The Death of a Baby Isn’t Free: The Unbelievable Financial Realities of Losing a Child

Between the time my husband and I got married and the time I got pregnant with our second child, Ember, I paid about $115,200 in insurance premiums. Most of my other healthcare costs—the birth of my first child, most preventative care, mental health care, virtually every prescription—came out of my own pocket. Insurance is supposed to cover these things, but when there’s no consumer-friendly mechanism of enforcement, it’s easier to just pay the bill than to spend months fighting about it only to have your credit decimated when the bill ends up in collections.

I had made my peace with this.

And then, at 22 weeks pregnant, an anatomy scan ($1300) revealed that Ember had terminal birth defects. My world went dark. On the ride home, I couldn’t think. I figured everything would just somehow happen. The doctors would provide us good care, and we’d find a way to not die from our sadness. I don’t know why I though that a terminal diagnosis would change anything about the terrible way the American medical system treats its patients. I don’t know why I thought a for-profit health system would care about my suffering or try not to bankrupt me. I guess I thought the tens of thousands of dollars in insurance premiums I had paid over the years were designed for moments like this.

The calls started immediately. The genetic counselor with the hospital wanted to answer our questions. “It would be better for your mental health if we could do it in person,” she explained.

“Why do you think it would be better for my mental health for me to find childcare for my toddler, get dressed, fight traffic, come down to the hospital, and lose half of the day.” I asked.

The truth came out: she couldn’t bill insurance for giving us basic information about our own child if we didn’t come in person.

And so it began. The second opinion, which was supposed to be $900, but for which we ultimately received three separate additional bills for $500, $400, and insultingly, $1.29.

The third opinion wiped out all of the money we had saved for our maternity leave.

By the time Ember was gone, we had exhausted all of the money we had saved to pay our taxes that year. We had to pay for her death certificate. We had to pay to cremate her. We had to pay extra for a guarantee that the remains we received were actually hers. We had to pay for her footprints. Our daughter was reduced to a money-making scheme for doctors and clinics and businesses across the state. She was more valuable to them dead than she ever was alive.

And then, I had a postpartum hemorrhage that nearly killed me. Emory Decatur Hospital, where I sought care, delayed my treatment for hours, psychologically abused me, incorrectly administered my medication, and left me slowly bleeding to death in a waiting room while they tended to a man with an injured finger. I was lucky to survive. Emory couldn’t be troubled to measure my bleeding or care about my well-being or follow the AIM Protocols our State Department of Public Health says they should be following. But they got a bill to me faster than the funeral home got me my daughter’s body.

It’s been more than a year now. The people around me think I should be over it, back to normal. How can I possibly be expected to move on from the death of my child when no one else is willing to let one single cent slip through their fingers? I am still getting bills for services I didn’t receive, for procedures insurance supposedly covered, for medical testing I know I already paid for. Eighty percent of medical bills contain errors. It doesn’t matter, because there is no organization to which a consumer can easily report these errors. There’s no cause of action when a hospital overbills you.

In a for-profit medical system, there’s no incentive to provide quality care, since you can bill customers no matter what you do to them. The death of a child doesn’t matter. The death of my child doesn’t matter.

If you don’t think the hospital should get over my bills, stop telling me to get over the death of my daughter.

Three months after our daughter died, I got a letter from my insurer telling me they would pay for her second opinion ultrasound. I called them, explained we had already had the ultrasound, and asked for reimbursement.

They wouldn’t cover reimbursement. And they knew she was already dead when they sent the letter.