Pregnancy in Germany part 2: Insurance and Registering at the Hospital

Last time I wrote about my pregnancy, I wrote about my experience with prenatal care in Germany.
Just a warning ahead of time that this part of the story isn't quite as amusing (though somewhat at times), but still a part of the whole story and therefore important for me :)

Another side of the pregnancy adventure has been figuring out the insurance situation that we find ourselves in here. WeeeeeEEEE. Sounds exciting, right? Welp, let me just continue with this tantalizing tale...

First, let me explain that Germany has statutory health insurance system. This means, basically, that people pay into the healthcare pool from their payroll or bank, then their healthcare is covered. And it is GOOD healthcare. The care is good, and pretty much everything that could happen to you (from what I've seen) is covered - especially when it comes to having a baby, because Germany wants more babies. 
If one wants different (private) healthcare coverage, that person can opt out, but private health care is generally better than the normal insurance, meaning superDEEDUPERDEE fancy/good, which means that people pay the big bucks for it. 

But what about us Walkers? We don't qualify for the statutory health insurance program. And we don't make the big bucks. SO what do we do? 

Well, OF COURSE we find the cheapest possible private health insurance that you can find that seems remotely reasonable. It works. But it has...(deeeep slow breath...) proved to test my patience. 

First, let me just tell you...we have these insurance cards that look like they were designed in 1995 by a junior high kid for his computer class assignment. When receptionists see the insurance  card, they stare at it. For a long time. Like a "is-this-for-real?" stare. They're kind and professional, but are VERY CLEARLY confused as to what manner of devilry we've just handed them. They're very, very used to only seeing cards from the government or well-known private companies. 

As for the coverage: With this provider, we get coverage...well, kind of...eventually. 

First, we get the bills. 
Then we pay all of those bills out of pocket. 
Then we send the copies of the bills to the insurance company, who reimburse us (in theory) for our expenses. 

Sounds simple, right? But I have several mental hang-ups. 
First...prenatal bills are big. BIG. That's hard to see. 
Second, the insurance company is slow. It takes them an indeterminate amount of time to reimburse us - sometimes over a month. 
Third, we often find out, after the fact, that random stuff isn't covered by our insurance, but it's already been done an paid for, so we're out of luck.
And Fourth, because the doctors are used to anything and everything being covered, they just do anything and everything that they want, and are confused and SO ALARMED when you come to them, questioning what care you'll be given, because you might have to pay for it out of pocket. First, the doctors judge you for questioning the way that they're providing you care. Then, they get angry with your wussy, lame insurance company.
It's an awkward conversation made more awkward by a language barrier. It's hard. But it's one of those "one hard thing a day" things.

I don't know - I guess there's something about seeing a huge bill, and knowing it's going to come out of our bank account for an indeterminate amount of time that is hard for me. 

Also - I get to see everything - EVERYTHING that they do/test for at the office on the bills. Everything from pinpricks to blood tests to tests for chlamydia?? to ultrasounds. It's amazing how much more closely you see what's being done for you (in horror) when you're paying for it all, Euro by Euro. Me no likey.

This tries my patience.

But it is the way that it is. And I am glad that we have something to cover us, especially during this pregnancy. 

Now that you know how I feel about my insurance, here's 
another adventure: registering at the hospital

About 1 1/2 months before I was due, we attempted to go to an informational evening at the hospital where I planned on having the baby. 

"Cool!" we thought. "We'll be able to see where we'll be and be more familiar with it all!" 

So we went. We brought the kids. We didn't really have a choice, but we thought it would be cool for them to see the rooms, know where I was going to be, etc, etc. 
Buuuuut we were totally naive as to what this "information night" was really going to be. 

First, it was PACKED. There were probably 40 other people there. And none of them brought their children. Just us. Two kids, one slinky, and a handful of gummy bears. 

Normally, under such circumstances, we would have been okay. However, they had everyone sit down in rows of chairs in a confined area to start. What next proceeded was a 45 minute long PowerPoint presentation in a foreign language. I caught maybe 25% of what was said. 
Two kids. 
One slinky. 
A handful of gummy bears.
To their credit, the kids were great, lasting at least 1/2 and hour before Berkley took them out, and not even because they were being bad, but more because we pitied them.

