Medicaid Catching On

I am usually a reader more than a writer at this site but I wanted to share my frustration. Our adoption attorney called and said that she is warning all her families that haven't been placed yet that they need to factor in the expense of the hospital fees for the baby's delivery now, even if mom has full coverage from Medicaid. Medicaid has caught on that adoptive families are using them to keep our costs down and has authorized the hospitals to "hold the baby hostage" from discharge until the adoptive family commits to the bill and pays in full in some cases. If the adoptive family trys to allow Medicaid to take over, Medicaid then sends the bill to birthmom and ruins her credit if she doesn't pay. This of course puts the adoptive family in a nether world because our own insurance won't pick up until we have guardianship papers and for our state thats 10 days later when bmom signs off. If she changes her mom we are still stuck with the bill. Our attorney said take the loss and claim with the tax credit later, but as most of you know, its really two years out when you can use the tax credit, (2006 credits can't be filed till 2007 tax year and those taxes aren't filed until 2008 April) So you are out the money. Another huge gamble on what already is a BIG maybe depending on Bmom. God forbid if there were complications with the baby during delivery. We have been burned many times, up to $20,000.00 over 10 years. We have had some foster kids in our care (not our preferable route to try to adopt. A lot of drama on that side of the house) but still haven't adopted yet. With the economy the way it is and adoption expenses being what they are, we are thinking it's too expensive to adopt! Uhg, as much as we want this, I don't know if we can afford to do this anymore.