emmanuelblaise
10-05-2009, 09:09 PM
My wife and I recently found out, about a month ago, that our baby, due in February has Spina Bifida (we don't know the exact location yet, but so far from the 18th week ultrasound its been diagnosed as a sacro-lumbar meningeocele). We're over the initial grief and are in the process of finding out all we can on how to best prepare.
We live in San Jose and are currently on a Kaiser Permanante plan through my employer. For several reasons, we're debating over whether we should switch to a different health care provider so we could go to other hospitals with better care. As I've learned so far, there are basically 4 children's SB hospitals in the bay area.
1) Kaiser in Oakland,
2) Children's Hospital & Research Center - Oakland,
3) UCSF Children's Hospital - SF,
4) Santa Clara Valley Medical Center - San Jose
To help us make this decision I'm turning to anyone in the Bay Area who has been with one or more of these hospitals and can provide us with guidance and reasons to choose one over the other. We really don't know what we're in for, but I know that the best guidance would come from parents who've been through this already.
Some of the information we're seeking for example is:
- Do any of the above provide significantly better care than the others
- Has anyone who's been with Kaiser experienced problems working with their SB center
- How good are Kaiser's surgeons compared to the others.
- From the website the Children's Hospital & Research Center - Oakland seemed really top notch. How expensive are they?
On a separate but slightly related note.
I'm trying to figure out how much money to add to a Flexible Spending account (what is an FSA? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flexible_spending_account). For this I seek to better understand how many visits to the hospital and how much of expenses are typically incurred in the first year of the baby's life following delivery.
Please Help!
Thanks.
We live in San Jose and are currently on a Kaiser Permanante plan through my employer. For several reasons, we're debating over whether we should switch to a different health care provider so we could go to other hospitals with better care. As I've learned so far, there are basically 4 children's SB hospitals in the bay area.
1) Kaiser in Oakland,
2) Children's Hospital & Research Center - Oakland,
3) UCSF Children's Hospital - SF,
4) Santa Clara Valley Medical Center - San Jose
To help us make this decision I'm turning to anyone in the Bay Area who has been with one or more of these hospitals and can provide us with guidance and reasons to choose one over the other. We really don't know what we're in for, but I know that the best guidance would come from parents who've been through this already.
Some of the information we're seeking for example is:
- Do any of the above provide significantly better care than the others
- Has anyone who's been with Kaiser experienced problems working with their SB center
- How good are Kaiser's surgeons compared to the others.
- From the website the Children's Hospital & Research Center - Oakland seemed really top notch. How expensive are they?
On a separate but slightly related note.
I'm trying to figure out how much money to add to a Flexible Spending account (what is an FSA? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flexible_spending_account). For this I seek to better understand how many visits to the hospital and how much of expenses are typically incurred in the first year of the baby's life following delivery.
Please Help!
Thanks.