The gentlebirth.org website is provided courtesy of
Ronnie Falcao, LM MS, a homebirth midwife in Mountain View, CA

Homebirth Exclusion is Unlikely

I called my insurance company, and they say they don't cover homebirth. 

An insurance policy is a contract between two parties and is enforceable in a court of law.

Typically, insurance policies cover the fees of licensed providers for medically necessary care. They also cover charges related to care in licensed medical facilities, such as a hospital or a birthing center or an outpatient surgery center.

Although it is possible that your insurance policy has a specific exclusion regarding homebirth, this is unlikely. (Again, since an insurance policy is simply a contract, each side can negotiate the terms. It is possible that an insurance policy could exclude the services of all providers named Joe, for example, but this is unlikely. It's also possible that this might be illegal if it discriminated against ethnic groups that tend to name their children Joe. Actually, using this thinking, excluding homebirth would obviously discriminate against female providers, since almost all homebirth midwives are female. Any lawyers want to take this on?)

If your insurance company claims that they "don't cover homebirth", this could mean any number of things:

1. The first-level employee you're talking with doesn't actually know the details of your plan, but they know that saying "no" is much safer than saying "yes".
2. The person you're talking with knows that the services of a midwife or doctor attending a birth in your home are actually covered by your insurance policy, but they "don't cover homebirth", meaning they won't pay any facilities fees for your home, such as your rent. Well, most people think this is fair enough, even though homebirth does save the insurance company a bundle of money, but that answer is quite misleading.
3. The insurance policy has a specific exclusion regarding services provided in your home. This is actually very unlikely, as most insurance companies have figured out that it's much cheaper to have people convalescing at home than in a hospital, so they are usually very eager to move services from the hospital into your home. Still, it's possible that your policy specifically excludes services provided in the home, and they should be able to tell you which page of your insurance policy this exclusion appears on.

Parents need to be consumer activists in order to get the best possible services around the time of birth. This includes homebirth, waterbirth, professional labor coaches, lactation consultants and postpartum doulas. Sometimes it just takes a few extra phone calls; it may take just one phone call if it's to the right person, such as your employer's health benefits administrator, who negotiates the details of your health insurance policy and can pressure your insurance coverage to provide the top-quality care your company thought they were purchasing.

Good luck getting the best possible coverage for the best possible care,