Maternity Coverage
If you are a woman who is planning on starting a family in the near future, you should first make sure that you have maternity health coverage before you get pregnant. If your health insurance is covered by employer sponsored coverage you are likely covered, however if you purchase individual health insurance on your own, you probably had to add maternity coverage as a rider. If you haven’t already done so, make sure this coverage is added to your policy before you get pregnant. Once you get pregnant it will be too late to add this coverage, and the cost of delivery can be very expensive without health coverage.
According to the March of Dimes, the average cost of having a baby (including maternity care, labor, delivery and postpartum care ) is about $8,000 for traditional delivery and $11,000 for a C-section. If you have maternity coverage as part of your health plan your out of pocket costs will be more like $500.
The average pregnancy costs mentioned above assume there are no complications, if you deliver a baby prematurely and they need to be placed in intensive care for a period of time, or you experience other complications, the out-of-pocket costs can sky-rocket and it wouldn’t be out of the question to see medical bills exceed $100,000.
The moral of the story is, if you plan to get pregnant, make sure you have maternity coverage first.
