How Billing Turns a Routine Birth Into a High-Cost Emergency - KFF Health NewsKFF Health News

“Obstetrical emergency departments” are a new feature in some hospitals that can inflate medical bills for even the easiest, healthiest births. Just ask the parents of Baby Gus.

Caitlin Wells Salerno knew that some mammals — like the golden-mantled ground squirrels she studies in the Rocky Mountains — invest an insane amount of resources in their young. That didn’t prepare her for the resources the conservation biologist would owe after the birth of her second son. Wells Salerno went into labor on the eve of her due date, in the early weeks of coronavirus lockdowns in April 2020. She and her husband, Jon Salerno, were instructed to go through the emergency room doors at Poudre Valley Hospital in Fort Collins, Colorado, because it was the only entrance open.…

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