Signing out of hospital AMA (against medical advice)

Are you signing yourself out of the hospital only, or with your newborn?

I do not know what is going on in your part of the world, but, in CA, the hospital can make the child a ward of the court if they do not want you to take the baby home. I am telling the truth...

On another thread I shared the case of a woman who had already had a written birth plan that included going home immediately after birth. This happened many years ago, but hospitals are not known as places for radical change.

Her doctor disappeared on vacation, and the written plan was gone.

Finally they told her she could go, but only after hours of argument.

Then they told her that she could not take her baby home.

More hours of argument...

Finally they told her she could go home with the baby if she signed a paper. Not an AMA, but a different form: a "Permit for Disposal of Dead Infant", form. She signed it, and left.

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Amen! My DH is still a little worried about HB, and I don't think there is much else I can do to alleviate his little worries until the big day occurs. But he continues to say over and over how glad he is that will not have to fight the hospital to leave. They did everything they could to "force" us to stay. Too bad I did not know about AMA at the time.

Excuses started innocuous, like "we want to make sure you have established BFing first" (like they cared!) and ended up with "we will release you, but not the baby" (WTF?) Seems like thanks to the law that says that insurance companies *must* cover 48 hrs, the hospitals now consider it their God goven right to bill for exactly those 48 hrs!

Yes with my baby They only wanted to make sure I had a carseat.

Thanks so much everyone!! I feel more comfortable about this now. If only insurance paid for homebirths, then I'd be all set

I did it once and insurance paid.

If you want to hear the story, here it is (if not please skip to next post :LOL )

I was about 12 wks pg and had exreme cramping and gushing blood. I had previous spotting in prior weeks, but nothing like this. We went to the ER and it was just like stories I had heard but never believed. The person taking my info said "You have had a previous successful pregnancy? So you at least have one good one at home?" They kept trying to catheterize me before doing anything else, including checking for a hb. I refused the catheter repeatedly. They sent a 12 year-old looking nurse to use a doppler and she did it horribly. She found nothing and said, "I hope the rest of your night gets better." Finally I saw the doctor, and after about 2 min of conversation and looking at the chart, she asked, "Oh wait... are you pregnant?!" Once she left the room, I got dressed and told dh we were out of there. I saw my midwife in the morning finally, and she found the hb in about 3 sec. My son is 13 mths today . I am sorry I hijacked the thread... I am still mad about the event I guess.

I signed my preemie son out of the nicu ama, after a 14 day stay because he was doing great, even the nurses thought so, but the on call ped wouldn't discharge he said we needed to wait until our ped was on (another 2 days : ) so I said we are going home, the nurse only cared that we had a car seat, and gave us a referral for a home visit by the public health nurse
crystal

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Traveler's Insurance paid for my homebirth in 1983 - 80/20, $100.00 deductible.

Of my four homebirths, it is the only one I had health insurance for, and yes it paid...

I did not have insurance with the others.