So, we ran into a few problems with my midwife. I really did like her and feel such a bond but after finding twins at 21 weeks the more hands off approach became very much a hands on approach. She has no twin experience whatsoever....as in, she has never even cared for or seen a twin pregnancy or birth in all of her years of training and apprenticeship. We went from just she attending a single baby birth to now needing 5 present for the twin birth...herself, 2 other certified midwives that have no twin experience, another cert mw that does have some twin experience but that I would never meet until the birth and a student. The more weeks that passed the more she seemed nervous and intervention/transport happy and the more what we desired went out the window as to what she thought neccessary and was beginning to impose on us. I think alot of her nervousness came from suddenly reading books and a ton of materials with no twin experience to really balance it. To make a long story short, we ended up terminating care due to the differences in our approach.
At the beginning at my 12 wk appt we signed a single page contract that only stated originally the services that her 3,500.00 charge covered. We also lived 1 mile over her 31 mile travel distance fee of 300.00 so this was to be tacked onto her 3,500 service fee. She did agree to let us go to her for appts so we could get around that 300 expense. She is very newly licensed as of this past June. Because of this and the fact our financial fee contract was drawn up by her husband around our special financing situation we didn't receive a copy of some of the hings we signed. Some we did, some we didn't. Stupid, I now know. When we terminated care and we're settling on an agreement to be paid the primitive 1 page contract miraculously turned into a lengthy detailed 3 page contract, 2 pages worth of content we had never seen....the 2nd and 3rd page having never existed when we signed it orginally. She took our sigs and moved them to the bottom of the 3rd page. The one we orginally signed was only the 1 page and our sigs were at the bottom of the one page. The new content now had what she DOES NOT cover in her price and also itemized her prices in the event of termination of care. We are still realing over the dishonesty of it all and how totally we trusted her and were wiling to birth with her.
Prices seem absolutely outrageous to us..how do your mw's compare? Is this even close to realistic??? I called my old mw we now live 350 miles away from just to ask what she charges. She is a CNM, runs a birthing center, does booming business, and has 25 yrs of birth experience. She only charges 150 for the initial visit and a mere 60.00 for subsequent prenatal visits!! Our pediatrtican didn't even get 200.00 a visit....nor did the internest dh once saw. And our insurance..we were self pay as she didn't accept insurance but was amazing for comparison in prices....refuses to pay more than 200.0 for an MD visit and more than 100.00 for a non MD visit. This mw, as I stated earlier, was just licensed in June, is a CPM vs the status of the CNM we had before and has little to no professional experience. I apprenticed as a midwife for 7 yrs before getting married and attended 150 births so mw and I actually discussed and joked about how I had attended more births than she has. It never bothered dh or myself and we were comfortable with it until her nervousness began to really interfere with everything we desired. But, for someone with little to no experience and NO twin experience whatsoever who is a CPM is this reasonable?
"Transferring or Upon Termination of Care:
500.00 non refundable fee for the intial visit
200.00 for each subsequent prenatal visit
120.00 for initial standard lab work
100.00 for childbirth material rented from her library during time she cared for client
10.00 for each telephone consultation between 9-5 M-Sat ( we never called her, as she called us for lab results and such)
25.00 for each telephone consultation outside of normal business hours shown above
25.00 for each hemoglobin check or antibody screens beyond the initial lab work PLUS any other client specific lab charges incurred (emphasis as appearing on her "new" contract).
Clients who transfer before 36 weeks may receive the following services from their midwife on a pay as you go basis:
900.00 for attending a hospital birth as a doula
200.00 for any postpartum home visits
120.00 for a postpartum PAP smear
Once you have reached 36 weeks there will be neither a refund due, nor relief from the full cash payment fee of 3,500.00."
None of this stuff existed when we signed our contract. Yet our sigs now appear on this "agreement"???
We were also told initially that the birth pool rental fee was another 200.00 in addition to her 3,500.00 fee. Yet in the altered contract it states that it's an additional 250.00 rental fee on top of her services fee. We bought the very pool we were going to rent for a mere 184.00! And in the new part of the contract that we supposedly signed it states that the birth kit is not covered...an additional 70.00. That was not in there because she shocked us by pulling that out at my 32 wk appt in which we were presented with the order sheet. It had just never been discussed...I never thought to discuss it early on. So, we were a bit taken back by this additional expense. There was also a 500.00 twin fee that magically appeared a week after the surprise discovery of twins. Her fee started out at 3,500 and we were at 4,200.00 and still climbing by the time all of the additional surprise stuff had been figured in. Yet another reason we decided to go ahead and terminate care...as the charges just kept escalating.
