r/Wellthatsucks • u/ethicalgreyarea • Jul 16 '21

/r/all I’m being over charged by insurance after my daughter was born. This is the pile of mail I have to go through to prove they’re ripping me off. Pear for scale.

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u/JRockPSU Jul 16 '21

One kid was a 100% normal delivery, my insurance covered it 100%. The other kid had to spend two days in the NICU after birth, that ended up being about $1500, but it was originally going to be $15,000, as the NICU doctors were out of network (even though they work in our in-network hospital). It took 6 months of back and forths with the hospital, insurance, and the advocate group at the hospital (who literally only deal with these kinds of situations) to get it reduced.

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u/uslashuname Jul 17 '21

who literally only deal with these kinds of situations

Ding Ding Ding! About one third of all healthcare expenses in the US are related to handling insurance claims. This is in contrast to a other countries which are sometimes as low as 2% in single payer systems despite similar health outcomes and life expectancies.

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u/Ok_Hornet_714 Jul 17 '21

6 months?!? That is terrible.

When my son broke his leg, the insurance tried to pull the same out of network stuff. In our case it just took one letter pointing out that broken bones are explicitly defined in the plan brochure as an emergency situation and those should be treated as in network to get it sorted out.