Hyperemesis Gravidarum Support and Research Forums

It's the last thing anyone wants to do, pregnant or not, but you have to watch your hospital bills and EOB's to make sure your insurance is paying what it should. (Assuming you are fortunate enough to have insurance.)

I know a lot of people just accept their bills without checking because it's so confusing, but don't! Try to get a good understanding of what your insurance covers and dive in.

I went through everything with a fine-toothed comb. If I had just accepted what I was charged I would have owed over $50,000 more than I was supposed to. Not kidding! In reality I owed less than $3000 total. Between medical providers coding things wrong or "forgetting" to submit claims and the insurance company's errors, things really added up.

A funny example: the hospital charged me for Will's circumcision...and he's not circumcized!

Oh ya! I refused to pay (and told them so) until I got an itemized bill. Did they send one? NOooooooooooooo...they sent my little John Michael to collections . Collection agency got one out to me...I must look at the circumcision line...yikes.

We're STILL waiting to see our itemized list and it's been almost a year now! The insurance supposedly tried issuing us a check for the birth and we never recieved it. We never knew they even sent it until less than a month ago (and remember, this is almost a full year later!) saying that the check wasn't cashed, asking why, and telling us we had to fill out a form and send it in, wait for it to be processed and then they'd try sending another one.
I hate being the middle man for the insurance company. Why can't they just pay their portion instead of paying us to pay the hospital?
I know they tack on extra items to get more money back from the insurance companies, but I'll be regretting it, I know, if I overlook the additional things on the list that they send me. If we have to do our work and follow up with the PITA insurance companies, they get what they deserve for not following up with US to make sure that they aren't paying for extra things, too.