Florida family gets $550,000 bill for having premature baby

Bisi Bennett was handed the bill despite doing everything in her power to avoid it

Bisi Bennett was given a monthly plan of nearly $46,000 for the premature birth of her son in November 2020 (Screengrab/CBS Mornings)

A Florida woman was shocked after being handed a hospital bill of over half a million dollars after giving premature birth, despite doing everything in her power to avoid a sky-high bill and having health insurance.

Bisi Bennett, 38, who works in the insurance business, went into premature labour on 12 November 2020. Her son Dorian was born in the car while her husband was taking her to the hospital.

As Dorian was born breech – that is the baby’s head came out last – he wasn’t crying at first.

“He was still connected to me with the umbilical cord when they rolled the two of us together into the hospital,” Ms Bennett said to NPR.

“They cut the cord, and the last thing I heard was ‘he has a pulse’ before they wheeled me away.”

The baby had to subsequently stay in the neonatal intensive care unit for close to two months until 7 January 2021.

As an insurance industry employee, Ms Bennett was not worried as she had chosen AdventHealth Orlando, hospital due to its proximity to her house and because the hospital was in her insurance provider United Healthcare’s network.

However, when the baby was ready to go home, the hospital handed her a bill of $550,000 (£415,085).

“I was very upset when I saw the half-a-million-dollar bill because I felt like I done everything in my power to avoid them sending me that huge bill,” Ms Bennett told CBS Mornings.

While Ms Bennett was covered by insurance, the size of her bill was due to the fact that the child was born in 2020 and needed hospital care till 2021.

In addition, her employer changed the healthcare provider to UMR in 2021 which caused the mix up.

The hospital billed both UMR and United Healthcare for both the years instead of billing United Healthcare for 2020 and UMR for 2021.

Ms Bennett was charged $550,000 when neither of the companies agreed to cover the bill because of the administrative error.

“I called the hospital several times just to let them know, ‘Hey, you guys are lumping the bill together, you need to split it out’,” Ms Bennett said.

Despite her calls, the same bill was sent to her over and over again and she was given a monthly plan of nearly $46,000 (£34,716).

The bill was resolved in October 2021 after health and science news portal Kaiser Health News contacted the insurance company about the issue, after which the company got in touch with the hospital. Her bill was then updated to $300 (£226).

United Healthcare said it did not receive the 2020 portion of the hospital bill until this fall, but has since paid it, it said in a statement.

“I was scared that I was going to end up in collections,” Ms Bennett said.

“We apologise for the frustration this caused,” the hospital said in a statement.

“For future patients like Ms Bennett, who may experience a change in insurance during their treatment, this case has allowed us to identify opportunities within our system to improve the billing and communications process.”

Ms Bennett said the experience should make insurance companies and hospitals think of healthcare in a holistic way.

“I hope that by doing this story, that they would really think about just health care from a holistic standpoint. Health is not just when you’re in the hospital... It also has to do with how you treat someone after they’ve been discharged from the hospital,” she said.