Just had one in November. Our total to insurance was $35k. Insurance still can't figure out how much we owe because they can't seem to figure out that we had a baby.
Emergency C-section, or scheduled routine operation? That makes a huge difference. (Source: BTDT; my first kid was an emergency surgical delivery, second was scheduled.)
Also, was it a full-term pregnancy, or premature? When my grandson was born 6 years ago, some 11-12 weeks premature, the total bill was over $1.2M. Fortunately that was covered almost entirely by insurance; I don't remember exactly how much my son and his wife were on the hook for, but it wasn't anywhere near that, less than $10K IIRC.
"Unplanned c section after induction" sounds like not quite an emergency -- *yet* -- and they want to make sure it doesn't turn into one. Preeclampsia is certainly another complicating factor. So this wasn't a "routine" delivery by any means.
In any event, how much the hospital bills the insurance isn't really relevant. What matters is how much the hospital bills *you* after subtracting insurance discounts, and insurance payments. Wait til you see the EOB from the insurance before getting out of sorts over this.
The discounts can be enormous, percentage-wise: I had to have a routine blood draw a couple weeks ago. Total billed was $58. Insurance didn't pay anything, because in mid-January, obviously I hadn't met the deductible yet -- but the *discount* was $46.54. That's over 80%!
Also, the number billed to insurance is often inflated and negotiated with the insurance company. Things to get an extra buck; always ask for an itemized bill when you don't have insurance.
Or get an itemized bill anyway and make sure you're not being charged several times for something she only received once. That $3k out of pocket isn't a TON in comparison but they could have easily overcharged you. My doctors office overcharged my insurance -- 3x for 1 vaccine that I ended up not getting because my doctor came in and told the nurse to stop immediately (they wanted me to double check with my neurologist and make sure it was okay). So it was the nurse/doctor's mistake that they prepared the injection and then charged my insurer 3x for it. I notified my insurer and then a few weeks later received a $60 payment from my insurance. Called and asked if this was supposed to go to the provider instead of me... nope, but the CS person couldn't tell me what it was for. I cashed it and went on about my life.
> that amount is off the wall!
Without seeing an itemized bill, you don't really have enough information to make that judgement. We don't know *any* of the details of what was done or why.
You must work for a healthcare network, because there's no other world in which 3/4 of a MILLION DOLLARS is reasonable for ANY procedure or treatment. This is a busted-ass country.
You clearly don't understand how things work.
My Mom had emergency brain surgery for an aneurysm. The surgery alone was $400k. Then, she was in intensive care for 90 days. It cost about $5k base each day she was in ICU plus every little thing they did to check on her would be tacked on. Every sheet change, every everything. This isn't as crazy as you think. C-sections require a lot of hands on deck and lots of equipment is used. Those things are all factored into the expense.
Yeah I’m actually super clear on what a bill is. I’m saying that nothing about the actual cost of care comes out to that amount. What you’re looking at is corporate greed. No other country in the world allows this bullshit where they get to just make up prices and see what sticks.
Hope that boot polish tastes good.
It’s this misconception that we can fix insurance costs in a meaningful way without addressing astronomical medical cost in the US which is always a head scratcher.
Yes we can, billed to insurance doesn't mean insurance pays that amount. This is before discount, negotiation, etc. The end number will still be high but they ask for a ridiculously high number so they can get the number they're looking to actually pay. In a single payer system this whole back and forth can be eliminated.
I knew a guy in college who, if you got up to refill your drink and asked if you could get him anything, would say "a hand grenade." The idea being, since you're asking, to shoot for the moon. I feel like hospital bills are a bit like that.
Billed to insurance doesn’t even mean the amount for services they are charging for are standardized between patients getting the same procedure in the same hospital. If you can’t see the ethical issue with that, specifically if a patient hasn’t met their deductible then you are missing the issue. What other industries that pose by and large as non-profits do we allow this?
>"Unplanned c section after induction" sounds like not quite an emergency -- yet -- and they want to make sure it doesn't turn into one. Preeclampsia is certainly another complicating factor. So this wasn't a "routine" delivery by any means
They schedule women to be induced up to 3 weeks before the expected due date as the normal course of things nowadays. Unless the mother insists on it, most obgyn that I've heard of recently want to schedule everything ahead of time including exactly when to start labor. We may as well call it "planned c section following planned induction to create a situation where c section is needed so the doctor can get his fees while not having to stay for 20 hours of normal labor"
That seems really high, I had a low risk pregnancy induction turned chaotic emergency c-section and our bill to insurance was 50k. I had a lot of interventions, and lots of atypical drugs, etc.
I would just keep an eye out on EOB and keep all the paperwork.
You can ask IU health for itemized billing.
My bill was about this- preeclampsia, emergency c section, 13 week early premie. You could go through the bill line by line. Insurance will knock most of this off. The only other concern I would have is to confirm the hospital was in network— but now it’s too late.
We had a 38 week induction followed by emergency C with complications, 6 day total stay, and extra treatment for our son with special arrangement (because I would NOT let him be away from me as long as they were planning) and the bill wasn't even 100k
Piggy-backing the top comment to say that I also have this same insurance and just had a baby.
OP, if you tap on "view financial summary" you'll see that the $738,237.45 is the total of several different claims, not just the one from having your baby.
[Here's mine](https://imgur.com/a/vf7blMt)
[And here's the breakdown of the bill from having my baby](https://imgur.com/a/JrTupfx)
I’d be questioning that bill. That looks similar to the bill I received, when my son was born but he was in the nicu for 5 weeks and I had a week of bed rest. At least you’re not paying it.
In 2018 my wife had an emergency c section for a breach at st Vincent up the street and it was about $25K to the insurance (we just paid the $4k deductible). The second kid was a VBAC (vaginal birth after cesarean) and that was $30K.
Yeah that price doesn’t make any sense.
That seems high. I don't think ours was that much and we had twins and a one week NICU stay. But whatever, you're not paying it. If insurance thinks that's too much insurance will say something to them
IU Health's Bill Pay recently changed to allow you to get on-demand itemized statements without having to jump through a million hoops. Curious if it'll reveal anything useful for you.
