Services

Birth Center’s services:

At your prenatal visits...
• Your initial visit is about an hour long and each subsequent visit runs 30 minutes. We allocate plenty of time to address your questions and concerns;
• We recognize the spiritual and cultural significance of birth and your transition to parenthood. During your prenatal care, we will encourage you to explore this aspect of your birth and parenting experience;
• Labs - All routine lab work;
• Referrals to birth-center-friendly obstetric and pediatric care providers (Choosing Mountain Midwifery Center for your birth does not necessarily require a doctor visit);
• Referrals for ultrasounds - We will evaluate the results at MMC.

  At your birth...

• Freedom of movement - Since our moms are mobile (not bound to bed by monitors or medication), you are free to walk, sit on a yoga ball or birthing stool, kneel on the bed, hang on your partner or birth swing/rope, or whatever other labor/birthing position feels most comfortable to you at the time;
• Water birth - The opportunity to labor and/or give birth in water. The tubs are available for every client at NO extra charge;
• Newborn care - Initial newborn exams and metabolic screening tests;
• Free WiFi - so you can twitter/blog/email pics and updates to friends and family.

  Postpartum...

• 2-day visit, 1-week and 6-week visits;
• Newborn care;
• Lactation consulting, breastfeeding support.

For more details and to learn how care at the Mountain Midwifery Center is different than hospital-based care, please visit the FAQs page.

Other services:

***Note for payment on services below: Clients using Out-of-Network insurance like BCBS for non-maternity services may be denied insurance coverage for the midwife's time and have to pay out-of-pocket. Insurance coverage may not be available for seeing other practitioners in The Midwife's Garden.***

Well woman care - Gynecology with a balanced medical and holistic approach including pap smears, blood work, and other labs.

Family Planning - MMC does support family planning, but with a decidedly holistic approach. In particular, we like to help women find options that reduce their cancer risk. Options we prefer include IUDs and natural family planning (can include charting with the Fertility Awareness Method, software, etc). Please see the Natural Birth Control class & consultations offered by Colleen Flowers.

Fertility Support - MMC currently provides holistic guidance for fertility through well-woman visits with the CNMs, Holistic Fertility classes, and Natural Birth Control classes. Herbal consultations with Lynn Flanagan-Till and fertility consultations using the Fertility Awareness Method for charting menstrual cycles with Colleen Flowers are also offered in The Midwife's Garden.

Mountain Midwifery Mamas - A Pre&Postpartum Social Group and Birthcenter Advocates - For clients of Mountain Midwifery Center, Mountain Midwifery Mamas is a group where clients can meet other mamas who share the common birth center experience.  They plan playdates, informative presentations, mom's-night-out dates around town, and participate in activism for birth centers.  It's a great place to network and meet like-minded women!  If you have had your prenatal care and/or birth at the birth center and would like to join the group, please contact the organizer, Amy Swagman.

Paying for your care:

Insurance Coverage:

• In-Network In-Network (professional services, facility fee or both): United (including UMR & Pacificare), Cigna, Great-West, Aetna, Humana, Cofinity, TriCare and the list is growing.
• CHP Plus: We are in-network as providers only. The facility fee is the client's responsibility. For CHP+, we are in-network with the State Managed Care Network,  but not the CO Access private plan.
• Medicaid/Medicare: Not accepted. Beginning Jan 31, 2011, MMC no longer accepted Medicaid. More details on this change are in the 1/24/2011 and 7/6/2011 blog posts. Also, we cannot accept Medicare. Note that laws designed to protect patients from exploitation prevent MMC from accepting "self pay" from clients enrolled in Medicaid or Medicare.
• Out-of-network? We are happy to accept out-of-network payers for clients using out-of-network benefits. In many cases, past clients have found us to be a more affordable option than hospital-based providers, even with the higher deductibles and coinsurance percentages in their out-of-network coverage. This affordability is driven by our lower cost facility and very high rate successful natural birth.

Reasons to consider MMC even if you have an out-of-network plan:

• Facility fee includes waterbirth. - Birthing tubs are available to every client with every midwife. We do in-water monitoring. Most hospital practices have no or only limited availability for waterbirth and aren’t comfortable with in-water monitoring procedures.
• One-on-one, direct support of moms in active labor. - At MMC, a CNM and RN support every birth. In hospital care, labor & delivery nurses are often assigned a group of rooms and one-on-one direct often is not possible for mothers attempting natural birth. We encourage all mothers birthing in a hospital to hire a doula.
• Higher chance of a natural birth. - For clients making it to term with us, we have a 90% natural birth rate (approximate). Of our transfers to a hospital-based provider, only half result in C-Section; our overall C-Section Surgery rate varies around 6%
• Lower expected cost. - In addition to saving our mamas and babies from C-Section related complications and long recovery times, our high natural birth rate and lower facility cost dramatically lower the cost of the total bill. The C-Section surgery rate at local hospitals ranges from 30 to 40%. Consider this example:

Expected Cost, MMC compared to hospital (a simplified example)

• Example Insurance Plan:
  • In-network benefits: 500 deductible and 10% coinsurance
  • Out-of-ntwk benefits: 1000 deductible, 20% coinsurance
• Example Costs (professional & facility fees), with Hospital being In-Network, MMC Out-of-Network:
  • Natural birth at hospital: $10,000.00. Cost to patient = $500 + $1000 = $1500.00
  • C-Section birth at hospital: $25,500.00. Cost to patient = $500 + $2500 = $3000.00
  • Natural birth at MMC results in total bill of $3800.00. Cost to patient = $1000 + $560 = $1560.00
• Expected Cost (Sum of probability of outcome multiplied by cost of outcome):
  • MMC - In this example, if the patient transfers to hospital for care, the patient pays $750 to MMC under her out-of-network deductible.
  • If the patient chooses MMC, expected cost is expected cost of MMC birth + expected cost of vaginal birth at hospital + expected cost of C-Section at hospital
  • Expected Cost: 0.90*$1560.00 + 0.04*($1500+$750) + 0.06*($3000+$750) = $1722.00
  • HOSPITAL - If the the patient chooses hospital care, expected cost is the expected cost of a natural birth plus the expected cost of a C-Section
  • Expected Cost: 0.3*$3000.00 + 0.7*$1500.00 = $1950.00
  • HOSPITAL WITH DOULA - Let's say the patient chooses a doula for in-hospital support and reduces her chances of C-Section by a third. We now add the doula's fee (say $800.00) to the expected cost.
  • Expected Cost: $800 + 0.2*$3000.00 + 0.8*$1500.00 = $2600
• Summary - all these numbers are notional, but representative of what exists and can be expected. To lower cost alone is no reason to choose the birth center. Mother and other parents-to-be must be comfortable with the birth center model. This example is just provided to dispel the notion that MMC must have a contract or in-network status to be an affordable birth choice.