Hospital bills

I was a little disconcerted when I got the statement from the hospital for Henry's birth. The statement claimed about $11,000 for an unmedicated birth with less than 24 hours in the hospital after delivery! OK, I did get some IV fluids, "continuous" monitoring (which meant that every hour or so, she put the monitor on me and 10 minutes later I took it off to go to the bathroom), an internal monitor on the baby, and an amnio-hook to break my water. Yeah, I guess I also drank a lot of their juice. Was that worth $11,000? I'm thinking no! The itemized statement also showed that they charged $8 a tablet for each 800 mg of Motrin I got after delivery and $11 for a jar of Tucks pads.

The good news is that today I heard from the insurance company, who believes that only about $3000 of that amount is allowable, and our portion is only $600. Despite my irritation at our insurance usually, this was great news! And, yet another bonus for the unmedicated childbirth experience!