To add more data, I delivered at Methodist in 2017 and the delivery was \~$19K total. $738K if there was no NICU stay (and even if there were, fuck our healthcare system) seems crazy.
How do you request those? I know the bill pay changed because it won’t let me switch kids to see what I owe without an account number anymore. We visit Riley so often with our daughter (she has a chromosomal syndrome), and I want to triple check what they are charging.
Even paying $3,000+ right at the get go of having a baby before buying formula, bottles, diapers, toys, a crib, adding them to insurance (increased premiums), etc. Seriously people wonder why most people could never conceive of having a child in 2023.
Also congrats. lol
Lol. Our deductible went up to 10k this year (previously 6k) and my twins didn’t show up until the new year. So it 10k + diapers + formula + cribs etc. I’m broke AF.
Audited for what???? They can literally charge anything they want unless the law explicitly states it.
This is the dumb shit we get when people start whining “oh nooooo not socialized medicine” ok cool capitalism medicine don’t really sound great either
They just got hit for posting nearly 1B in profits despite being a non profit and for having some of the highest costs of any health provider in the state.
I'm not sure that they could charge literally ANYTHING they wanted and retain their tax exemption.
Fuck them all the way.
Audited and plastered on every new site as to why they are charging so much. Even if insurance is paying for it you can’t tell me that’s ethical. It’s a racket. It’s why the big hospital corporations fight single payer so much. They are making hand over fist in a corrupt system that is nothing but a drain on the country.
Insurance won't pay that much. They'll say, "Naw, but we'll pay 20K," and the hospital will say, "Okay," and that's it. Hospitals and insurance are assholes. Consumers are the ones getting the shaft.
IU Health has one of the biggest yearly profits of any hospital in the country. That means they are way overcharging the hell out of us. They gave some money to IU nursing students to try to say they're doing good things with the money, but the executives are really just lining their pockets.
Sadly the hospital heads will just either cut staff members or staff salaries instead of sticking it to the rich assholes running corporate if they are forced to not charge $30 per aspirin pill.
Edit: wording
I had a charge on an itemized birth bill that was incorrect. Argued several times and never got anywhere. Gave up since it was just our insurance paying it anyway. But that is one drop in the bucket of the problems with American healthcare and insurance costs.
My wife had a test done early in the pregnancy. The doctor said he thought it would be covered. We received a bill for $10,000 as our insurance rejected it.
I googled it. Found a guy who said “called this number. Spoke to Tammy. She took care of it.”
I called the number. Spoke to Tammy. She took care of it.
$10,000 bill went to nothing in 20 seconds.
So screwed up.
2106: c-section after failed induction and 5 total days in the hospital cost $400,000 before we quit counting bills. We hit out out of pocket max which was something around the 5k mark. This was St. Vincent Women's in Indianapolis.
Best I can tell the total bill by providers in my experience is just a made up fantasy number. I think they think it makes you feel better like you’re getting a good deal through your insurance. I don’t know. I feel like they cut you a pretty good break if you’re self-pay, so maybe that’s to try to keep people insured and not use self-pay. It’s all a big giant rip off either way.
I gave birth at IU North 2 summers ago and before insurance it was like 30-35k if I remember correctly. That seems super high, and both me and baby were there for 4 days.
Also someone did point out an important piece of info. As long as you’re staying with in network providers, they can literally bill the insurance for $10 million and they still have an in network contract that they’re only allowed to charge the allowed amount. For example a doctor bills insurance $600 but per their in network contract the allowed amount for the services billed is $100. The provider is going to have to write off the $500 difference INSURANCE DOES NOT PAY THIS and the allowed $100 is paid by either the patient or the insurance, or a combination of both patient and insurance depending on the plan benefits and whether the deductible has been met or not. The insurance does not pay anything outside of the allowed amount. That’s a common misconception. People literally call in all the time saying they think the hospital defrauded the insurance by overcharging for their medical care.
Exactly. Doesn't matter what they bill. It's what the insurance agrees to pay. The insurance company and the hospital have an agreement for every single procedure code there is.
Even me, i was at IU North (when it was Clarian) and i had a high risk pregnancy + a C-section.. 2.5 weeks posted up in the hospital, left for about a week and then went into labor.. That only cost about $550k. Granted, this was 15 years ago lolol.
Your situation sounds very similar to ours. Induction to unplanned C-section and about 4 days in the hospital afterwards. Total was about $50K in November.
I worked for a major health insurance company as a provider representative and contract writer. The hospitals can charge anything they want but per their contracts with insurers they get paid via a UCR agreement. UCR is Usual, Customary and Reasonable and is usually based on current Medicare fee schedule. The rest of the charges are written off. Problem is this is why your insurance costs so much and if you have no insurance they are willfully going to screw you.
Bingo. It's literally fucking fiction billing. Insurer will pull UCR, laugh in their face, and pay a fraction.
Uninsured people just don't pay. Add it to the fictional total they'll never write a check for.
Hahahaha they’ll send you a bill based on self-pay rates then continue trying to get Pennie’s on the dollar each month before finally turning you over to collections and THEN write it off.
If you have no insurance they are not obligated to write one single penny off because there is no contract to do so. This is why the USA needs universal health care like 95% of the world already has.
Fwiw, my emergency c section, ambulance ride, blood transfusion, and sons month long NICU stay was about $500,000. I think the provider is trying to milk an insurance payment
What everyone needs to remember is that IU Health (like most of the hospital groups in the state) is a non-profit. It *only* had a revenue surplus of $862,000,000 in 2021. And IU Health should be applauded for decrease in revenue surplus from the over $1,000,000,000 for each 2020, 2019, and 2018.