When discussing this experience with my parents later, Bridger's description of the experience went something like this:

"Yeah, there was this big white paper hanging on the wall with a bunch of words on it. But they did have some pictures. But it was pretty boring. So then we went out to the hallway and started drinking their water. We drank ALLLL this fizzy water, and..."
Yeah. Pretty impressionable experience for him. 

So how did it go for me? I'll admit. I was lost. I wasn't getting information I needed. I didn't have the courage to ask questions. Grr. 

When we went to leave for the "tour" I was also disappointed. I was near the back of the group, and couldn't hear well. We first walked to a recovery room. I'd already been informed that mom's and new babies don't get their own recovery room, that it's shared with another patient. "That's cool with me" I thought, not wanting to pay insane amounts for the privacy of a single-bed room. "I can handle a neighbor".

But when I saw it, I was a little...bummed. The room was small and the beds close enough together that if the patients both leaned over and put their arms out, they could hold hands. And there was no privacy curtain between the beds.
*Siiiiiiigh*********

I don't know. I really appreciate my privacy when it comes to the hours after giving birth. There's a lot of awkward "my body is getting used to itself/doing whaaaat?" moments, not to mention the potential trickiness of breastfeeding. It's just...nice to have some privacy and only worry about yourself.

But. 

I can do hard things. 

And I am just going to have to fake it 'til I make it. 

Bring. It. On. 

We started toward the other side of the hospital floor to see a delivery room. Along the way, I found Berkley and the kids in the lobby, where the children had been drinking copious amounts of fizzy water to keep themselves entertained. Berkley wasn't feeling well, and the kids had been cooped up for far too long, and I was feeling a bit burnt out on the whole experience, so we headed home without seeing a delivery room. But whatever. I felt done. I now had more questions than I felt like I'd come with and I was just wanting to be out of there.

Fortunately, I had hope. The tour was a Wednesday evening, and I had an appointment to actually go and register with the hospital on Friday morning. 

But, again, it was way harder than expected. 

Berkley had to, unexpectedly, stay home with the sick kids, so I was off, on my own.

I arrived, hoping that I'd just have to fill out some simple paperwork, and hoped that maybe, just maybe I would get to see someone who spoke English and I could get some questions off of my chest.

don't 

I was wrong. 

I sat in two rooms for over an hour, filling out paperwork in a foreign language as best as I could. The medical terminology was challenging. Knowing that if I filled something out incorrectly it would just complicate things in the future - I was totally stressed out. 

Then there was the insurance.  I sat there watching the lovely, kind, non-English speaking hospital personnel struggle with figuring out what kind of health insurance I had, and asking me complicated questions about it, which I didn't really have answers for. 

I left their office with a heavy burden. I was so worried. If I filled out this paperwork wrong, or if they didn't understand what our insurance provides, we'd be paying for everything out of pocket. I'll admit - a few, stressful tears were shed.

FORTUNATELY, the last person I saw to close up the registration process before heading out of the hospital SPOKE ENGLISH. I explained to her my conundrum of odd insurance (which she cleared up, assuring me that I wouldn't be paying out of pocket, WHEW). I then asked her about a few of the questions I had. She answered them. 

It was good. 
I was grateful. 

So, registering, while uber-stressful, turned out okay in the end. I was glad. It still wasn't completely finished, as the hospital said that they still needed some information from the insurance company...but yeah. For the most part, it was done. 

Now, even though the whole having the baby thing was still a pretty big unknown (parts of that always are anyways, right?) at least I knew I wouldn't be sitting around filling out paperwork for the first 2 hours of labor and delivery :) 

But lessons learned in the end:
1. Choosing the cheapest insurance will most likely result in some form of badness, but if you're lucky, you and your bank account will survive. 

2. Unless you're looking for a challenge, bring a friend that speaks German fluently (not your kids) to register with you at the hospital.