Woman handed $500,000 bill for premature birth

Bisi Bennett was offered an instalment payment plan of more than $45,000 a month for a year

A mum in Florida was left in shock after being handed a hospital bill for more than half a million dollars after giving birth prematurely to her son in a car. Bisi Bennett went into labour when she was just seven months pregnant on November 12 last year. When she experienced a strong contraction, she told her husband Chris to take her to hospital. But halfway through the car journey to AdventHealth hospital in Orlando, Bennett gave birth to her son, Dorian. The baby was born breech, meaning his head emerged last, and at first, the parents feared something was wrong as the newborn was not crying. Luckily, Chris managed to flag down a passing emergency vehicle that took them to hospital, where medics cut the umbilical cord and assured the parents their son had a pulse. Dorian stayed in the neonatal intensive care unit for almost two full months until 7 January 2021, but Bennett was reassured that the bills would not be too high because she works in the insurance industry and had chosen AdventHealth Orlando because the hospital was close to her house and in her insurance network. But when the bills arrived, Bennett was left horrified to see that the total cost of her son's treatment was a staggering $550,124 (£410K). The couple was offered the choice to pay in full or through monthly payments of $45,843 (£34179.39) over 12 months. NPR reports that Dorian required "highly technical, lifesaving respiratory and nutritional care until his organs matured," as well as "laboratory, radiology, surgery, cardiology and audiology services and treatments" over a period of 56 days. AdventHealth Orlando billed $660,553 for Dorian’s care, with the ‘patient responsibility’ portion of the bill totalling more than $500,000 due to a problem with the insurance. Related links:

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Bennett's employer had changed its health plan to a different company in January 2021, which Bennett told AdventHealth about to avoid complications. But the hospital ended up billing both insurance companies for all of Dorian's stay. The two insurance companies then said the bill contained dates of care when Dorian was not covered by their plans. As a result, neither paid the hospital for his care. Bennett noticed the issue and realised what had happened when she received the billing statements. After informing the hospital of the mistake she was told the problem would be corrected in March. But in September 2o21, she received the same bill for the same amount. There was a happy ending to the story though. In October this year, AdventHealth Orlando submitted a revised bill after a reporter got in touch with the hospital, reducing the cost of Dorian's treatment to $300.