Will my insurance pay for a hysterectomy?

I am 36 and my husband is 38. We both have seizure disorder. We decided even before we were married that we wanted no children. He had a vasectomy in 1996 (insurance had no problem paying for it and his doctor said it was fine). Now I find myself fearing that I will get pregnant anyway, that the vasectomy will fail. (I personally knew of someone who was the product of a failed vasectomy, i.e., tubes grew back together). Also, I knew of someone in a nursing home in her 30s who had seizure disorder and got pregnant, but suffered status seizures during childbirth and became a vegetable. This fear of pregnancy is getting to be an obsession, so much so that I'm seriously considering getting a hysterectomy. I only have severe premenstrual pain two times out of the year, though. How can I convince my insurance company that this hysterectomy is needed?

For some comfort, your husband could have a simple lab examination of his semen, a test he had after his vasectomy, to prove that he was not putting out any more sperm. That should be enough if you have no other male partners. If you wanted to be sure you didn't get pregnant by anyone, then, instead of a hysterectomy to remove your uterus, you could get a much simpler tying and removal of a part of your fallopian tubes, something like a male vasectomy. To get insurance coverage for a hysterectomy, which is possible, your doctor, not you, would have to submit a medical justification which is acceptable to your insurance provider.

You don't have to convince your insurance company, it is up to your doctor and the surgeon to do that.
Get them to write Letters of Motivation to your medical insurance company and leave the rest up to them.
Chances are, they will cover it if the reasons are good.
They have assessors who check this type of thing out.

Yes they will (at least 80%). My girlfriend had no problem getting one. She had the same problem with cramps and pain. We are child free as well.

She had her tubes tied at 25, and I had a vasectomy when I was 21. Both were long before we met.

Also a vasectomy is very reliable. I get mine checked every five years for the sake of safety because I fear paying child support just as much as you fear getting prego.

She told me to tell you to go to this website:

http://www.hystersisters.com/

She says good luck.

Your insurance company would likely pay for a tubal ligation, but not a hysterectomy. That usually requires some medical justification first- like abnormal bleeding, tumors, etc. In your case, they will say that a tubal ligation will provide sterility without the need to remove the organs. It's also cheaper and easier to recover from, and that's what insurance companies look at, the bottom line. The other possibility would be to have a sperm count done regularly to confirm the vasectomy. If you can, you can even look at the surgical report done at the time of the vasectomy and see exactly what type of procedure was done. Some urologists do just clip out a section, but a good many will use ligation sutures in two spots and clip a section in between. Some also use stainless steel clips. And some use electrocautery on both clipped ends. In those cases, the amounts of scarring would pretty much put the kabosh on any swimmers getting through. If the doctor who did the vasectomy understood the reasons behind it, he'd been more likely to do everything under the sun to preclude a failure. And after all this time, chances are pretty good that it's not going to fail. But if you want to pursue a sterilization procedure for yourself, and have the insurance pay- tubal ligation is your best option.