Insurance coverage can be difficult when there is a baby on the way. The medical bills involved with having a birth in a hospital tend to be extremely expensive. If you live in California, and do not have health insurance coverage, the AIM program might help you.
Many families see a pregnancy as a blessing. Soon, there will be a new addition to the family. The happiness of having a baby on the way is a very positive thing. What isn’t so positive, though, is the stress involved of trying to come up with the money to pay for the medical bills that are involved with a healthy pregnancy.
Pre-natal care, maternity care, and the actual stay in a hospital in order to give birth can quickly add up to some really high medical bills. The state of California is helping families to afford maternity care in a couple of different ways. A state law was passed that requires health insurance companies to include maternity coverage benefits into all individual policies. This coverage began on July 1, 2012. Previous to this state law, many insurers were excluding maternity coverage.
It is my understanding that this law only applied to individual policies. It might not require group plans, like the health insurance plans offered by employers, to provide maternity coverage. Obviously, this new law isn’t going to help a pregnant woman who cannot afford health insurance coverage.
In those situations, what might help is a program called AIM. It stands for Access for Infants and Mothers. It is a public, or government run, form of health insurance. It is available to pregnant women who do not have any form of health insurance coverage. AIM can also be used by women who have private health insurance with a maternity-only deductible or co-payment greater than $500.00.
To qualify for AIM, a woman must be a California resident. She must live in California at the time she applies for the program, and must be intending to remain in California. She cannot be receiving no-cost Medi-Cal or Medicare Part A and Part B benefits when she applies for AIM.
Eligible women must be pregnant, but not more than 30 weeks pregnant, (as of the date that she applies to AIM). The state of California will note the U.S. Postal postmark date that appears on the application envelope or documentation from other delivery services when it makes its determination about if a woman is eligible for AIM. The AIM website has a Pregnancy Calculator that can be used to tell a woman approximately how many weeks pregnant she is.
There are income guidelines that must be met for mothers-to-be who are applying to AIM. Your monthly household income, (after deductions), will be considered. It is important to note that the number of women enrolling in AIM is limited by state funding. If the funding is not available, this could cause an eligible woman to not be enrolled in the program.
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