Indian friend-maternity insurance (New York, Nassau, York: to buy, tax, law)
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hi there
This is with request to a friend who is an indian citizen.She was visiting US during her 26th week of pregnancy and due to some complications cant leave the country now.And seems will have to deliver the baby in US.
She is on B1/B2 -tourist visa and her husband is in india at the moment.She is travelling with her travel insurance that doesnt cover maternity.Also she holds a valid F1(student visa) as she was an ex-student in this country.
Is there a way to find her an insurance that can cover her entire maternity/delivery .Also an insurance for the kid who will be born incase he needs any treatment.
thanks
Kelly
Travelers Insurance can and does cover pregnancy -if you choose to pay for the option. Why on Earth didn't she? The pregnancy may now be deemed an undisclosed pre-existing condition, so now she may well have voided even that standard travelers insurance she took out. Coming into the US without disclosing the advanced pregnancy can also cause issues with her Visa privileges in the future. Not smart at all.
Try to get in touch with her private health insurance provider and see if they have any reciprocal agreements with health care facilities in the area. Failing that, start dialing local facilities and see if anyone is willing to bill her privately, though I doubt it. Maybe if her family and/or friends here will be willing to sign and accept the financial reponsibilities for any/all of the bills. I also doubt that any health insurance co. will write a short term policy under these conditions, not at any price. Pregnancy is considered high risk, so the risk:reward equation is not in their favor. Failing that, she's at the mercy of public sufferance.
They are not supposed to be given visas that will last to when they are after a certain month of pregnancy, nor if the birth of the baby is slated for within 2 months, but foreign women often scam it and hide their pregnancy. Even if it is at a point where flying can affect their baby's health and their own health, some of them still want to cheat the system badly enough and will risk it. In some places they get away with it.
You nailed it...I am surprised that someone even takes the risk of flying in the 26th week of pregnancy..that too on a visitor visa...something that can probably wait for after the delivery!
she is travelling with travel insurance for $500,000 that covers maternity for death complications only...
she was here for shopping spree n get back after 10 days, but kinda had pre term spotting...n asked not to travel n is stuck..
we are trying to negotitate with a hospital for a fixed cost n expenses.
also her younger brother was a student in US and has worked during the graduating years around 4 years back,he has a social security and has been a tax-payer, can he get some help on her behalf?
he is now back in his country.
also her younger brother was a student in US and has worked during the graduating years around 4 years back,he has a social security and has been a tax-payer, can he get some help on her behalf?
he is now back in his country.
Answer is "no."
But he could send her some money Western Union to help pay for it.
If she was here for a "shopping spree" then that means she does have money.
She really should go back home ASAP. Spotting is not a big enough deal to prevent that. She still has some time where the airlines will accept her as a passsenger.
Who takes a shopping spree in a faraway country where you need to travel by plane at that date in pregnancy?
Perhaps she should go across the border into Canada. They have socialized medicine so at the very least, it will be much less expensive if they expect her to pay for it, or their socialist health care system may just say, "what's one more ..." and then she will get the Canadian taxpayers to pay for it.
I can pretty much guarantee you NO obstetrician in the USA is going to take her on as a patient with no records of health care, etc., and especially no health insurance that will cover it UNLESS she has a bundle of cash and even that is risky because if something goes wrong they can be sued and someone who will take a long plane trip at this point in pregnancy may not have been smart enough or had enough common sense to have any decent prenatal care either.
If she is bound and determined to deliver her baby in the USA, she will just have to go to the emergency room of a hospital when she is in labor and they probably would not refuse her as that would be a medical emergency. Although you never know with hospitals these days. They may direct her to a different one and some are pretty horrible (check out King's County in Brooklyn for example: in a bad neighborhood, old as the hills and not updated).
Last edited by I_Love_LI_but; 09-22-2009 at 01:26 PM..
she is travelling with travel insurance for $500,000 that covers maternity for death complications only...she was here for shopping spree n get back after 10 days, but kinda had pre term spotting...n asked not to travel n is stuck..
we are trying to negotitate with a hospital for a fixed cost n expenses.
lemme knw if there s any other way
Why would someone who is pregnant deliberate travel to another country, a long distance away by plane, with that type of insurance?
She had money to go on shopping sprees, so why not spend the money on the correct insurance ESPECIALLY if she was pregnant?
Have fun negotiating with hospitals. You will see they don't want to deal with anyone who doesn't want to pay them anything and expect them to shunt off the costs to the taxpayers. Her best bet to get care for labor and delivery is just to show up at an emergency room unannounced after she has already gone into labor. But like I said, they may just ship her off to a much less desirable facility.
She might get freebies a lot easier in a socialist health care system like Canada's. That is the best "other way" in my opinion. Good luck!
1) Pregnancy is not a preexisting condition in this state. They have to cover it.
2) New York State is a community-rated, guaranteed issue state for individual health insurance. I don't know if the law applies to people on visitor visas, but otherwise, they have to take you and charge you a uniform rate. Here is the list of HMOs for Nassau County and the current rates:
I hope she has plenty of money. Individual insurance does not come cheap here. But she can pick an insurer on that list and call them. Normally, a baby is covered under a parent's policy for 30 days, then must be enrolled separately at the family or parent + child rate.
Empire also sells individual hospital-only insurance but this does not cover the services of any doctor who is not a hospital employee.
3) While a private practice OB might balk at taking on a patient at this point if she can't get her records, I can pretty much guarantee you that a clinic will take her.
