Share if you are comfortable - what was the cost of your nicu stay? Did you seek out any financial aid options?
And just out of curiousity, how long was your baby's nicu stay and what was it for?
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We were in the nicu for 28 days and racked up almost 2 million dollars, thank God for insurance. We ended up around $14k out of poket.
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@LAZB:
I'm flip flopping between wanting to know and really really not wanting to know! -
I highly doubt yours will be as much as ours was, but it can add up quickly. Our son was on ECMO for 17 days, which required a one on one nurse and an ECMO specialist in his room 24/7. He had constant labs drawn and saw at least 20 doctors a day, so we knew the bill would be high.
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My son was in the NICU for 22 days and his bill was about 200k. He was just a feeder grower.. So he wasn't on any special cares. He actually had medical assistance for 3 months because my fiancé was in a job shift and I don't have insurance thru work, im still eligible thru my parents who have good coverage and I need that! So we didn't have to pay anything.
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My daughter was in the nicu for 5 days due to a difficult induction and her being born acidotic. She wasn't really very sick at any point. Her stay cost about 500000, and we paid about 9k. Funny story - I have different insurance now, and even if we have a drug free, vaginal birth, we're still going to pay around 15k. Thanks, American health care system.
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I don't have NICU experience, but I would encourage you to apply for financial assistance with your hospital. Mine gave us a discount on an income based sliding scale for DH's hospitalization.
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This is insane to me! I live in Canada where we pay nothing for hospital stays. I always knew the U.S. was expensive without insurance but for it to be $15000 out of pocket just to give birth, when you have insurance ?? How does anyone afford to have babies?
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@Peasinapod: it just depends on your insurance... I paid literally zero for my daughter's birth on the HMO plan I was on. This time the plan I'm on has a 10% coinsurance... So I'm thinking maybe a couple thousand tops?
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@cmomma17: Does your insurance have an out of pocket max? I low nothing about nicu stays, but i assume they cat go over your yearly oopmax. Who knows though. Still thinking of you and little Reid daily!
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well shit. E was there for 6 days due to persistent pulmonary hypertension of the neonate...she was primarily on oxygen for the week but not much else. Her bill was 30K and we paid $250.
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143 days, zero out of pocket.
I only saw one bill for a short portion and for doctors fees only. I'm sure we hit at least a million.
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@Peasinapod: I paid nothing for my son's birth and my own week in the hospital, due to my insurance. Also, I think my out of pocket max is about $4-5k, so that's the most we would ever have to pay.
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Regardless of the cost of our NICU stay (if the twins require one) our out of pocket for each will be $2500 so $5000 for them total.
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Thankfully our insurance hospital stay max is $750. Because we transferred to and from a different hospital, we paid it 3 times for the first 2 month stay. The 2nd stay was just $750 since it was only one hospital. I can't remember the first amount but the second was close to $700,000, also for about two months. Whew!
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The twins were in the nicu for 10 days. Their hospital bill was approx 60k, co-pay was around $100.
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My LO was in the NICU for 16 days for low blood sugars. Hospital bill totaled $120k. My deductible was $2k.
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My LO was in one NICU for 4.5 days and my EOB for their bill was over 80k, with a 35k insurance discount. I was shocked!
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My insurance doesn't even cover until he was our baby
The first day alone was over 30...
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E was in for 13 days. The doctor bill after insurance was nearly 1k by itself. Labs fees where around $800 dollars. Echo and reading $500 dollars. Hospital stay was way up there even with insurance. Somewhere around 60k before insurance. Lucky for us we were able to have the hospital and doctor fees written off due to our income level. So we just had to pay labs.
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I am so happy with my insurance. We had a failed 36 hour induction, emergency c-section, a 6 day hospital stay for me and 3 days with me, 3 days in NICU for DS. We paid nothing.
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@Mrs. Jacks: he's not covered by the state until then?!
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@blackbird: this is a vet grey area. We are going to try, but Medicaid can deny and so can my insurance. We are currently fighting my group to instate him at birth. I'm sure it won't be settled for months!
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@Mrs. Jacks: so, who is responsible for paying then? Is it retroactive?
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DD was in NICU for 57 days. She was a 30-weeker, no major problems, just a feeder/grower. Bill ended up being $800k but all we had to pay was a $250 co-pay (we had really good insurance!!). I like to call her my (almost) million dollar baby!
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We have insurance but it's not as good as it could be! And we have to do split billing because my insurance ended on Feb 28 (lost job feb 6) and we started on insurance through my DH's job on March 1. LO was born Feb 24.
So far I have only received the bill for labor and delivery ($1,800 left after insurance), and several X-rays ($13 a pop after insurance, he had quite a few of his lungs). -
I should add that after our experience I will ALWAYS use insurance with a capped hospital/surgery stay amount. I considered quitting my job and just getting ACA insurance coverage at one point but we could only afford options with percentages (like, we'd be responsible for 30% of the hospital stay, 50% for surgeries). With D that would have been hundreds of thousands of dollars! He will likely need surgeries as he grows so having a capped rate is an absolute necessity for us!
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@Mrs. Jump Rope: adoptive parents sign when they sign on for adoption that they will assume any gap "routine" medical expenses. Clearly a grey area when they are not routine.
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@Mrs. Jacks: thanks for explaining! I agree, not routine and definitely a grey area.
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$0. Insurance paid it all.
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Dd 1 was in the Nicu for 10 days. Her bill was 30k and we only had to pay $500.
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@Mrs. Jacks: I thought there was legislation that forbade insurance companies from discriminating against adoptive parents by refusing coverage. I hope this gets resolved quickly for you. Having to deal with this kind of stressful bs while caring for a sick newbie is so so awful.
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@oliviaoblivia: there is. Does that really matter to insurance companies?
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@Mrs. Jacks: bastards!
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Wow, I'm in a NICU nurse (in Canada) and these numbers are really mind blowing to me. I knew that the cost per day was extremely high but wow...
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@cmomma17: 7 days in the NICU was $125k...we only had to pay our co-pay which was $200 I think.
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My son was in the NICU for 4 days and the cost was $25K-$30K. We paid about $2500 out of pocket. It made us sick to know that so many don't have insurance to cover most of their costs, and so many babies are in there for so much longer. @Mrs. Jacks: This is HORRIBLE. I'm so sorry
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Shocked at some of these responses. Let's hope our twins don't need the nicu, but glad I opened this thread. It's scary to think about but I think that reminds me to call my insurance before my babies come.
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My son was in the NICU for 7 days because he was intra-uterine growth restricted and had low blood sugar and low oxygen. Not a whole lot of intervention - just IV glucose and an oxygen tube and then they slowly weaned him off everything after his organs matured. It's been 3 months and I haven't gotten a bill yet, so I think everything was covered???
The first day alone was over 30...
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