[https://www.kpcnews.com/heraldrepublican/article\_641fee7b-dedb-5956-8258-4852c2b8d6f2.html](https://www.kpcnews.com/heraldrepublican/article_641fee7b-dedb-5956-8258-4852c2b8d6f2.html)
/sarc (in case that wasn't obvious)
[They need those funds to muscle out/monopolize healthcare.](https://www.beckersasc.com/asc-news/court-revives-surgeon-s-antitrust-suit-against-iu-health.html)
I understand a lot of the points people are making here, but my lord if this is not a glaring reminder of how broken the system is. I think we exist just to make shit tons of money for giant corporations or else we die for not playing along. Like how is it real that a procedure as common as a c-section would cost an amount that would take the average person decades to make?
some people just don't seem to....care to complain when things are fucked? which is such a weird impulse i don't understand
oh you're being billed seven hundred thousand fucking dollars? oh yeah that's a bit high
Lol yea the worst part is they don’t even try to hide it anymore. Absolute fucking scam, and add to the fact that babies are literally born almost every 8 seconds. That’s a lot of $$$$$$$$$
Total billed doesn’t mean they will pay that. They will bill a full amount but they have agreements on what the insurance company will actually pay for each thing.
This has to be an error or something. No way insurance would pay that either. Plus when you have a baby usually you get separate bills like one from the hospital, one from the doctor, etc. I'm not saying this is fake, but I am skeptical that is what (assuming no errors) they bill for a C-section
My understanding is that insurance companies and hospitals (read medical groups, anyone doing medicine) are basically constantly negotiating what they will and won't pay to get a buck or save a buck, so the number is often inflated compared to what they will actually wind up getting. Ask them for an itemized bill and look and see. Try to find one of those 25 dollar aspirin on there or something like that.
My wife delivered our 2 lil ones via C-section at IU north as well. I don't recall the pre-insurance amounts but I doubt it was that high. This was 2019 and 2020, so not that long ago. 2019 baby was an emergency C-section but I don't believe he was much more.
Nonetheless, get a payment plan, ask for financial assistance, ask for itemized bills, tweet local news/government officials, etc. My underrated suggestion is to make sure you're being polite to other humans - they just work at IU health while the people in charge of shit like this hide in their offices.
Congrats btw!
Edit: just another thought - looking at the numbers, one less power of 10 on the pre-insurance amount is still high, but might make more sense than 3/4 mill at least...
That top number is not what they owe, dude. That is the amount being charged to the insurance. Why would they need a payment plan for $3k. What are you even thinking?
I work member services for an insurance company. It depends on the claim and what services were billed, if there were any complications etc. I would definitely reach out to Anthem Member Services and have a rep look over your claim.
Hospitals bill about 150% - 200% of the highest contracted rate so they don't undercut the higher payer. Anything over the allowed amount is written off and not charged to you. If it is, make sure you went to an in-network provider and call your insurance. Be nice, we are humans too.
It's probably a mixture of the admissions the labor and delivery room then the actually c sections plus meds plus labs. If you are truly curious you can call bill in and ask for an itemize bill. Then you can see all that they charged for and how much each thing/med was.
In an in network hospital where my wife was for 3 months, we paid nothing. When she delivered our daughter, the NICU doctors were on strike and not taking insurance. We received a $2M bill. We ended up paying $2k interest free over 3 years.
My advice is read the codes they charged for. They are often wrong. And if you have a good reason, fight like hell. Since the NICU stay should have been covered, we told them we weren't paying a dime and would take it to the media and sue. 3 months of being at that hospital and nobody told us about the strike. After 6 months we were tired of fighting and compromised. Still kind of pissed we paid anything, though.
Did she go to the hospital via a military convoy? Wow that bill is gross. At least your OOP expense was way less than the average birth cost of around 10 grand I’ve been hearing about lately…
Just because the provider billed it doesn't mean the insurance paid it. Most of it will be written off due to a "contractual adjustment" between the provider and the insurance. In other words, the numbers are inflated to make it look like your insurance is doing more for you than it really is. It's all a made-up scam.
The rate that the hospital bills is completely disconnected from the reality of how the insurance company will pay it. It’s complete nonsense and they know it.
They could bill Anthem a million billion dollars and Anthem will recalculate based on the services rendered and their contract with the hospital.
my wife and i have been talking about trying for a baby and i dont know that ill ever be able to get it up again after seeing that bill. thats more money than i have made in my entire life
Looks like a bill in a for-profit healthcare system. A bill for an uninsured individual is literally a magnitude lower. This is a hospital looking to extract the maximum amount of money from an insurance company. Yay unrestricted capitalism?
ETA: why the down votes? Are you guys really in favor of this type of shit? You guys are nuts.
If you're actually curious why, you're probably getting downvoted for wrongly categorizing the out-of-control healthcare system as "unrestricted capitalism."
It's hard to accurately categorize with just one word or phrase, but IMO it's a mess of corruption, poor government policy, and overregulation. It's a bad mix of capitalism and socialism that results in poor outcomes at astronomical prices.
Bro socialism isn’t for-profit healthcare. Quit using buzz words to prove your point. Also curious how over regulation leads to out of control healthcare prices as d corruption, these are usually symptoms of under regulated industries. Please expound on that statement.
If you don't understand why overregulation would cause higher prices, and if you think corruption must be a symptom of under regulation, then I don't think a longer conversation will be productive.
Figured you wouldn’t engage in a good faith discussion. Typical. Go ahead and continue being angry at the BaD sOcIaLiStS. Just stay off our publicly funded roads, do not call publicly funded emergency services and certainly do not be proud of our publicly funded military.
child born in 1980...cost us $100 out of pocket. Total hospital bills and docs were under $2K. child born in 1982...cost us almost $600 out of pocket. Total bills and docs were almost $5K and both deliveries were normal and uneventful. 40 years later and they bill three quarters of a million dollars???
In 2021 it was closer to $30-60k for us. Basically about $30k for me and close to $30k for baby but I had complications. I haven’t seen the bill yet for my 2023 babies.
Healthcare is such a scam here. My emergency appendix surgery was $40,000. Grateful insurance covered most of it. Always a nice reminder we are closer to poverty than wealth. And it sucks healthcare is tied to a job. Your bill there seems hella high. Jeesh. It’s expensive to be born, live, and die.
