I hear in the USA, if you are paying out-of-pocket for a medical procedure because you don't have insurance/ it is not covered by your insurance, you can usually get a cheaper rate than what insurance would pay. Has anyone here ever negotiated costs for a procedure with a doctor, because they didn't have insurance? Who did you talk to (ie doctor himself, billing department etc)? How did it go?

The reason I am asking is this: we have limited private health insurance because my husband's job doesn't have insurance. But because of previous infertility (we have twins through fertility treatment), they will not cover any maternity care, even if we were to conceive naturally in the future. We have money saved and would not want to rely on the state if I was to get pregnant again, but we also realise how expensive even a relatively uncomplicated pregnancy is here!