But the itemized charges now that we never agreed on and certainly never signed??? 500.00 for the initial visit and 200.00 per visit after that??? I'm still just kind of in shock over prices and the dishonesty of it all.
I guess more than anything....is this itemized list realistic for mw prices?
At the beginning at my 12 wk appt we signed a single page contract that only stated originally the services that her 3,500.00 charge covered. We also lived 1 mile over her 31 mile travel distance fee of 300.00 so this was to be tacked onto her 3,500 service fee. She did agree to let us go to her for appts so we could get around that 300 expense. She is very newly licensed as of this past June. Because of this and the fact our financial fee contract was drawn up by her husband around our special financing situation we didn't receive a copy of some of the hings we signed. Some we did, some we didn't. Stupid, I now know. When we terminated care and we're settling on an agreement to be paid the primitive 1 page contract miraculously turned into a lengthy detailed 3 page contract, 2 pages worth of content we had never seen....the 2nd and 3rd page having never existed when we signed it orginally. She took our sigs and moved them to the bottom of the 3rd page. The one we orginally signed was only the 1 page and our sigs were at the bottom of the one page. The new content now had what she DOES NOT cover in her price and also itemized her prices in the event of termination of care. We are still realing over the dishonesty of it all and how totally we trusted her and were wiling to birth with her.
Prices seem absolutely outrageous to us..how do your mw's compare? Is this even close to realistic??? I called my old mw we now live 350 miles away from just to ask what she charges. She is a CNM, runs a birthing center, does booming business, and has 25 yrs of birth experience. She only charges 150 for the initial visit and a mere 60.00 for subsequent prenatal visits!! Our pediatrtican didn't even get 200.00 a visit....nor did the internest dh once saw. And our insurance..we were self pay as she didn't accept insurance but was amazing for comparison in prices....refuses to pay more than 200.0 for an MD visit and more than 100.00 for a non MD visit. This mw, as I stated earlier, was just licensed in June, is a CPM vs the status of the CNM we had before and has little to no professional experience. I apprenticed as a midwife for 7 yrs before getting married and attended 150 births so mw and I actually discussed and joked about how I had attended more births than she has. It never bothered dh or myself and we were comfortable with it until her nervousness began to really interfere with everything we desired. But, for someone with little to no experience and NO twin experience whatsoever who is a CPM is this reasonable?
"Transferring or Upon Termination of Care:
500.00 non refundable fee for the intial visit
200.00 for each subsequent prenatal visit
120.00 for initial standard lab work
100.00 for childbirth material rented from her library during time she cared for client
10.00 for each telephone consultation between 9-5 M-Sat ( we never called her, as she called us for lab results and such)
25.00 for each telephone consultation outside of normal business hours shown above
25.00 for each hemoglobin check or antibody screens beyond the initial lab work PLUS any other client specific lab charges incurred (emphasis as appearing on her "new" contract).
Clients who transfer before 36 weeks may receive the following services from their midwife on a pay as you go basis:
900.00 for attending a hospital birth as a doula
200.00 for any postpartum home visits
120.00 for a postpartum PAP smear
Once you have reached 36 weeks there will be neither a refund due, nor relief from the full cash payment fee of 3,500.00."
None of this stuff existed when we signed our contract. Yet our sigs now appear on this "agreement"???
We were also told initially that the birth pool rental fee was another 200.00 in addition to her 3,500.00 fee. Yet in the altered contract it states that it's an additional 250.00 rental fee on top of her services fee. We bought the very pool we were going to rent for a mere 184.00! And in the new part of the contract that we supposedly signed it states that the birth kit is not covered...an additional 70.00. That was not in there because she shocked us by pulling that out at my 32 wk appt in which we were presented with the order sheet. It had just never been discussed...I never thought to discuss it early on. So, we were a bit taken back by this additional expense. There was also a 500.00 twin fee that magically appeared a week after the surprise discovery of twins. Her fee started out at 3,500 and we were at 4,200.00 and still climbing by the time all of the additional surprise stuff had been figured in. Yet another reason we decided to go ahead and terminate care...as the charges just kept escalating.
But the itemized charges now that we never agreed on and certainly never signed??? 500.00 for the initial visit and 200.00 per visit after that??? I'm still just kind of in shock over prices and the dishonesty of it all.
I guess more than anything....is this itemized list realistic for mw prices?
Give me a break!
