Newborn insurance, 1st 30 days – What does “covered” mean?
It could just be sleep deprivation, but I am having a really hard time finding information about, or understanding directly from health insurance reps, exactly what “covered” means with regard to health insurance coverage for a newborn’s first 30 days. My understanding is that my son’s health services from his first 30 days would be covered by my policy, which I assumed would count towards my deductible, out of pocket max, etc.
Context: I have a plan through my employer with United Health Insurance. I live in Ohio and my employer is based in Kentucky. I just received a bill from the pediatrician who did standard rounds at the hospital on my son’s first day of life. This was just a standard check, no specialized care or medications were needed. Insurance did not cover anything. The insurance rep I spoke with said that the 30 days is essentially just a hold on claims processing, billing, etc. while the child’s own insurance is getting established and that all of the child’s services are then billed through their own plan (with a separate deductible). There is a separate issue with why insurance still didn’t pay anything because we did successfully get him added to my plan within 30 days; however, that isn’t related to my confusion here.
Is the first 30 days of “coverage” is just a hold on processing claims until the child’s insurance is established and the insurance company can apply their charges to their own plan, or does it mean that the child’s services from the first 30 days are paid under the parent’s plan and count towards the deductible and out of pocket max?
What am I missing?
