As co-workers and first-time moms-to-be, we shared much of the pregnancy journey together -- including the same employer-sponsored health insurance plan. We even delivered within weeks of each other at the same hospital. For both of us, the key to managing the pain of labor and delivery was the epidural delivered by our anesthesiologists.
When it came to paying the bill, our hospital experiences diverged in one key way. Layla received an unexpected bill for $1,600 for anesthesiology services and warned Erin to expect the same. Yet Erin’s bill never came. Layla happened to deliver on a day when an out-of-network anesthesiologist was on call, while Erin was seen by an in-network anesthesiologist. Purely by chance, one of us received an expensive physician bill and the other did not have to pay a dime.
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