Saturday, January 24, 2009

Hooray for our Insurance!!!

At my first OB visit the nurse-midwife discussed screening options for the pregnancy. One: don't do anything. Two: do the typical 2nd trimester Quad screening. Three: do the new 1st trimester sequential screen followed by the Quad screening in the 2nd trimester. I liked the sound of the third option, however, the nurse also mentioned that most insurance companies do not cover this screening yet, as it is still fairly "new".

Well, hooray for Aetna because they DO cover the 1st semester screening. Yay! I am now scheduled to go to the Antenatal Unit at Virtua Hospital on February 9th for the testing. It consists of a finger prick / blood test and a special ultrasound that measures the nuchal fold translucency. This screening can predict with 85% accuracy the fetus' risk of having Down's syndrome, Trisomy 18, or another form of neural tube defects. It gives patients an earlier view on the staus of their fetus, and I like that. I also LOVE the fact that we will be having an actual u/s of the baby prior to 20 weeks! That will (hopefully) give us reassurance that all is going well in uterus-land. How nice that will be!

So, here is to the sometimes (albeit rarely) wonderful insurance companies and their benefits.

1 comment:

Tanya said...

Yeah! I love insurance companies when they do what we want! LOL I am happy that this test will be covered for you! That does make one feel better.