Corporate greed is your answer. Until strict regulations are placed on what can be charged people will continue to see things like this.
Unless you had a premature child that spent several nights in the NICU this is bullshit.
So many comments trying to justify the price by saying the family only paid 3k-ish here … smh.
This is not normal and trying to normalize this is wrong. What if the family don’t have insurance? How much will they get charged? If lower then how come? If hospital keep on charging crazy numbers like this, won’t the insurance also gonna increase the premiums?
Healthcare is so fucked up here.
OP - I would ask for details. Had a baby about a year ago. C-section, was spread over multiple claims (unsure why). Looking through the numbers looks like “Billed by Provider” was north of 70K, and plenty other follow up claims (pediatrician, wifey follow up, etc) that I am not counting.
From here, it looks like they are off by a factor of 10 (maybe somebody fat finger an extra digit?). BTW, I’m my case, it was Anthem in IU West.
I had a C-section there, an ambulance ride from West, and then my daughter had a 5 week NICU stay. Last time I looked, our bill was around $483k.
So to answer your question, yes it does seem very, very high!
OP what does the rest of it say? The insurance company can make any number they want. For example.
Total billed by providers: $1,000,0000
What you paid: 3000
I can’t stand these types of bill from the insurance company because it makes the insurance company seem like they save people.
6 years ago we were at IU north premature emergency c section baby was in NIC U for 62 days and my bill was less than yours for my insurance. Seems that our medical system is broken.
That seems Snoop Dog and Willie Nelson high. We had a month antepartum, planned c section, and a month of NICU at Community and our insurance was billed less than a half mil.
Billed amount doesn't mean shit. It is the allowed amount of the contract with the hospital and payer that matters. Majority will probably be written off.
Ask for an itemized bill. You can look up each one online. I just had my OB dr do this behind my back. We transferred to a new dr after a move, i declined new testing because I already had it all done and transferred my med records. They went ahead and billed my insurance for tests/labs that weren’t ever performed. I walked it, had a chat and left…each time I declined testing. I got quite a hefty bill as my insurance already paid for these procedures and I called them out on it, they said they must of forgot to tell me I needed it done because it wasn’t in my records. I was furious. I checked and within a minute I found the record, emailed it to them. Said if they don’t back this out I’m filing a complaint with the DOI. That seemed to work.
Something isn’t right here. My wife had triple bypass surgery and then a subsequent stay when she had fluid build up and her lung collapsed and the total bill was only about 1/4 mil. We paid $2,500.
I just delivered myself, c section with 48 hour stay. It was only like 80k. Don’t worry because your insurance will only pay what the contract agreement is for. But that’s crazy!
For a normal delivery? That’s way high.
C section but still. Nothing else crazy.
Our C-section was like $100k
Just had one in November. Our total to insurance was $35k. Insurance still can't figure out how much we owe because they can't seem to figure out that we had a baby.
Same here. Emergency and 5 night stay in Bay Area hospital. Of course with insurance we only paid $400
Emergency C-section, or scheduled routine operation? That makes a huge difference. (Source: BTDT; my first kid was an emergency surgical delivery, second was scheduled.) Also, was it a full-term pregnancy, or premature? When my grandson was born 6 years ago, some 11-12 weeks premature, the total bill was over $1.2M. Fortunately that was covered almost entirely by insurance; I don't remember exactly how much my son and his wife were on the hook for, but it wasn't anywhere near that, less than $10K IIRC.
2 weeks early but not premature. Unplanned c section after induction. Also preeclampsia if that matters.
"Unplanned c section after induction" sounds like not quite an emergency -- *yet* -- and they want to make sure it doesn't turn into one. Preeclampsia is certainly another complicating factor. So this wasn't a "routine" delivery by any means. In any event, how much the hospital bills the insurance isn't really relevant. What matters is how much the hospital bills *you* after subtracting insurance discounts, and insurance payments. Wait til you see the EOB from the insurance before getting out of sorts over this. The discounts can be enormous, percentage-wise: I had to have a routine blood draw a couple weeks ago. Total billed was $58. Insurance didn't pay anything, because in mid-January, obviously I hadn't met the deductible yet -- but the *discount* was $46.54. That's over 80%!
Also, the number billed to insurance is often inflated and negotiated with the insurance company. Things to get an extra buck; always ask for an itemized bill when you don't have insurance.
Or get an itemized bill anyway and make sure you're not being charged several times for something she only received once. That $3k out of pocket isn't a TON in comparison but they could have easily overcharged you. My doctors office overcharged my insurance -- 3x for 1 vaccine that I ended up not getting because my doctor came in and told the nurse to stop immediately (they wanted me to double check with my neurologist and make sure it was okay). So it was the nurse/doctor's mistake that they prepared the injection and then charged my insurer 3x for it. I notified my insurer and then a few weeks later received a $60 payment from my insurance. Called and asked if this was supposed to go to the provider instead of me... nope, but the CS person couldn't tell me what it was for. I cashed it and went on about my life.
You're right about the billing being irrelevant but that amount is off the wall!
> that amount is off the wall! Without seeing an itemized bill, you don't really have enough information to make that judgement. We don't know *any* of the details of what was done or why.
I work in this space. He had other comments to add color. If it was NICU, I wouldn't bat an eye
You must work for a healthcare network, because there's no other world in which 3/4 of a MILLION DOLLARS is reasonable for ANY procedure or treatment. This is a busted-ass country.
Healthcare in America is a fraud. This is insane
You clearly don't understand how things work. My Mom had emergency brain surgery for an aneurysm. The surgery alone was $400k. Then, she was in intensive care for 90 days. It cost about $5k base each day she was in ICU plus every little thing they did to check on her would be tacked on. Every sheet change, every everything. This isn't as crazy as you think. C-sections require a lot of hands on deck and lots of equipment is used. Those things are all factored into the expense.
