insurance deductibles

[marlygf]

I just called my insurance to see if I had met my deductibles because I've been so good at using my insurance this year. I knew I had met them and was looking forward to them maybe paying for some of this baby because I had met the deductibles.

I just found out my deductibles reset on July 1st. The cycle is June 30-July 1st. I didn't think it'd be bad but I hung up from the shock and am just bawling. The whole reason I've been having the chiropractor and physical therapist bill my insurance, even though they were paying for anything, was so that my deductibles would be met and the insurance might actually pay some of the baby money. Ugh, I might not get any of my payment to the midwife back.

I mean I guess its not a huge deal because it was just going to go toward our debt, but at this point anything helps!

[texaspeach]

ours reset on July 1st too. It sucks. Thankfully it's only $350 for us. It would be a lot better if we didn't have to meet it again though. We will be changing insurance right after the baby is born d/t dh starting a new job so we'll have to meet yet another, much higher, deductible

[marlygf]

I guess for some reason I always thought they all reset in January. I was doing so good at filling up all my deductibles that I thought for sure the insurance would end up paying for part of the birth. From what I've heard, our insurance likes to say they pay a percentage to an ob, a percentage of that to a CNM and a percentage of that to a homebirth midwife. So basically out of the $2000 that will be billed, they will pay about $800 which ironically is what our out of network deductible is. So then that means they probably won't pay anything. I figure we'll still bill them because maybe other things will happen that they can actually pay, like my chiropractor bills. It's just frustrating.

[wombatclay]

Yeah, our deductibles are a joke... they don't "count" the whole out of pocket cost for example. Instead, they determine how much they feel is reasonable and then "count" a percentage of that. So if they decide that 25% of out of pocket expense will count towards the deductible they don't actually mean 25% of the actual "out of pocket", they mean 25% of what they feel a reasonable out of pocket fee would be. Ummmm. So we pay 200 dollars for a visit, they decide that 100 dollars would be more reasonable, and they "count" only 25 dollars towards our deductible.

And we just learned that while our care provider does take our insurance, they will bill us directly for whatever portion of the fee our insurance doesn't cover! ACK!!!!!

I'm so sorry your insurance is being stinky too!

[marlygf]

Wow, that really sucks. I'm sorry.

[Michigan Mama]

How frustrating. I"m so sorry.

We're still working on paying our deductibles - ours do start over in Jan, but I'm still pretty sure we'll owe at least $1000 for the birth. Ugh. Could be worse, I guess. I"m grateful that we have insurance, at least!

Insurance companies are big bullies.

[marlygf]

yes, it could be worse. I could have to pay for the pediatrician bills after the baby is born.