Ping Bullock wrote:
>TEACHERS FEDERATION HEALTH: An SA midwife has just had a client with
>this company who is expecting to receive $1500 from them to cover her
>homebirth. The midwife had to give her an invoice with her ABN on it,
>setting out how much she
>had been charged for antenatal, birth/labour & postnatal, as they were
>specific about how much they would reimburse for each 'part'.
Yeah that was me, last year. They did eventually pay $1500 after we both
(me & new mum) jumped through some hoops to satisfy criteria they were
probably making up on the spot.
Im birthing with the same woman again (due any day now), so Im hoping it
will be more straight forward this time seeing as they've now dealt with
this before (with the same client even!). The problem seems to be that
they just dont deal with this situation often enough to really know what
to do with it, ie have identified procedures etc. I agree with Justine,
the more women ask about it & then ask "Why the hell not?", the more its
in their faces & they then have to create policy. I think its worth
while to add that 'other' insurance companies *do* offer
homebirth/midwifery reimbursement - health insurance is a very
competitive business, a few of them make a big deal about offering
'alternative therapies' cover to attract a wider client base - if they
want to trot out the 'numbers' argument (ie the number of women wanting
homebirths is very small so why should they offer 'specialised'
insurance to such a minority), just remind them that it wasnt very long
ago that NO insurance companies offered rebates for homeopathy &
acupuncture etc - these therapies were only accessed by 'hippies',
werent they?
cheers
--
Jennifairy Gillett RM
Midwife in Private Practice
Women’s Health Teaching Associate
ITShare volunteer – Santos Project Co-ordinator
ITShare SA Inc - http://itshare.org.au/
ITShare SA provides computer systems to individuals & groups, created
from donated hardware and opensource software
--
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