The Damages Thus Far

Nothing in life is free and that includes pregnancy. I'm sure it depends on your insurance (hopefully you have insurance!) but having a baby is not, by any means, cheap. We have received most, but not all, of our bills from Larissa's and Dane's times at Central Dupage Hospital. Larissa's bill was impressive but not overly surprising. Dane's NICU bill, however, almost made us cry and wish we had our own diapers. Anyway, without further adoo... (Drum roll)

Larissa's bill:
$4,100 (OB bill from delivery)
$1,520 (Anesthesiologist bill for epidural)
$17,838 (Delivery / Hospitalization bill)

Dane's bill:
$177,185 (NICU bill)
$14,567 (Neonatologists' bills from time in NICU)
$3,516 (Send-out lab tests)

Grand total: $218,726 (so far...we think this includes all bills through Dane coming home from the NICU. It doesn't include follow-up outpatient visits, etc.) To put this in perspective, because it is such a large number: Dane has already cost slightly more than 4 years of medical school...

We will be accepting donations. (As you can see in the photo, Dane offered to pitch in $10 but we don't think that will cover much of the bill...)

Now that you feel bad for us, I should also point out that these numbers are all pre-insurance payments. The good news is that once we surpassed our deductible, we had a 10% coinsurance payment up to a cap. Because of the cap, we will end up paying less than 2% of the total bill, which is still a fair amount of $$, but much better than it could have been. The good news of all this is that we don't foresee any further medical expenses until 2010 for our entire family...I guess that's good news. Also, we realize that the bill could have been A LOT more.

Random slightly-related thoughts of an almost-doctor after seeing medical care from the standpoint of the patient / family:
1) Why are medical bills so expensive? Would the same care have been cheaper in countries with more nationalized healthcare? Or would the physician bills, at least, be lower if physicians weren't graduating from medical school with > $200k in loan debts (like me)? Were there aspects of Dane's time in the hospital that could have been done without if the doctors weren't practicing "defensive medicine," making sure they were safe from any lawsuits. (Note that, as parents, we wanted EVERYTHING done for Dane regardless of the costs, especially since insurance was paying, which is why the decision to do or not do tests wasn't up to us...)
2) Along with our medical bills, it shows how much the bill is discounted for the insurance company. One bill of ~$8,000 had ~$1,000 written off because it was paid by the insurance company. This never made sense to me in the past, but it is how all insurance companies function... in accepting a certain insurance, a physician opens themselves up to all the patients covered by that insurance company but they also will accept less than their billed amount. One number I have heard to show the worst-case reimbursement is that hospitals/physicians usually receive ~25 cents for every dollar billed to Medicare and ~18 cents for every dollar billed to Medicaid. Insurance companies usually base their reimbursement rates somewhere above these Medicare/Medicaid numbers. So how do physicians and hospitals make up for these lower reimbursements? They bill higher than their best insurance repayments so that people without insurance will help their bottom line and so that they guarantee maximum insurance reimbursements. I don't know if there is a way to improve on this system, but by charging more to people without insurance, it seems to be most hurting people least able to pay.
3) Even as we complain about these medical bills, we are so thankful we have insurance. We would be completely financially crippled if we didn't have insurance. Also, holding Dane in our arms, even at 4am when he's ornery and crying and has his second dirty diaper in 10 minutes, we are so thankful for him and say he was worth "any price."
4) Universal healthcare. I agree there are good reasons for universal healthcare, but how would it work / how would it be paid for? And what would we have done if we didn't have insurance? Again, what would we have done in Dane's case without decent insurance?
5) Should we have gotten a different insurance plan? (Hindsight being 20/20)... Would we have been better off with a higher deductible for lower co-insurance cap or lower monthly premiums?

It all comes down to "I don't know." I don't know how to fix the system to make it more available, more affordable. And I'm glad that we had insurance to cover the vast majority of the bill...