By Jennifer Jane, BSN, RN
Expectant moms and dads experience enough surprise ups and downs without having to figure out hospital bills, lab test charges, and unexpected fees on top of growing and caring for their babies. Lyvona can make a big difference in understanding the cost of your health care at this exciting — and expensive — time in your lives.
Lyvona is leading the change in healthcare transparency for pregnant and new moms by making the costs of care a lot easier to understand.
Let’s talk about what healthcare transparency means, why it matters during pregnancy and postpartum, and how Lyvona can help you navigate your healthcare with more confidence and fewer surprise bills.
What Is Healthcare Transparency?
Healthcare transparency means shining a spotlight on the details of your healthcare so you can see and understand them clearly. Health care costs often feel like the murky and mysterious domain of providers and hospitals, but Lyvona can help empower you by helping to make your health costs clearer and easier to see.
Healthcare transparency means you can understand:
- Your health care costs
- Your options for care
- What is in your medical record
- Why your provider is ordering a test
- What the test entails
- What your insurance will and won’t pay
What Healthcare Transparency Means in Pregnancy
Healthcare transparency means:
- You’re not pressured into decisions in 30 seconds
- You’re allowed time to ask questions
- Your “yes” or “no” decisions actually matter
- You feel like a partner in your care, not just a passenger along for the ride
Transparency is about you being able to have answers to questions like:
- What will this actually cost me?
- What are my options?
- What does this test result mean?
- Are there risks to my baby or me?
- What are the benefits?
- Do I have a say in this decision?
Research shows that when pregnant women understand their options and are included in decisions, they have more positive experiences and improved outcomes. But studies have found that many parents still feel poorly informed about induction of labor, cesarean section, and place of birth, even in hospitals that claim to offer choices (1).
Other studies show that when parents feel involved and listened to, they feel higher emotional well-being, increased satisfaction with care, and better outcomes for both mom and baby (2).
Which means that healthcare transparency isn’t something that’s just nice to have — it’s essential for patient satisfaction, and better, safer maternity care.
Pregnancy Costs Are Confusing
Lyvona’s pregnancy cost page explains three big “cost traps” almost every pregnant woman in the U.S. faces:
- The double-deductible trap – if your pregnancy spans two different calendar years, you may end up paying your deductible and out-of-pocket max twice for your pregnancy care—just because of the timing of your pregnancy.
- The bills just keep coming – hospital, anesthesiologist, ob-gyn, pediatrician, lab tests…it’s common to receive a dozen separate bills over the months, each with different codes and charges.
- Surprise out-of-network charges – one out of five new parents receive surprise bills, often for thousands of dollars, from providers they didn’t choose, such as an out-of-network anesthesiologist (3).
U.S. hospitals and insurance companies are supposed to be more transparent. Federal rules require hospitals and payers to publish negotiated prices and make estimated costs available, but the information is often inconsistent, hard to find, or difficult to interpret (4) (5).
One study of a childbirth price transparency tool found that some expecting moms and dads do use these tools, but not until late in pregnancy and not with great success, partly because the tools aren’t designed specifically around the realities of maternity care (6).
So, during one of the most important times of their lives, pregnant couples are faced with complicated health care decisions, complex care for mom and baby, fragmented billing, and tools that were not designed with the care of pregnant women in mind.
Why Healthcare Transparency Matters for Your Health, Not Just Your Wallet
Studies on maternity care show that when communication is poor and decision-making is not open and shared, women report less trust, more anxiety, and lower satisfaction with birth, even when clinical outcomes were satisfactory (7).
- Shared decision-making, where you, your provider, and larger care team make decisions together, is linked to increased knowledge, fewer regrets around the birth experience, and care that reflects your preferences and values (7).
- Respectful maternity care, including clearly explained and available information, the freedom to choose what happens to your body and baby, and supportive counseling, is being recognized as a core quality measure (8).
- Decision support tools for expecting couples have been shown to improve knowledge, reduce decision-making conflict, and help to make more informed choices (9).
Lyvona can be a helpful part of this journey for you!
When you can have an idea of costs, understand risks and benefits, and ask questions and be listened to, you’re more prepared to make choices that fit both your physical health and your financial health.
