Insurance

Insurance is boring and I'm glad I don't have to think about my health insurance very often. It even seems silly to talk about it here, but it has been a big focus lately in my day to day life.

My deductible is low, the out of pocket is low and the 20% co pay in between seems fair. It covers what I need, and I've just never really had a problem. Also, I don't pay for it, although it is not the company's group policy, the funds for my insurance are supplied by my employer.

However, when I realized that it was a non-maternity individual policy, things got real...really fast.  All of my pre-natal visits have been out-of-pocket. All of my ultrasounds have been out-of-pocket. And my labor and delivery, we pre-paid for it to get a discount. After the crazy high cost of IVF out-of-pocket to put the kid in there in the first place, to then have additional charges just to get the kid out healthy seems crazy.

At every doctor's visit, every blood draw, every screening, we are asked why we don't apply for medicaid. Even though I knew I wouldn't qualify, I looked into it, I don't qualify, I make too much money. I have great insurance actually, just not maternity coverage.

I finally called the insurance company that handles the group policy for my employer. I wanted to determine if I could add the group policy as a secondary coverage to get the maternity coverage. However, I am outside of the enrollment period, and the insurance coverage sucks. It has a much higher deductible and much higher out-of-pocket, and the principle is even higher. However, I thought it would be better than having no insurance coverage at all.

When I found out that I didn't qualify for the group policy, our representative told me about the State Pool for insurance coverage. I qualify specifically because I have an individual policy that does not have maternity coverage and because I am currently pregnant. I would pay twice as much as my current policy for the same deductible (that I still have to meet)  but it would have maternity benefits. I applied on July 15.

I found out yesterday that I was accepted for the coverage, I will pay for it for the remaining months of my pregnancy and it will cover me for 21 days after delivery including any complications for the baby during that time period. I plan to keep my individual coverage so that I don't have to try to get back on it after pregnancy.

This is simply fantastic news for us. I was starting to fear labor due to the possibility of pain management not being available due to cost rather than choice. I was having anxiety over the potential cost of a c-section, not the potential procedure itself.

I really am so relieved, once the policy is active on Aug 1st, I will have to seek out a refund for the money we prepaid, but even if we don't get it back, I still feel better about everything in the long run.

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I've uploaded some scans on one of the pages up top and also updated my timeline. I'm hopeful to retrieve the bump pics from my husband's phone so that I can post them in something that resembles order.

Also, I've been working on the nursery. Surprisingly there wasn't much to do, and there really isn't much left to do. But I hope to get some pics on here of that stuff too.

26 weeks this Thursday, AGHHHHH, can you believe it?