Prenatal care for someone not birthing with you

[Charmie981]

I had a call tonight from someone who is planning to birth with her prior midwife two states away because there is no one to attend her here (and no, I can't do it, but that's another story). Her midwife would like her to have a record of prenatal care and labs, so she called me to see if I'd be willing to do that.

Personally, I wouldn't require a client to do that, but I'm willing to provide it if another midwife wants her client to do it, I guess. Is there any reason I'm not thinking of that I shouldn't be willing to do it?

If you do or have done this before, how do you adjust your fee? Obviously I wouldn't charge the entire fee because much of my fee is for on-call time and birth, with the prenatal and postpartum care just being included (I charge one fee no matter when you come to me in pregnancy). But I don't want to do her prenatal care for free : and because my services aren't normally itemized, I don't really know how I'd price "just" prenatal care. Any tips on that?

[DoomaYula]

1/3 of your fee?

[mrflowers]

I was in this situation with my mw in AZ before we moved over here to the Netherlands. We didn't realize we would be moving until after I got pregnant, so we went into the mw relationship with the expectation of full payments. When we did realize we would be moving, she was great about adjusting the payments. She thought about it, and decided that she was comfortable accepting $75/ prenatal appointment. I don't know how that jibes with the area you're in and so on, but we were happy to pay it (each prenantal was a home visit, they tended to last around 1.5 hours).
I've read elsewhere on here that some mw's take around $25, I'm assuming that's for a short office visit.

[MamaRabbit]

Originally Posted by YumaDoula

1/3 of your fee?

That's exactly what first popped into my head. I was thinking I would break it down to 1/3 prenatal care, 1/3 birth, 1/3 postpartum.

[Defenestrator]

My typical top fee is about $2800 for a birth. A while ago I learned that I had better luck with insurers billing prenatals, birth and postpartum seperately. So, I broke it down to $1000 for prenatal, $1350 for birth and $450 for postnatal.

I might see someone 12 times during the pregnancy, so that works out to about $80 per visit. So that is what I charge when I am seeing someone just for prenatals and also what I base my refund on if someone risks out of my care and I don't do their birth.

I live in an area where people can be pretty transient, so I have done prenatal care a few times for people who knew they were moving before the end of their pregnancy. It has generally been easy and pleasant and I feel my time is well-compensated.

If you will also be on call for emergencies for her, you can charge her a fee for that as well.


Good luck!

[MsBlack]

I haven't done this precisely, but I have had a few clients hire me on a sort of conditional basis at first--plus, there could always be someone who opts out at some point before labor starts (or whom I pass on to med care, for instance). So, I have a stated fee 'per prenatal' on my fee schedule. People can pay just that fee per visit, with no issues. I am NOT on call tho--they have to pay an additional $100 (flat fee) for that privilege.

Prenatal or pp visits are $75., plus a mileage fee if I go to them and they live farther than 45mi. (38cents/mi, r/t, for going over 90mi r/t). Not sure I'd travel more than about 30mi for someone who knew in advance they weren't hiring me for the birth. I will let people pay 'per visit only' for a few visits while they and I are deciding whether or not this is a good match, homebirth is really doable if they are in doubt, etc. When a refund comes into play, then they are charged/refunded on the per visit basis, plus mileage and a charge for oncall fee (if applicable).

[MsBlack]

By the way, I would probably do this--but I would want to be sure that there were very clear agreements/boundaries between myself and couple and also the other mw. To avoid any later (or sooner) issues!

[Maggi315]

I bill a little differently than most midwives on the board, I bill by prenatal, each is 50 (75 for initial), then the labor, delivery, and 3 postpartum visits and the 6-8 week visit (65).

We do just prenatal care in this area sometimes, I charge an initial fee, then just my prenatal visit fees plus any labwork.