Natural Birth
2junebabies
member
Paying for a midwife
2junebabies
member
For those of you who have used midwives or done home births, how did the cost compare to what a hospital birth under insurance would have cost? For this pregnancy I feel like a hospital birth is my only option for this pregnancy because my insurance won't even cover a nurse midwife at a regular ob-gyn practice. It's very disappointing because I would love a home water birth more than anything. I have tried to look at independent midwives in my area, and most do not list costs online but some have said between $3,000 and $6,000 depending on which services you choose. Does this sound on par with what you ladies have experienced? Or am I missing a cheaper way to go about this? Thanks!
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Re: Paying for a midwife
Does your insurance have an option to pay OOP for an out-of-network provider, then submit the bill for (partial) reimbursement?
My MW charges $2,600 in cash by 36 weeks. After the birth, she has a billing company that bills insurance $4,000, and we will get back whatever they reimburse, minus an 8% charge from the billing service.
She says that most of her patients who have my insurance get almost all their money back.
My midwife costs around $3000. Tub rental was $300. Birth kit was $30. I ended up getting reimbursed by my insurance about $700, which was a surprise because before the birth they said they wouldn't cover it at all. My midwives must be really good at their coding.
But even without the reimbursement, the cost would have been similar to my two hospital births. With those my midwife charged about $2000 for her services, if I remember correctly. Plus there was the cost of the testing and ultrasounds. The hospital also sent us the bill for our stay there. I think the total after insurance was around $1000 or so.
So for me, it really wasn't too much of a difference. Now, I'm lucky enough that my midwives charge less for second births, so between that and the hope that our reimbursement will be even larger this time if my midwives code it differently, I'm hoping that it will be a lot cheaper!
Currently going through our second deployment. Can't wait for Zoe to meet her daddy!
This. Giving birth in a hospital would have been cheaper for us, but I wasn't comfortable with the high c-section rates, hospital protocols, and non-natural birth friendly vibes I was getting from my OBGYN. Finances are tight for us, but our midwife at a birth center said she was willing to work with us in terms of financing (our insurance won't pay for it). Normally she charges $3200 by 36 weeks, but she said if we were willing to have her student midwife be at the birth (with the main midwife supervising everything), she would knock the cost down to $1500. MUCH more reasonable and do-able for us.
This. Giving birth in a hospital would have been cheaper for us, but I wasn't comfortable with the high c-section rates, hospital protocols, and non-natural birth friendly vibes I was getting from my OBGYN. Finances are tight for us, but our midwife at a birth center said she was willing to work with us in terms of financing (our insurance won't pay for it). Normally she charges $3200 by 36 weeks, but she said if we were willing to have her student midwife be at the birth (with the main midwife supervising everything), she would knock the cost down to $1500. MUCH more reasonable and do-able for us.
Ah that sucks! I have cigna too, so I'm in the same situation. I think for this baby my best bet is to just birth in the hospital and be adamant about the least number of interventions as possible, cuz we can't really afford all that money out of pocket. Good luck to you!
Thank you everyone for your responses!
We are using a CPM and birthing at an independent birth center. We are located in central KS, FWIW.
Insurance does not cover any of it.
Midwife costs a total of $2,000. Includes all appts and delivery.
Birth Center, owned by midwife, costs $400.
Labor 'kit', which includes all the medical supplies, pads, etc - $75
So, a total of $2,475 for everything.
HTH!
That sounds like a great price! I should probably move to Kansas...
The cost for my midwife and most of the tests (not u/s) was around $3000, then a couple hundred extra for supplies, food for the birth, etc.
My hospital birth for our daughter was over $15,000 and that was just for the hospital, not my midwives costs (around 7k). That is without an epidural (which costs a lot), but includes a couple of days in special care for my DD.
We had great insurance at the time which covered everything, but our son's birth was paid for out of pocket (which was fine).
We paid $0 for a hospital birth w/ DS1 (well, plus $950 for a doula). We paid $3500 for a CPM non-hospital birth for DS2. Despite being extremely prepared, I had a major issues with how the hospital birth went down. Every penny paid to the MW for DS2 to not deal with that system again was worth it to me. It took some time to get over not using insurance since we pay so much for it, but for us paying OOP for the birth we wanted was so worth it.
More Green For Less Green
Thanks for this. It is helpful to have a comparison of both experiences.