Lyvona Joins Healthcare Transparency and Support Together
Lyvona is a healthcare transparency, education, and support platform that is focusing first on pregnancy, birth, postpartum, and early parenting — because those are some of the most emotionally intense, confusing, and expensive moments in healthcare.
1. Cost transparency built specifically for pregnancy and birth
Instead of generic price tools, Lyvona is designed for maternity care:
- Lyvona helps address one of the consistent problems found in maternity care research — women are trying to make decisions about induction of labor, birth settings, and providers without realistic, accurate information about what their choices will cost (1).
- Lyvona helps you model your costs ahead of time, like how a December delivery compared to a January delivery might affect your deductible costs.
- You can upload your actual bills, and Lyvona’s specialized, private tools flag likely errors or negotiable charges, such as incorrect lab codes or duplicate epidural charges.
- You can see real costs from real moms in your city with similar insurance, which gives you a more realistic idea than a vague “average cost” on a hospital website.
2. Communities for pregnancy, postpartum moms, and new parents
Lyvona isn’t just about helping you with healthcare transparency; it is also a community platform with supportive groups for:
- Pregnancy
- Postpartum health and recovery
- Parenting for first-time moms and dads
- Medical bills and healthcare costs
These communities allow you to ask and discuss questions like:
- What works for you for morning sickness and heartburn?
- How long did your hemorrhoids last, and what treatment worked best?
- How often does your baby poop?
- Was your voluntary labor induction covered?
- Has anyone delivered at X hospital with Y insurance—what was the cost?
- How did your provider handle billing for a VBAC or C-section or twins?
These groups are moderated by healthcare professionals and supported by AI tools, so peer stories and discussions are balanced with evidence-based education, exactly the kind of support you need for peace of mind.
3. Lumin AI: Health and cost questions in one place
Lyvona’s AI assistant, Lumin, is your trusted AI companion that understands both pregnancy health needs and costs.
Lyvona’s Lumin AI is designed to help with:
- Health questions:
- Is this kind of cramping normal at 20 weeks?
- What happens during a glucose tolerance test?
- What are the risks of inducing labor at 39 weeks?
- What happens during a C-section?
- Cost questions:
- Is this lab charge reasonable?
- How do I handle a duplicate charge?
- What would a C-section cost with my insurance plan?
- Should I switch to my partner’s insurance before my baby’s birth?
When women get answers to questions about their care, preferences, options, and risks, they make more informed choices and feel more confident about their decisions (9).
Of course, Lyvona doesn’t replace your obgyn, midwife, or pediatrician’s guidance and expertise. Lyvona is there to support you and help you understand your healthcare better, to provide you with a trusted community, and enable you to have more informed conversations with your healthcare team.
4. A process that follows your pregnancy journey
Follow Lyvona’s four-step process to help support you on your journey:
- Join & onboard – share your due date, insurance details, and unique situation.
- Connect & learn – explore communities, ask Lumin questions, browse real cost data.
- Plan ahead – model costs for different timing and care choices before the bills arrive.
- Review bills – upload bills as they come in and get help spotting errors and negotiating.
This process supports what maternity-care researchers found is necessary — support that starts early in pregnancy and continues through birth and postpartum to help every step of the way with answers and support through communities and specialized tools (9).
You Deserve Clear Answers
Healthcare transparency is really about respecting you as the decision-maker during your pregnancy and new parenthood journey.
Lyvona exists to help build the missing link between you and a confusing healthcare system. Lyvona is a place where you can see your real costs, ask medical and financial questions, learn alongside other new moms, and feel supported in the process.
You’re already doing the hardest job — growing and caring for a new human being. You deserve support and tools that make your healthcare clearer and a lot less mysterious.
Sources:
- https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s12884-020-03023-6
- https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9618378/
- lyvona.com
- https://lhsfna.org/hospital-pricing-transparency-attempts-to-make-healthcare-more-affordable/
- https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2018-08-17/pdf/2018-16766.pdf
- https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8374613/
- https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6899916/
- https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M23-2676
- https://www.jmir.org/2020/9/e19436/