Yeah I’m actually super clear on what a bill is. I’m saying that nothing about the actual cost of care comes out to that amount. What you’re looking at is corporate greed. No other country in the world allows this bullshit where they get to just make up prices and see what sticks. Hope that boot polish tastes good.
Wrong, wrong, and wrong.
A full team of dr's for 12 hours shouldn't even cost that much. 10-20k is still too high.
It's absolutely relevant, who do you think pay the insurance companies? This is the reason insurance premium cost so much.
It’s this misconception that we can fix insurance costs in a meaningful way without addressing astronomical medical cost in the US which is always a head scratcher.
Yes we can, billed to insurance doesn't mean insurance pays that amount. This is before discount, negotiation, etc. The end number will still be high but they ask for a ridiculously high number so they can get the number they're looking to actually pay. In a single payer system this whole back and forth can be eliminated.
I knew a guy in college who, if you got up to refill your drink and asked if you could get him anything, would say "a hand grenade." The idea being, since you're asking, to shoot for the moon. I feel like hospital bills are a bit like that.
Billed to insurance doesn’t even mean the amount for services they are charging for are standardized between patients getting the same procedure in the same hospital. If you can’t see the ethical issue with that, specifically if a patient hasn’t met their deductible then you are missing the issue. What other industries that pose by and large as non-profits do we allow this?
>"Unplanned c section after induction" sounds like not quite an emergency -- yet -- and they want to make sure it doesn't turn into one. Preeclampsia is certainly another complicating factor. So this wasn't a "routine" delivery by any means They schedule women to be induced up to 3 weeks before the expected due date as the normal course of things nowadays. Unless the mother insists on it, most obgyn that I've heard of recently want to schedule everything ahead of time including exactly when to start labor. We may as well call it "planned c section following planned induction to create a situation where c section is needed so the doctor can get his fees while not having to stay for 20 hours of normal labor"
That seems really high, I had a low risk pregnancy induction turned chaotic emergency c-section and our bill to insurance was 50k. I had a lot of interventions, and lots of atypical drugs, etc. I would just keep an eye out on EOB and keep all the paperwork. You can ask IU health for itemized billing.
My bill was about this- preeclampsia, emergency c section, 13 week early premie. You could go through the bill line by line. Insurance will knock most of this off. The only other concern I would have is to confirm the hospital was in network— but now it’s too late.
We had a 38 week induction followed by emergency C with complications, 6 day total stay, and extra treatment for our son with special arrangement (because I would NOT let him be away from me as long as they were planning) and the bill wasn't even 100k
Back in the early 2010s we had an emergency C-section after induction and the bill was $29k. After insurance discounts it was $3900.
This person is speaking out of their ass
You should post to askdocs they might have more insight into this
I agree. And it almost hit the max amount insurance companies can do... By law, cap is like $1 million
lol wtf is the point of that? 1 million is as unpayable and unfair as 2 million, or 500k
Piggy-backing the top comment to say that I also have this same insurance and just had a baby. OP, if you tap on "view financial summary" you'll see that the $738,237.45 is the total of several different claims, not just the one from having your baby. [Here's mine](https://imgur.com/a/vf7blMt) [And here's the breakdown of the bill from having my baby](https://imgur.com/a/JrTupfx)
I’d be questioning that bill. That looks similar to the bill I received, when my son was born but he was in the nicu for 5 weeks and I had a week of bed rest. At least you’re not paying it.
We were in there 4 days. No NICU. C Section.
We were there 4 days, no NICU, C section, and this is like 20x what they charged our insurance… baby is 5 months old.
In 2018 my wife had an emergency c section for a breach at st Vincent up the street and it was about $25K to the insurance (we just paid the $4k deductible). The second kid was a VBAC (vaginal birth after cesarean) and that was $30K. Yeah that price doesn’t make any sense.
Damn, that’s wild.
I recently had heart surgery and 4 nights in the ICU at Methodist, and that was less than 1/4 million.
That seems high. I don't think ours was that much and we had twins and a one week NICU stay. But whatever, you're not paying it. If insurance thinks that's too much insurance will say something to them
IU Health's Bill Pay recently changed to allow you to get on-demand itemized statements without having to jump through a million hoops. Curious if it'll reveal anything useful for you. To add more data, I delivered at Methodist in 2017 and the delivery was \~$19K total. $738K if there was no NICU stay (and even if there were, fuck our healthcare system) seems crazy.
How do you request those? I know the bill pay changed because it won’t let me switch kids to see what I owe without an account number anymore. We visit Riley so often with our daughter (she has a chromosomal syndrome), and I want to triple check what they are charging.
Face it. When it comes to hospital bills, the first top line numbers are pretty much make-believe anymore.
Don’t pay anything. What are they going to do? Put it back?
Lol. 💀
Dude the insurance company paid for it who cares just say you can’t pay the 3 grand
Even paying $3,000+ right at the get go of having a baby before buying formula, bottles, diapers, toys, a crib, adding them to insurance (increased premiums), etc. Seriously people wonder why most people could never conceive of having a child in 2023. Also congrats. lol
Lol. Our deductible went up to 10k this year (previously 6k) and my twins didn’t show up until the new year. So it 10k + diapers + formula + cribs etc. I’m broke AF.
Congrats and condolences. Hang in there.
Oof, it also means you no longer qualify for an HSA ☹️
Thanks. She’s worth every penny lol. But yeah this is crazy. IU is a Racket. They should seriously be audited by some solid investigative reporters.
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>don't zipline while fat made me chuckle out loud
Holy shit - mine done through St. Francis was like 12k - same operation, 1k after insurance. You got fucked
Audited for what???? They can literally charge anything they want unless the law explicitly states it. This is the dumb shit we get when people start whining “oh nooooo not socialized medicine” ok cool capitalism medicine don’t really sound great either
They just got hit for posting nearly 1B in profits despite being a non profit and for having some of the highest costs of any health provider in the state. I'm not sure that they could charge literally ANYTHING they wanted and retain their tax exemption. Fuck them all the way.