4) Under EMTALA, if she shows up at a hospital in active labor, they must take her and cannot transfer her to a "less desirable" facility. They'll take her, bill her, and since she can't be sent to collections... end up eating the cost. They can't demand a guarantor for emergency or labor care, though they could for routine care.
5) You can't just turn up in Canada and get free care either, though if you showed up to a hospital they'd take you. She's no more eligible for provincial care in Canada than she is for Medicaid here.
1) Pregnancy is not a preexisting condition in this state. They have to cover it.
2) New York State is a community-rated, guaranteed issue state for individual health insurance. I don't know if the law applies to people on visitor visas, but otherwise, they have to take you and charge you a uniform rate. Here is the list of HMOs for Nassau County and the current rates:
I hope she has plenty of money. Individual insurance does not come cheap here. But she can pick an insurer on that list and call them. Normally, a baby is covered under a parent's policy for 30 days, then must be enrolled separately at the family or parent + child rate.
Empire also sells individual hospital-only insurance but this does not cover the services of any doctor who is not a hospital employee.
3) While a private practice OB might balk at taking on a patient at this point if she can't get her records, I can pretty much guarantee you that a clinic will take her.
4) Under EMTALA, if she shows up at a hospital in active labor, they must take her and cannot transfer her to a "less desirable" facility. They'll take her, bill her, and since she can't be sent to collections... end up eating the cost. They can't demand a guarantor for emergency or labor care, though they could for routine care.
5) You can't just turn up in Canada and get free care either, though if you showed up to a hospital they'd take you. She's no more eligible for provincial care in Canada than she is for Medicaid here.
TY for your post. Sorry but "ignorance" is not quite the word to use just because you disagree with what is being posted.
I have a few questions since you have put yourself out there as the definitive expert on this:
1) If she is not a citizen or immigrant residing in NY State, but a visitor, does that really matter?
2) How can an insurance company/HMO serving the United States ONLY sell a policy to someone who isn't a citizen or immigrant? Can they be forced to if they don't want to? When it comes to individual policies, not policies bought by businesses for employees, the rules are quite different. The insurance companies can turn anyone down they want to for any reason they want to (as opposed to insurance bought by businesses for employees where they have to take ANY employee in ANY health). They can charge rates as high as their imagination will take them (as opposed to insurance bought by businesses for employees where they have to go according to a contract for what they charge).
3) Clinic = Medicaid and they check for that Medicaid card at the door. Clinics can be stricter than regular private practice physicians about making sure they will be paid upfront.
4) EMTALA = the way most illegal aliens give birth to anchor babies. Hospitals can and do routinely transfer people elsewhere, EMTALA or not, if they claim they are too busy to give her prompt medical attention. Don't kid yourself, they can get rid of her if they want to and have another facility (usually the hospital designated for "charity cases") nearby they can quickly transport her to. For example, if several people are in a car accident, if the nearest hospital cannot take them all (and usually that is how it happens), the patients are sent to different hospitals in the community. If she shows up at one of the best and most expensive hospitals in labor, they will find some way around EMTALA (if time permits).
5) As for Canada ... I was trying to direct someone looking for thousands of dollars of FREE medical care that uninsured U.S. Citizens and Permanent Residents cannot get (but have to pay for via their taxes) out of our pockets and into someone else's for a change.
I do think that Canada would be much, much more reasonably priced for her if she did end up reluctantly taking out her wallet. I am tired of people from other countries taking advantage of us, especially people who actually have enough money for plane trips and shopping sprees and are not destitute in their home countries.
OR maybe she should go to California and ask one of her former countrymen, Dr. Prem Reddy, who OWNS a couple of hospitals to help her out. Here's a reproduction of an LA Times article on Michael Moore's webpage:
MichaelMoore.com : SiCKO : 'SiCKO' News : Hospital group rejects system and cashes in (http://www.michaelmoore.com/sicko/news/article.php?id=10041 - broken link)
She would not have to worry about insurance because Dr. Reddy does not take it. Interesting how he grew up in a village in India with lots of poor and has no mercy on or empathy for anyone sick and is totally cut throat in the way he runs his hospitals. I'm glad he could come here and get rich ...
Last edited by I_Love_LI_but; 09-22-2009 at 06:00 PM..
It's not a question of whether I disagree. NYS insurance law is not a matter of opinion. I'm not an expert, either, but I have actually attempted to buy individual insurance in NYS fairly recently (last year). I gave up because the cost was simply out of my league and you cannot by a catastrophic policy.
1&2) I don't know if there is a difference. The issue is not that NYS prevents insurance companies from selling to whoever they want. The issue is whether someone who is here temporarily can benefit from the NYS community rating law. Insurance companies require proof of residency in the appropriate service area. I don't know whether a visitor would be able to fulfill the residency requirement.
And yes, NYS law does bar insurers from charging whatever they want for individual policies. As I said, individual policies in NYS are community-rated. They can raise premiums but only for the pool as a whole. The law was passed in 1993. New York and New Jersey are the only states operating a pure community rating system for individual health insurance.
3) Clinic doesn't only equal Medicaid. They can bill insurance. I've been to one. Keep in mind that Medicaid on LI is administered through HMOs anyway so billing through a non-Medicaid HMO is really no more difficult.
4) Yes, hospitals sometimes dump. That doesn't mean it's legal and one of the goals of EMTALA was to prevent the situation you describe. If she knows her rights, she's much less likely to have this happen to her.
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