<prompt> Human: Hi all,I posted several weeks ago about my wife and my experience dealing with the various medical providers and her insurance company. The short of it is that, to that point, we had gotten multiple bills that we simply should not have gotten - either hospital policy dictates balance billing is not permitted or because the service was preventive and should have been covered by insurance at 100 irrespective of deductible.Well, heres the update:First, getting a straight answer from the insurance company has been incredibly challenging. The language of my wifes plan is unclear about how the deductible works - she has a 3,200 individual and 6,400 family deductible. Since Im on my own plan, her coverage switched from individual to family upon the birth of our daughter. Our understanding pre-delivery had been that the individual family deductibles would be applied as follows: If any individual on the plan hits their individual deductible, the plan begins to pay for that individuals care for the remainder of the plan year If the combined deductible cost of all covered individuals hits the family deductible, the plan begins to pay for all care for the remainder of the plan year In three phone calls, we received three very different sets of information: One indicated that our understanding was correct, so all charges to my wife after hitting her deductible should be paid by the plan One indicated that our understanding was incorrect and that the family deductible becomes the only relevant number as soon as our daughter was born. One out of left field indicated that our plan wouldnt pay anything until we hit our out-of-pocket max this made me think that the customer service reps at my insurance company dont have a firm understanding of the plan Though we never got explicit confirmation, it appears that the plan is set up such that the only deductible that matters is the family deductible, so my wifes hospital stay is covered under the individual deductible my guess is that this is because it began the day before my daughters birth, but honestly I dont know, so that five-figure cost is paid mostly by insurance; everything after her stay applies to the family deductible.Now, we did identify one charge audiology screening that was coded as a preventive service but not processed as such; the provider and insurance company are working it out now, but that should be wiped away. Unfortunately, the other charges we unexpectedly received are virtually all valid. We had expected to pay 3,200 my wifes deductible; her plan pays 100 after deductible. When all is said and done, we are likely to pay upwards of 6,000, most of which is due to basic care of our daughter in the hospital 2,500 in combined charges for her; while she was perfectly healthy, the insurance company doesnt consider newborn care as preventive, so our deductible applies, and weve gotten multiple bills that really add up.Some lessons weve learned:1. Even if you read your plan inside and out, and even if you get confirmation from your insurance company, it is VERY possible that your understanding is wrong.2. It is possible or even likely that one of the many bills you receive will be wrong, so it is still very important to read your bill and EOB and to understand what is considered preventive care and what is not.3. Whatever you are doing to prepare financially for a baby, add a very healthy buffer. We planned to use our HSA to pay for all bills associated with our babys birth we started maxing out the HSA last year, but because of how things played out I had a few bills, and my wife had 1,500 in bills last year associated with the pregnancy that couldnt be bundled with the delivery this year, so it applied to last years deductible, we still dont have enough in our HSA to cover everything in one fell swoop were doing a payment plan so that we dont raid our emergency fund. 4. Although youd think that the shift from an individual to a family medical plan is common it is, insurance companies CSRs tend to get tripped up by the transition, so they may not be as valuable a resource as you would hope.We love our daughter very much, but it wasnt a great welcome-to-parenthood gift to get slapped with several thousand dollars of unexpected bills were already measuring daycare costs in terms of our mortgage... at 3 days a week, were paying 0.7 mortgages; when we go to full-time, well be up to 1.05 mortgages!...  <response>: It only gets more expensive from here 