Wednesday, July 6, 2011

The insurance saga never ends!

I know I just posted an update, but I called my RE right after posting and I have a great little story for everyone! Or maybe it's just me that finds the ridiculousness of insurance and doctor's offices so funny? Hmm.

I have been waiting since our first RE appointment on June 23rd for my infectious disease blood work authorization to be approved. My RE suggested submitting it for approval to see if it would be covered or not. We have to have these results back to go forward with the IUI. CA state law requires it. I have been calling the RE's office every few days and they always say "it's still pending." I finally talked to someone in the billing department. She looks me up and says "oh, your insurance doesn't cover IUI's, so they won't cover this blood work either." Are you kidding me?! I have been waiting for nothing. The communication in doctor's offices really needs improvement. I am going to leave work early today and go have my blood drawn this afternoon. If for some reason the results do not get back in time for my IUI, I will be so frickin' pissed.

Oh yeah, one more part to that story. I interpreted the insurance approval incorrectly. We do not have any Infertility treatment coverage, only diagnostic testing is covered 50%. My monitoring ultrasounds, for example, are part of the IUI process and therefore are not covered at all. We are 100% out of pocket. Anyways, here is a tally of the costs, as of today:

$260 per IUI. RE says we will likely do two, back to back.
$110 per ultrasound. Two so far.
$200 for my infectious disease blood work
$100 for hCG trigger shot
$10 for Clomid

$1,050 total for IUI cycle

Additional Costs:
-$350 for hamster test
-possibly $200 for Mr. B's blood work
-costs for my HSG & diagnostic U/S. I have a $1,116 claim still pending. Not sure how much is covered by insurance. I assume at least 50%. We'll see.

2 comments:

  1. bleh. It's such a shame that insurance companies don't see infertility as something worth covering. At the very least, covering monitoring would be nice.

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  2. Insurance and paying OOP really sucks :(

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