Photo: TikTok
While the husband's reaction is hilarious, many new parents face the struggle of receiving high hospital bills.
By Nia Tipton — Written on Apr 05, 2023
A couple who recently welcomed a baby was shocked after receiving their hospital bill.
In a TikTok video, Jenny and her husband, Josh, who are content creators and make videos on both TikTok and YouTube about their family, shared their reaction after looking at the hospital bill that came after welcoming their daughter in November 2021.
Jenny recorded her husband's reaction to a $4,000 hospital charge for him holding their baby.
In the video, Jenny hilariously caught her husband's reaction to the charges on their hospital bill, but one specific charge had him ready to give back their newborn daughter.
"The epidural was about $17,253," she told her husband, who had been rocking their baby. At the mention of the amount, he immediately froze, appearing in disbelief as he asked his wife to repeat the number again slowly.
However, the charges only seemed to get worse. For staying 24 hours at the hospital, Jenny and Josh were charged $3,675.60, while the food provided amounted to $176.70.
While all of those charges were quite high, Josh was shocked to learn that the skin-to-skin contact he had with their daughter, Kimmery, after she was born, was also added to their bill.
"The skin-to-skin contact you had with Kimmery was $4,000," she read to her husband. "The skin-to-skin for me was free."
With complete incredulity, Josh questioned how, for one, the pizza provided by the hospital rounded out to almost $200, and why he was being charged such a high price for simply holding his own child to his chest after she was born.
Reading off the total, which included the discount from their insurance, it all counted out to $28, 219, which Jenny told Josh they had thirty days to set up a payment plan to settle their bill.
According to Forbes, for parents, the average out-of-pocket cost for childbirth with health insurance is $2,854, but the costs for vaginal births are lower than those for cesarean births. The average out-of-pocket spending for a vaginal delivery is $2,655, compared to $3,214 for cesarean births.
However, without health insurance, parents can be expected to pay up to $18,865 for childbirth.
People in the comments section urged the couple to have the skin-to-skin charge disputed.
While many TikTok users were equally as shocked as Josh at the charge of skin-to-skin contact, others encouraged him and Jenny to call the hospital and question many of the things on their hospital bill.
In a study published in JAMA Health Forum, almost one in five new parents got an unexpected charge averaging $744 on their hospital bill following childbirth, while other unlucky parents were subjected to a surprise bill of up to $2,000.
As many people pointed out, new parents can ask for things on their hospital bills to be itemized. Under a new federal rule, hospitals are now required to post their list prices for tests and procedures online.
In an interview with HuffPost, Misty McCrackin, a medical billing specialist with Hudson Valley Medical Bill Advocates, encouraged new parents to reach out to a representative from their hospital billing department to go over any concerns seen in the overall bill received.
Especially since an estimated 7% to 49% of paid claims contain a billing error, according to NBC News.
Nia Tipton is a writer living in Brooklyn. She covers pop culture, social justice issues, and trending topics.