Medicaid waste in action..

[SoCalDem]

I just witnessed this with my own eyes.. My friend's new grandbaby was born today.. Tell me if you see what I saw..

"......" was ENORMOUS.. she had gestational diabetes and was showing signs of toxemia..this was her first baby.. Her husband, my friend's son is unemployed and they have no insurance..

back to the story..

My friend called me late last night, so I went to the hospital to be with her.. The daughter-in-law was admitted at 6 pm .. I got to the hospital at around 1 am.. I sat there with my friend until almost 4 am..

the chronology..

6 pm..... admitted to hospital, via emergency room
6:30 pm... ivs etc..
7:00 pm... nurse tells grandma to be, that she is only 2c dilated and they will use pitocin later..she is given pain shots every hour
9:00 pm.. pitocin drip administered
10:00 pm.. epidural started (she's only 4 c)
12-7 am... she just mainly rests
7:00am... doctor shows up and increases pitocin
whole rest of day..laboring
6:00 pm.. she's at 9 C and THEN they decide the baby "might be too big"..<babies of diabetics are USUALLY big, and she's 2 days overdue>
9:00 pm... they do a c-section..

baby weighed 10 lb 13 oz..23 inches long..


Last night while I was sitting with my friend, I casually mentioned to her that they woudl probably need to do a section because the baby would be big, and it would be cruel to have her labor long and hard, only to end up with a section.. They had been to lamaze, and she knew about the diabetes complication, so whe would not have been surprised..

What pisses me off is that I cannot get the idea out of my head that most of what they "did" was just a clever way to jack up the bill, since medicaid is paying it.. Insurance companies would have asked some hard questions..like:

1. Since she had several sonograms, why did the doctor seem surprised at the size of the baby??

2. Why would they administer pitocin so soon after she arrived?

3. Why would the do an epidural when she was only a few c dilated?

4. Since she was preregistered, why did they funnel her in through the ER??

I cannot imagine why they put her through 27 hours of labor when they probably "knew" they would end up with a section..

...

[sandnsea]

1. Interesting

Who knows anything anymore.

The one thing that strikes me is admitting her at 2c. Of course, they wouldn't know that until they examined her, but her contractions should have given a bit of a clue. They used to let you sit in the waiting room. Well, you used to be able to have the same doctor all the way through your pregnancy and be able to call them so you didn't have to be admitted until later. My last one didn't work that way and that was almost 18 years ago. Fully insured, but the system in that town was for the 3 OB doctors to just rotate deliveries. You never knew who was going to deliver your baby. So an overworked doctor may not be as familiar with the patient as they used to be.

My daughter was 9 lbs 3 oz and this does sort of follow what I went through. Although I think I was at 4c when I went in and no epidural and no C-Section. Maybe they just do big babies differently, I don't know.

The saddest thing I've heard of recently is a nurse who was distraught because they released a C-Section patient after 24 hours or so because they had no insurance or Medicaid.

I'm disgusted with this country all the way around.

On edit:

Congratulations to your friend! All went well in the end and that's the main thing.

[WildClarySage]

2. Not that unusual at all

Not unusual to admit at 2c when showing signs of toxemia. As far as it goes, there's really nothing wrong with how this delivery was handled.

1. You can estimate weight from sonogram, but still be very surprised.
2. Pitocin was admin so soon because they had to get the delivery started- toxemia hits hard and fast, and the sooner baby is delivered, safer mom is.
3. 4c is the normal dilation for administering an epi.
4. Probably again because of the toxemia... that is rather unusual, but not alarming in itself.

27 hours of labor does a lot of good things to the baby, such as stimulating blood flow and hormone production to help him/her prepare for the world outside, and more importantly, it also 'squeezes' fluids from the lungs so that they operate properly after delivery.

My bouncin' baby boy was born with 'wet lung' which resulted in our being at the hospital 5 days after the no-labor involved c-section, with him in NICU for 4 of those days. Next time, even though I can't deliver vaginally, I plan to be induced for labor.