I am not the type of person who is good at the having of the backbone. Usually I talk a mean line, but when it comes down to doing something about it, I get stuck. I’m working on that. Don’t you just love it when the universe steps up to give you a hand by offering plenty of the necessary lessons?

Part of transferring my care from the hospital midwives to the homebirth midwife involves some insurance shuffling. Unfortunately I didn’t make the decision sooner, so Tom and I didn’t switch plans. This means - no coverage on out of network doctors. Is my midwife in network? No. Are there any in network homebirth midwives? Again, no. I figure this is a simple situation, actually. There’s a thing called a Gap exception - if there aren’t any in network doctors within a 30 mile radius, you can get this exception. Amusingly enough I assumed that this would be easy. Call, apply for the exception and poof.

Insert laughter here. I got a call from the insurance company today. They’re rejecting my exception request. Why? Because while there aren’t any midwives in network, there are OBs. Um. These are not the same things. If I need an allergist, a gastroenterologist won’t help. If I want a home birth an OB won’t work for me. The insurance company doesn’t seem to think this is an issue. The plan does pay for midwives and homebirth, with the same coverage as OBs. You just have to find the magical, invisible in-network midwives. Of course, they’d be saving money paying for a midwife. There’s no way a hospital birth would be as inexpensive as that. Mom points out that really they’re saving the most money by covering nothing - this way we pay for the insurance and they don’t actually cover my medical expenses.

I am fortunate, I can pay for the midwife out of pocket if completely necessary. But not everyone has this luxury. It’s frustrating that not only are our (women’s) choices in childbirth limited by lack of knowledge, they are also limited by insurance companies with incomprehensible policies.

Posted on January 3rd, 2008 by Kat
Filed under: activism, pregnancy, General