Mother of a daughter received $ 9,000 in bills for her miscarriage

Conz Preti, 35, was heartbroken when she discovered that the heart of the fetus she was wearing had stopped beating, barely two weeks after she learned that she was pregnant.

The pregnancy was not planned, but the baby was very much in demand.

Preti had developed a polyp on her uterus after her first pregnancy (her son was one) and before discovering that she was pregnant again.

Thus, when she lost the pregnancy, her doctor advised her to remove the contents of her uterus to manage the miscarriage and treat the polyp immediately.

In any case, she should have undergone surgery to remove the polyp, if she had not become pregnant, and the same procedure was a way to manage a miscarriage.

Although devastated, Preti wanted to handle all this emotional ordeal with speed and on the advice of a doctor. So she programmed her surgery and paid $ 3,000 in advance, the total amount of her personal expenses, told her the NYU.

In the last two weeks she has accumulated a stack of six additional bills from her insurer and is considering a $ 9,000 debt for a medically necessary procedure for which she was told that she had already paid. Two have just arrived today.

And she is barely alone. Her tweet about the appalling bills generated more than 140 responses in a few hours, including from dozens of women sharing similar experiences.

Miscarriages are extremely common, but the US health care system is paying women astronomical fees for non-elective care.

Losing a pregnancy is not only emotionally traumatic for a woman, but also puts her at risk of bleeding and life-threatening infection if the tissues of the pregnancy remain in her uterus, making a D & C (dilation and curettage) not negotiable for some.

After all this, the women are in mourning, cured after an operation and in debt.

Somewhere between 10 and 25% of pregnancies end in miscarriage in the United States.

This is a bewildering number, but the fact that it is common makes the loss no less devastating for women.

Preti remembers these statistics, trying to keep things in perspective. But knowing the odds is a bad antidote to a loss she feels deeply.

"I know it's common. I know it's more common than we know because many are unaware that they are pregnant and I am very familiar with the statistics, "she says.

"It's a way for your body to know that it's not compatible with this life, but emotionally, it's always hard to deal with."

Preti discovered at the end of last year that she had developed a polyp in her uterus, which caused abnormal tissue growth, and she had to undergo surgery, but she learned that she was pregnant two days before the intervention.

Preti knew that the polyp was likely to cause her to miscarry, but she wanted, if possible, to maintain her pregnancy, to have a little sister or younger brother for her one – year – old son.

At seven weeks, everything seemed to be going well and she heard the heartbeat. But nine weeks after the beginning of her pregnancy, the fetus had stopped growing. Midwives could not find a heartbeat.

"The miscarriage itself, although I knew it was a possibility, was as if a load of bricks had hit me."

Preti's midwives do not perform surgery, but her OBGYN in NYU – which was part of the Preti Blue Cross Blue Cross Empire Insurance Network that she has subscribed to from his employer – the fact. She consulted with the doctor about her options.

There are three ways to "manage" a miscarriage, as the clinical guideline says what a woman should do when she loses her pregnancy.

A woman can simply wait until her body naturally gets rid of all signs of pregnancy, but if it does not happen quickly enough, she remains vulnerable to infection and bleeding.

Medications may be prescribed to cause rupture and loss of the uterine lining.

Or, a simple operation, called D & C – or dilatation and curettage – can be performed to remove the contents of the uterus.

An important note: the drugs and the surgical procedure used when a woman has a miscarriage are the same as those used to terminate a pregnancy. But these women do not have an abortion. No matter when you think life begins, once a woman has miscarried, it's impossible for that fetus to be a baby.

Because she had a polyp, Preti's doctor advised her to have a D & C because she would have needed it anyway to remove the polyp. Preti booked the operation for Thursday.

"At the hospital, all the papers told me I was there for an abortion," she recalls.

"It's technically the same procedure, and I understand it, but for someone who wanted these babies, it was hard to look at this paperwork that said" abortion ".

Then there was the question of money. Immediately, a hospital staff member came to discuss how Preti and her husband, Zach, would pay for the surgery, and when and how much.

"I was really weird to leave for something that was so emotionally charged, but even before that, I had to be sitting to talk about the price to pay," Preti says.

"Everyone at the hospital was really very nice, it was a part of the bureaucracy that yearned for such a delicate situation."

It was said to Zach and to herself that they owed $ 3,000 in advance, right away. So they paid the full amount, just then, just before the proceedings.

"The staff assured me that it was all I had to pay because it was my maximum in pocket."

The procedure itself went well. It was simple, without complications and not physically difficult.

"But being operated on" pregnant "and getting out, did not have to be difficult to treat," she says.

Preti went home to cry and heal. But then, the bills started to arrive.

First, she had one for ultrasound that revealed the loss of her pregnancy. Because it was so early, Empire claimed that it was not medically necessary.

It was as if the insurance company were selecting Powerball numbers for a lottery that no one wanted to win and randomly assigning them the amount it owed to one item or another of the other. operation: $ 200, $ 2,500 and so on, for a total of $ 9,000 in bills.

"In addition to having to cry the fact that I've lost a baby, I now have to worry about the money and that adds more stress to an already stressful situation," says Preti.

"It's really hard to be in a position where you are so fragile and where you will do everything to make sure everything is fine for you or your baby. Then, getting all these bills just adds an insult to an injury.

"People say," What were you expecting, having a child is expensive, "and it looks like we know we have a son, but we did not pay that amount of money in advance with him."

And these costs will not result in a child. Now, Preti is less sure to try again.

"We want more children, but being put in this situation makes me rather want to wait, or even not to try."

She spoke to an Empire representative, but since their initial conversation, this person has not returned any of the many calls or messages from Preti.

His ongoing fight with insurance is only a permanent reminder of his loss, says Preti.

"It's so hard to detach one thing from another," she says.

On Monday, she tweeted, "I owe $ 9,000 for my miscarriage surgery. How am I supposed to allow it? How am I supposed to live without doing it?

"The health system in this country is just immoral."

More than 140 people responded, offering support, insurance advice, but mainly sharing their own stories of nightmares about insurance after miscarriage.

"I wonder how many people are experiencing the same thing without talking about it," says Preti.

"Just people's responses to my tweet and this has contacted me privately … and there are so many who are more tragic and for whom his life or death.

& # 39;[Someone said] "I would be dead and now I have $ 50,000."

It's life or debt forever.