KSHB 41 reporter Elyse Schoenig covers issues surrounding the cost of health care. Share your story idea with Elyse.
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The only licensed, stand-alone birthing center in the Kansas City area is closing its doors.
New Birth Company in Overland Park served moms who wanted active, natural child births.
New Birth Company's CEO and founder Kendra Wyatt said they couldn't keep up with the cost of keeping their doors open. Wyatt said their daily expenses averaged $6,400, but KanCare’s reimbursement for birth facility services is $1,295.
"With our closure next week, we are now the last remaining access to a birth center for Missouri women in the entire state,” Kendra Wyatt said.
New Birth accepted commercial insurance, KanCare, and Missouri Medicaid, and they also had a self-pay option. Wyatt also said their center's child deliveries cost nearly a third of what it costs in a hospital. They would, however, transfer a patient to a hospital if emergency or specialty care, such as epidurals or C-sections, were required.
"It's definitely an era coming to a close and it's going to create a gap in Kansas City,” Wyatt said.
According to a study published in the National Library of Medicine within the National Institutes of Health, the average cost of a low-risk birth at a birth center is $8,309, compared to $13,562 at a hospital.
"Can't put a price on that,” expectant mother Lacie Cochran said.
The cost of giving birth weighs on nearly every expecting family.
"The cost is so much more for more that we don't want,” Cochran said.
It's why Lacie and her husband, Denver, chose New Birth Company for the fifth child they're expecting.
New moms like Aqweela Das Neves said she chose to deliver at a birthing center over a hospital because of cost, control, and care.
"It feels like Big Pharma, basically like hovering over your shoulder for every single thing,” she said of her experience with hospital settings. "As a new mom, you just want to trust (whose hands) you're putting your life and your baby's life in.”
