Insurance during pregnancy helps women avail adequate care. The aim of pregnancy insurance is to provide benefits that take care of the costs incurred during pregnancy and child birth.

There are no stand-alone maternity health insurance plans as of now. You can purchase one of the following types of plans to get maternity coverage. The first is an indemnity plan which lets the insured choose their own doctor and hospital. This is expensive though. A managed health care plan (HMO, PPO, and POS) assigns the insured to a network of doctors and hospitals that can be used for medical care. These are the cheapest types of plans.

Standard maternity health insurance policies cover doctor’s expenses, hospital fees, and prescriptions drugs - basically all maternity medical expenses. Private insurance companies will not insure a woman if she is already pregnant but some states offer Medicaid health insurance, or plans such as California's Medi-Cal to low income families.

Insurance Plans which have maternity benefits fall into the following categories:

Medicaid is a state run program that is federally funded. Medicaid provides medical assistance for low-income families and individuals. The program also offers coverage in some states for example Medi-cal from the state of California, to women who are already pregnant.

The other option is Maternitycard. It is designed to provide help to pregnant women and is well accepted. This covers a wide spectrum of maternity medical needs and less expensive than regular insurance. It includes doctor Visits, hospital Stays, lab Work, sonograms, 24 Hour Counseling, 24 Hour Nurse Hotline, anesthesiologist, pre Natal Vitamins, newborn Tests and checkups, immunizations, prescription Coverage, fertility Treatment/Therapy. When insurance is provided by the employer, the insured is part of a group health plan and coverage is determined based on which plan the employer chooses. If the woman had insurance with her previous employer, she may be able to continue coverage under that policy through COBRA.

For individual health insurance, some benefits covered under a group policy like maternity coverage are not considered standard. Some individual health insurance companies offer an option to add services like maternity coverage for an extra fee. This additional coverage is known as an optional rider or a maternity coverage rider.

If one is planning to start a family, purchasing individual health insurance maternity coverage is worth the extra cost because coverage will pay for expenses related to routine childbirth. Maternity coverage is not always available, and some riders provide more coverage than others.

Not all insurance policies are created equally. This is especially true if the insured or her spouse has recently changed jobs. Pregnancy is considered a pre-existing condition, and the new policy may have a waiting period before the insurance company will cover the cost of pregnancy.

This article was contributed by Prerna Mordani.

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