Mara Varona underwent a prenatal blood screening and received post-draw offers from testing company Natera to pay a cash price of $349 and skip insurance. Varona assumed insurance would cover most costs, but Natera billed her insurer $4,480; the insurer paid 45 cents, leaving Varona responsible for a $750 deductible bill. The offers were sent via email and text and required clicking to view details; Varona says she did not see them. After finding a Reddit thread, she learned some patients can call Natera and ask to pay the lower cash rate instead of billing insurance.
Shortly after her blood draw, the testing company Natera emailed and texted her an offer to pay its cash price $349 and skip insurance altogether. The offers said she was out of network and estimated Varona's cost would be the balance of her deductible plus $100 to $200, according to a statement from Natera. But Varona doesn't recall seeing the offers at the time they were sent.
A few months later, other news arrived: a bill for $750, the amount of her unmet insurance deductible. According to the explanation of benefits, Natera had charged her insurance company $4,480. The insurer paid just 45 cents. "I tend to be the type to just pay it and move on," she says. "But something in me told me this just seemed unreasonably high. It was probably the highest medical bill I'd received throughout the pregnancy."
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