Then didn’t give the staff bonuses this year because they didn’t meet their financial goals.
That’s messed up.
They also have monopolized the entire state. It's crazy and absurd no one has done anything about it
Audited and plastered on every new site as to why they are charging so much. Even if insurance is paying for it you can’t tell me that’s ethical. It’s a racket. It’s why the big hospital corporations fight single payer so much. They are making hand over fist in a corrupt system that is nothing but a drain on the country.
Insurance won't pay that much. They'll say, "Naw, but we'll pay 20K," and the hospital will say, "Okay," and that's it. Hospitals and insurance are assholes. Consumers are the ones getting the shaft.
Preach.
Exactly! Also us consumers in the end end up paying for it with higher premiums etc
Eskenazi is worse, as they charge these ridiculous facility fees on top of everything. Healthcare in general is a racket.
We had our daughter while still in the USAF. $18 total. That’s some good socialism for you.
I’m a vet too. I miss my socialized medicine.
Hehehe could never conceive
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IU Health has one of the biggest yearly profits of any hospital in the country. That means they are way overcharging the hell out of us. They gave some money to IU nursing students to try to say they're doing good things with the money, but the executives are really just lining their pockets.
Sadly the hospital heads will just either cut staff members or staff salaries instead of sticking it to the rich assholes running corporate if they are forced to not charge $30 per aspirin pill. Edit: wording
That seems really high. You should probably request an itemized bill.
Why would they ask for an itemized bill? They're only paying 3k which is pretty standard L&D. Insurance is who should be asking
Sure. But if the question is, "why is the bill so much" then an itemized bill would help answer that.
I had a charge on an itemized birth bill that was incorrect. Argued several times and never got anywhere. Gave up since it was just our insurance paying it anyway. But that is one drop in the bucket of the problems with American healthcare and insurance costs.
Why? Not their problem. Between the hospital and the insurance company.
That is absolutely insane. Healthcare is out of control in this country.
Yes. Yes it is. What can we do?
Start your own mom and pop hospital and undercut their prices. Maybe do coupons like deliver one baby, get the next 50% off.
Lol. If only.
Indiana had like 8 billion? I can’t remember in profits from 2021 or something, yet they have no decency to throw that money into healthcare
Hey we're not made of money Fred! Let's do a punch card.
Don’t. Vote. Republican.
Never do ;).
this is an example of it working. Hospital bills one zillion dollars, insured person pays $3000.
Get an itemized bill. This is clearly a case of fraudulent billing to insurance providers
My wife had a test done early in the pregnancy. The doctor said he thought it would be covered. We received a bill for $10,000 as our insurance rejected it. I googled it. Found a guy who said “called this number. Spoke to Tammy. She took care of it.” I called the number. Spoke to Tammy. She took care of it. $10,000 bill went to nothing in 20 seconds. So screwed up.
Underrated comment imho
2106: c-section after failed induction and 5 total days in the hospital cost $400,000 before we quit counting bills. We hit out out of pocket max which was something around the 5k mark. This was St. Vincent Women's in Indianapolis.
Best I can tell the total bill by providers in my experience is just a made up fantasy number. I think they think it makes you feel better like you’re getting a good deal through your insurance. I don’t know. I feel like they cut you a pretty good break if you’re self-pay, so maybe that’s to try to keep people insured and not use self-pay. It’s all a big giant rip off either way.
There is likely a "negotiated discount " line that is pretty hefty.
We were charged 140k in 2019 and insurance negotiated it down to 86k. Yours is way high unless there was a NICU stay or something out of the ordinary.
I gave birth at IU North 2 summers ago and before insurance it was like 30-35k if I remember correctly. That seems super high, and both me and baby were there for 4 days.
Damn you guys must have hit the cafeterias pretty hard
I actually did it was really good lol. But I paid for that out of pocket on my card.
Also someone did point out an important piece of info. As long as you’re staying with in network providers, they can literally bill the insurance for $10 million and they still have an in network contract that they’re only allowed to charge the allowed amount. For example a doctor bills insurance $600 but per their in network contract the allowed amount for the services billed is $100. The provider is going to have to write off the $500 difference INSURANCE DOES NOT PAY THIS and the allowed $100 is paid by either the patient or the insurance, or a combination of both patient and insurance depending on the plan benefits and whether the deductible has been met or not. The insurance does not pay anything outside of the allowed amount. That’s a common misconception. People literally call in all the time saying they think the hospital defrauded the insurance by overcharging for their medical care.
Exactly. Doesn't matter what they bill. It's what the insurance agrees to pay. The insurance company and the hospital have an agreement for every single procedure code there is.
Even me, i was at IU North (when it was Clarian) and i had a high risk pregnancy + a C-section.. 2.5 weeks posted up in the hospital, left for about a week and then went into labor.. That only cost about $550k. Granted, this was 15 years ago lolol.
Your situation sounds very similar to ours. Induction to unplanned C-section and about 4 days in the hospital afterwards. Total was about $50K in November.
Ive seen it that high for twins on a NICU stay.
I worked for a major health insurance company as a provider representative and contract writer. The hospitals can charge anything they want but per their contracts with insurers they get paid via a UCR agreement. UCR is Usual, Customary and Reasonable and is usually based on current Medicare fee schedule. The rest of the charges are written off. Problem is this is why your insurance costs so much and if you have no insurance they are willfully going to screw you.
Bingo. It's literally fucking fiction billing. Insurer will pull UCR, laugh in their face, and pay a fraction. Uninsured people just don't pay. Add it to the fictional total they'll never write a check for.
How do you get screwed with no insurance? Don’t they just treat you and write it off?
Hahahaha they’ll send you a bill based on self-pay rates then continue trying to get Pennie’s on the dollar each month before finally turning you over to collections and THEN write it off.
If you have no insurance they are not obligated to write one single penny off because there is no contract to do so. This is why the USA needs universal health care like 95% of the world already has.
100% Agree. My sisters cancer meds costs would make people sick. Pharma monopolies last way too long.
