How to Get Maternity Health Insurance Coverage

Expecting? Congratulations. Pregnancy is an exciting time, but it can also be filled with worry and trepidation when you starting thinking about the financial aspect of carrying, delivering, and caring for a newborn baby, particularly if you don’t have maternity health insurance coverage.

Pregnant women who don’t have this type of critical health insurance are at a severe disadvantage with respect to receiving proper and adequate prenatal care, especially if pregnancy complications develop.

The best thing you can do to ensure you’ll be covered financially and medically throughout your pregnancy is to investigate options and do your research before becoming pregnant or trying to conceive. For example, find out if you’re already covered for maternity health insurance with your current plan. If not, find out how much you’d have to pay to add maternity coverage on as a premium. If your health insurance company doesn’t offer any kind of maternity coverage, investigate other options and determine if you qualify for maternity health insurance coverage elsewhere.

However, if you’re pregnant already, you’ll have to work quicker with determining your options. Unfortunately, many women discover upon becoming pregnant that even though have they health insurance, their policy doesn’t include maternity coverage. One option is to request a maternity coverage “add-on” to your current health insurance plan, but this type of premium is usually quite expensive.

Some insurance companies don’t offer maternity coverage at all as an add-on premium or part of a full plan, whether or not you’re a pre-existing health insurance policy holder. This, however, is technically illegal, and it’s in your best interest to do some investigation with your company to look for loopholes. You may want to cancel your entire policy all together and opt to go with a new company that does offer maternity health insurance coverage. You can compare options offered by other local health insurance agencies, or even look online for options regarding maternity health insurance coverage.

Several group insurance plans offer maternity health insurance coverage, but the waiting period for receiving coverage can last anywhere from three months to a year, which is hardly helpful if you’re already well into your pregnancy.

There are a few other options if you’re newly pregnant and you don’t have maternity health insurance coverage. For example, if you carry extended coverage from a previous employer, you may qualify for maternity health insurance—it could be expensive, though. In addition, some states in the U.S. offer health plans specifically geared toward pregnant women. If you’re low-income, you may qualify for government health insurance programs that may or may not also carry maternity coverage.

You might also wish to consider MaternityCard, which acts like health insurance for pregnant women and is accepted in most locations and health-care facilities. For pregnant women with no insurance, MaternityCard provides maternity services such as doctor visits, hospital stays, sonograms or ultrasounds, prenatal vitamins, prescription drugs, lab and blood work, and even newborn tests and check-ups. Typically, MaternityCard is easier to get than regular insurance, and is also less expensive than traditional health insurance with a maternity premium add-on, or even health insurance that includes maternity coverage as part of its policy.