1 yr that was 5 days, meds, etc., so pretty expensive and not "routine". The regular antibiotic wasn't very expensive, maybe like under $10. I would plan to have around 6 well child visits, so whatever your co-pay is on those. We get our vaccinations at the health department and they charge $8.00 per shot. Not sure what the difference is at a Dr.s office.

Dani0701 · April 2011

I think it would hard to estimate, being that everyone's plan, dr's office, and LO are different. But, this is a great idea to think about!

firsttogo · April 2011

I think that any plan that has 100% wellchild coverage is a must. There are a lot of apts in the first year, and vaccines if done at the pedi can run close to 800 per visit. The health dept does do it, but ours requires us to prove financial need.

Target has their 4.00 prescriptions for generics, which is good for some common scripts. Also, I am not sure what your finances look like, but our state has ALLKIDS, which is part of medicaid. However, Even parents who work, and earn a medium living can qualify for their kids. It can cost between 40 and 80 a month to cover their child, and has ok coverage for basics and anything that could pop up.

musicamh · April 2011

Maybe this is a NC thing but all well baby visits were covered at every plan i've looked at and there was no co pay for any of them. Well Baby Visits include everything under the age of two. We had a ton of ear infections those were 25 dollars a piece and the medication was 25-35 dollars a pop.

mrsofficerjohndavis · April 2011

My husband is a cop for the city we live in and I work for the county we live in, so we both have a great state health plan. Our baby's vaccinations and check-ups are completely free for us in the first year, and I think if we have any kind of issue, we have a $15 co-pay on generic prescriptions and a $40 co-pay for anything other than "well-baby" doctor's visits.

lucylea · April 2011

If you have a copay on office visits you will have roughly 7 well visits in the first year and I always plan for at least 2 sick visits per year. DD had recurrent ear infections so we were seen 7 times by our regular pedi in the first year for those, with antibiotics each time, and 1 time by the ENT. On top of that we had surgery costs for tubes.

For this LO we set aside money for 10 copays. Some plans cover well visits with no copays and some charge a copay. That's something you will have to check with your insurance on, though.

Mrs_M · April 2011

Yeah so many plans. When DD was born we ended up getting her very own plan with Aetna. The deduct is $500 with co-pays $30 and the monthly cost was $170 for her first 6-8 months, then it decreased to $143 (8-12 months), then it went down to $80 (1-2 years), now back up to $101 (year 2-3) In her first year she went to the MD about 6-8 times, maybe less (might depend on the baby or MDs schedule). Each appointment was $30 co-pay and if we needed medication or such.

I would get a bill from the MD's office to pay what the insurance would not pay and I fought it each time. I said I have insurance to pay a negotiated rate. Since then no payment, insurance covers most prevenitive care. If she is sick, its covered.

The one thing, is if you get a plan, just make sure if you get the kid an x-ray, you don't get a $500 bill. We had to get an x-ray, not thinking and the MD called it bad. Anyhow end result we paid an expensive bill and learned MDs just order *** sometimes.

Hope this is what you were looking for. We have to get a plan for our boy who is due May 28th, can't wait to see how much his plan will cost (no thanks to that crappy national health care reform). Good luck!

summer828 · April 2011

Thank you all for your help!

Want a personalized experience?

First Year Medical Costs

Re: First Year Medical Costs

Choose Another Board

Search Boards