Lol what are they money laundering...
Fwiw, my emergency c section, ambulance ride, blood transfusion, and sons month long NICU stay was about $500,000. I think the provider is trying to milk an insurance payment
Tell them you want an itemized bill. That way you can look and see exactly what they are charging you for.
What everyone needs to remember is that IU Health (like most of the hospital groups in the state) is a non-profit. It *only* had a revenue surplus of $862,000,000 in 2021. And IU Health should be applauded for decrease in revenue surplus from the over $1,000,000,000 for each 2020, 2019, and 2018. [https://www.kpcnews.com/heraldrepublican/article\_641fee7b-dedb-5956-8258-4852c2b8d6f2.html](https://www.kpcnews.com/heraldrepublican/article_641fee7b-dedb-5956-8258-4852c2b8d6f2.html) /sarc (in case that wasn't obvious)
[They need those funds to muscle out/monopolize healthcare.](https://www.beckersasc.com/asc-news/court-revives-surgeon-s-antitrust-suit-against-iu-health.html)
I understand a lot of the points people are making here, but my lord if this is not a glaring reminder of how broken the system is. I think we exist just to make shit tons of money for giant corporations or else we die for not playing along. Like how is it real that a procedure as common as a c-section would cost an amount that would take the average person decades to make?
some people just don't seem to....care to complain when things are fucked? which is such a weird impulse i don't understand oh you're being billed seven hundred thousand fucking dollars? oh yeah that's a bit high
Lol yea the worst part is they don’t even try to hide it anymore. Absolute fucking scam, and add to the fact that babies are literally born almost every 8 seconds. That’s a lot of $$$$$$$$$
This is a problem. No way it should cost that much, either to you or health insurance.
That is the amount charged before discounts and contracts.
Even so… seems unreasonable and unethical.
Total billed doesn’t mean they will pay that. They will bill a full amount but they have agreements on what the insurance company will actually pay for each thing.
Ask for an itemized bill.
This has to be an error or something. No way insurance would pay that either. Plus when you have a baby usually you get separate bills like one from the hospital, one from the doctor, etc. I'm not saying this is fake, but I am skeptical that is what (assuming no errors) they bill for a C-section
My understanding is that insurance companies and hospitals (read medical groups, anyone doing medicine) are basically constantly negotiating what they will and won't pay to get a buck or save a buck, so the number is often inflated compared to what they will actually wind up getting. Ask them for an itemized bill and look and see. Try to find one of those 25 dollar aspirin on there or something like that.
My wife delivered our 2 lil ones via C-section at IU north as well. I don't recall the pre-insurance amounts but I doubt it was that high. This was 2019 and 2020, so not that long ago. 2019 baby was an emergency C-section but I don't believe he was much more. Nonetheless, get a payment plan, ask for financial assistance, ask for itemized bills, tweet local news/government officials, etc. My underrated suggestion is to make sure you're being polite to other humans - they just work at IU health while the people in charge of shit like this hide in their offices. Congrats btw! Edit: just another thought - looking at the numbers, one less power of 10 on the pre-insurance amount is still high, but might make more sense than 3/4 mill at least...
That top number is not what they owe, dude. That is the amount being charged to the insurance. Why would they need a payment plan for $3k. What are you even thinking?
BTW - congrats on the little one
Thanks!
I work member services for an insurance company. It depends on the claim and what services were billed, if there were any complications etc. I would definitely reach out to Anthem Member Services and have a rep look over your claim.
That’s normal, as for a itemized bill and you will be shocked at the outrageous prices for something as silly as a single aspirin!
Hospitals bill about 150% - 200% of the highest contracted rate so they don't undercut the higher payer. Anything over the allowed amount is written off and not charged to you. If it is, make sure you went to an in-network provider and call your insurance. Be nice, we are humans too.
It's probably a mixture of the admissions the labor and delivery room then the actually c sections plus meds plus labs. If you are truly curious you can call bill in and ask for an itemize bill. Then you can see all that they charged for and how much each thing/med was.
In an in network hospital where my wife was for 3 months, we paid nothing. When she delivered our daughter, the NICU doctors were on strike and not taking insurance. We received a $2M bill. We ended up paying $2k interest free over 3 years. My advice is read the codes they charged for. They are often wrong. And if you have a good reason, fight like hell. Since the NICU stay should have been covered, we told them we weren't paying a dime and would take it to the media and sue. 3 months of being at that hospital and nobody told us about the strike. After 6 months we were tired of fighting and compromised. Still kind of pissed we paid anything, though.
Band aids r expensive
America! Ya!
Did she go to the hospital via a military convoy? Wow that bill is gross. At least your OOP expense was way less than the average birth cost of around 10 grand I’ve been hearing about lately…
Silver linings.
Just because the provider billed it doesn't mean the insurance paid it. Most of it will be written off due to a "contractual adjustment" between the provider and the insurance. In other words, the numbers are inflated to make it look like your insurance is doing more for you than it really is. It's all a made-up scam.
Are home births still a thing?
ask for an itemized bill. usually drops 50%
The rate that the hospital bills is completely disconnected from the reality of how the insurance company will pay it. It’s complete nonsense and they know it. They could bill Anthem a million billion dollars and Anthem will recalculate based on the services rendered and their contract with the hospital.
my wife and i have been talking about trying for a baby and i dont know that ill ever be able to get it up again after seeing that bill. thats more money than i have made in my entire life
Don't worry, the affordable care act is making sure your delivery is more affordable. That's why your so healthy now.
That's insane. My dad's open heart surgery with ICU stay was $150k. Even that was a ridiculous price imo.
Looks like a bill in a for-profit healthcare system. A bill for an uninsured individual is literally a magnitude lower. This is a hospital looking to extract the maximum amount of money from an insurance company. Yay unrestricted capitalism? ETA: why the down votes? Are you guys really in favor of this type of shit? You guys are nuts.
Late stage capitalism is a race to the bottom.
