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 RMHP 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 at Blossom Wellness Center.***

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. Consultations using the Fertility Awareness Method for charting menstrual cycles with Colleen Flowers are also offered at Blossom Wellness Center.

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 TheMidwifesGarden@gmail.com

Paying for your care:

Self Pay: We have affordable self-pay plans. Our combined cost for facility and obstetric care is about $4000.00 when paid upfront. Newborn care and labs are extra. We recommend self-pay clients have about $4500.00 budgeted for maternity and newborn care with us. Note that for obstetric and facility care we do ask for payment upfront (by 32 weeks gestation). As we have to verify all self pay clients are not on Medicaid or any other government program, we do ask for patient Social Security Numbers.

Insurance Coverage:

• In-Network Commercial:
  • CONTRACTS (professional services, facility fee or both):
    • Anthem BlueCross BlueShield
    • United (including UMR & Pacificare)
    • Cigna & Great-West Health
    • Aetna
    • Humana
    • Cofinity
    • In-Process - Multiplan / PHCS (we have signed a facility contract and a provider contract and expect the effective date of each to happen by August 1, 2013 at the latest)
  • WARNING: Our contracts are NOT a guarantee of coverage, especially with individual plans. If you are the consumer for your insurance, please ensure there are no exclusions for Certified Nurse-Midives (CNMs) or birth centers.
• KAISER PERMANENTE: We are not contracted with Kaiser, but we do offer affordable self-pay rates for Kaiser clients. We also encourage our patients with Kaiser coverage to see Kaiser for labs and ultrasounds to reduce their out-of-pocket expenses. A records release form can then be used to have those lab and ultrasound results shared with MMC. (NOTE: When MMC becomes in-network with Multiplan/PHCS, the Kaiser PPO plans may cover MMC services.)
• TRICARE: We are no longer contracted with TRICARE effective April 1, 2013. Why we dropped our contract and our efforts with TRICARE are detailed in a 1/30/2013 blog post. As out-of-network providers, we will bill the "Point of Service" benefits of TRICARE members. Depending on when a patient enters our prenatal care has a big impact on the patient's out of pocket cost:
  • Patients starting prenatal care before 20 weeks gestation will use their Point of Service benefits.
  • Patient  transferring to us 20 weeks or later will owe at least $2200.00 out of pocket.
  • Patient  transferring 28 weeks or later will owe at least $2300.00 out of pocket.
• CHP Plus: We are in-network as providers only. We have been told by CHP+ administrators that they will NOT pay the facility fees. For provider fees with CHP+, we are in-network with the State Managed Care Network only,  not the CO Access private plan with a similar name.
• Medicaid/Medicare: Not accepted. Beginning Jan 31, 2011, patients with active Medicaid or Medicare status are not eligible to be seen at MMC. More details on this change are in the 1/24/2011 and 7/6/2011 blog posts. Please note that laws designed to protect patients from exploitation prevent MMC from accepting "self-pay" payments 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 of 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 support is often 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 $4200.00 (example price). Cost to patient = $1000 + $640 = $1640.00
• 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*$1640.00 + 0.04*($1500+$750) + 0.06*($3000+$750) = $1791.00
  • 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 in the area 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.