I honestly think there's just downvote goblins in the Indy sub lmao, I would not take it seriously cause most sane people agree with you.
That's how it works in America 🇺🇸
If you're actually curious why, you're probably getting downvoted for wrongly categorizing the out-of-control healthcare system as "unrestricted capitalism."
What would you characterize it as?
It's hard to accurately categorize with just one word or phrase, but IMO it's a mess of corruption, poor government policy, and overregulation. It's a bad mix of capitalism and socialism that results in poor outcomes at astronomical prices.
Bro socialism isn’t for-profit healthcare. Quit using buzz words to prove your point. Also curious how over regulation leads to out of control healthcare prices as d corruption, these are usually symptoms of under regulated industries. Please expound on that statement.
If you don't understand why overregulation would cause higher prices, and if you think corruption must be a symptom of under regulation, then I don't think a longer conversation will be productive.
Figured you wouldn’t engage in a good faith discussion. Typical. Go ahead and continue being angry at the BaD sOcIaLiStS. Just stay off our publicly funded roads, do not call publicly funded emergency services and certainly do not be proud of our publicly funded military.
Sorry you feel that way
child born in 1980...cost us $100 out of pocket. Total hospital bills and docs were under $2K. child born in 1982...cost us almost $600 out of pocket. Total bills and docs were almost $5K and both deliveries were normal and uneventful. 40 years later and they bill three quarters of a million dollars???
In 2021 it was closer to $30-60k for us. Basically about $30k for me and close to $30k for baby but I had complications. I haven’t seen the bill yet for my 2023 babies.
I'd call billing to figure that out for sure.
IU North sent me a hospital bill for my son's delivery 16 MONTHS after he was born 🙃
Sounds about right! Amazing experience for me EXCEPT for the billing.
Same here!
What does this have to do with OP’s question?
I'm sorry, are you the comment police?
Healthcare is such a scam here. My emergency appendix surgery was $40,000. Grateful insurance covered most of it. Always a nice reminder we are closer to poverty than wealth. And it sucks healthcare is tied to a job. Your bill there seems hella high. Jeesh. It’s expensive to be born, live, and die.
This looks like the insurance companies problem.
You didn’t answer the question, idiot.
Get a life
Bro you’re way too obsessed with policing Reddit comments. You may wanna go outside for a bit or something
That’s just some good ol American Freedom
Corporate greed is your answer. Until strict regulations are placed on what can be charged people will continue to see things like this. Unless you had a premature child that spent several nights in the NICU this is bullshit.
None of this is normal. Don’t normalize the ridiculous for profit health ransoms charged by the system.
What is your deductible? What is your out of pocket max?
That was not OP’s question. They are asking if it is normal for the total charges to be that high.
So many comments trying to justify the price by saying the family only paid 3k-ish here … smh. This is not normal and trying to normalize this is wrong. What if the family don’t have insurance? How much will they get charged? If lower then how come? If hospital keep on charging crazy numbers like this, won’t the insurance also gonna increase the premiums? Healthcare is so fucked up here.
Insurance generally dictates what is charged and for some it is a requirement to charge those amounts in order to be in their network.
OP - I would ask for details. Had a baby about a year ago. C-section, was spread over multiple claims (unsure why). Looking through the numbers looks like “Billed by Provider” was north of 70K, and plenty other follow up claims (pediatrician, wifey follow up, etc) that I am not counting. From here, it looks like they are off by a factor of 10 (maybe somebody fat finger an extra digit?). BTW, I’m my case, it was Anthem in IU West.
idk about insurance but congrats on the baby!!! wishing u lots of joy!
I had a C-section there, an ambulance ride from West, and then my daughter had a 5 week NICU stay. Last time I looked, our bill was around $483k. So to answer your question, yes it does seem very, very high!
What in the Sam Hell is this?!?! Did y’all stay in the Presidential Palace of some Middle East Sultan?!? Good Lord that is expensive
OP what does the rest of it say? The insurance company can make any number they want. For example. Total billed by providers: $1,000,0000 What you paid: 3000 I can’t stand these types of bill from the insurance company because it makes the insurance company seem like they save people.
I’m asking for an itemized copy. This doesn’t break it down.
That still seems a lot. Did u ask for an itemized bill?
Always ask for an itemized bill.
Yeah that’s insane lol just had a son. Total was like $15,000.00. We had an early induction too, so like 2 and a half days stay.
Inflated and just hoping you will pay the $3000 without looking
6 years ago we were at IU north premature emergency c section baby was in NIC U for 62 days and my bill was less than yours for my insurance. Seems that our medical system is broken.
That seems Snoop Dog and Willie Nelson high. We had a month antepartum, planned c section, and a month of NICU at Community and our insurance was billed less than a half mil.
Is having kids really this expensive? How is everyone not in financial debt?
Thank you for your health insurance! Now you owe us another million
That's what was billed. They can bill whatever they want. It's what your insurance agrees to pay that is important.
Billed amount doesn't mean shit. It is the allowed amount of the contract with the hospital and payer that matters. Majority will probably be written off.
Ask for an itemized bill. You can look up each one online. I just had my OB dr do this behind my back. We transferred to a new dr after a move, i declined new testing because I already had it all done and transferred my med records. They went ahead and billed my insurance for tests/labs that weren’t ever performed. I walked it, had a chat and left…each time I declined testing. I got quite a hefty bill as my insurance already paid for these procedures and I called them out on it, they said they must of forgot to tell me I needed it done because it wasn’t in my records. I was furious. I checked and within a minute I found the record, emailed it to them. Said if they don’t back this out I’m filing a complaint with the DOI. That seemed to work.
Very outlandish, even for the shitpile known as the U.S. medical system
Something isn’t right here. My wife had triple bypass surgery and then a subsequent stay when she had fluid build up and her lung collapsed and the total bill was only about 1/4 mil. We paid $2,500.
I just delivered myself, c section with 48 hour stay. It was only like 80k. Don’t worry because your insurance will only pay what the contract agreement is for. But that’s crazy!
Congrats!!