Foxhall or Bloom -- would either accomodate a female only practitioner birth (including Dr. Green)?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Bloom will absolutely not accommodate this. They are incredibly dismissive. If you want this, you’ll need to schedule an induction for when a woman (or two, if you are a first-timer) is on call..

Still might not work out - you could go into labor or need to deliver earlier than planned.

Agree with the therapy & strategies PP.

[Anonymous]

Midwives at Medstar WHC is another all female option. It’s possible that if you end up needing a c-section, the OBGYN might be male. You could ask if all their OBGYNs are female.

Regarding Foxhall: I don’t know about the new male doctor, but Beckerman is concierge. So if you’re not his patient, it’s very unlikely he’d do your delivery.

OBGYN Associates in Silver Spring is all female. I liked them more than CWC on K St. But they deliver at Holy Cross which was a no for me.

[Anonymous]

Be sure to ask any practice…does your group cross-cover any other groups.
You can have an all female group that crosses with another group so the doctors don’t have to be on 72 hour weekend call so frequently. That cross-cover may have males on their staff.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Be sure to ask any practice…does your group cross-cover any other groups.
You can have an all female group that crosses with another group so the doctors don’t have to be on 72 hour weekend call so frequently. That cross-cover may have males on their staff.

Yep, this.

[Anonymous]

I am sure you have a valid reason for wanting this.

Foxhall has a ton of good female OBs and you would have many strong options.

As others have pointed out though, you can’t help who is on call when you go into labor. So, you would need to discuss induction early on with your provider and make sure they would be willing to accommodate. Be up front about this being a huge concern for you.

When you schedule induction you get a calendar showing who is on call each day. You’d need to make sure only females were on call for 3-5 days.

All of this would help but there is still a chance you go into labor early, or a doctor subs out, or you need to be in the hospital longer than planned. For this reason I do think you should explore the therapy options recommended as well, to help you cope with those possibilities. Good luck to you!

[Anonymous]

What does it mean that Beckerman is concierge?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What does it mean that Beckerman is concierge?

It means he’s out of pocket. A few docs at Foxhall do not take insurance. Also I tried switching to them sometime ago and they make you pay a $300 fee (for no reason) by the time you deliver so you have time to pay it off as part of their concierge fee (even if you see an in network doc). They also have a fee for “lab handling” which was nonsensical to me because all that can be claimed through insurance. Given all the lab work during pregnancy, I steered clear from Foxhall despite it being super convenient.

I hear bloom also charges some concierge fee - despite in network docs but others may know better. Hence why I ended up switching to CWC since it was more straight forward and nonsense with bulling etc.

There’s also Ritter Hill & Johnson but I’m sell familiar with them but appear to have a lot of female OBs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What does it mean that Beckerman is concierge?

It means he’s out of pocket. A few docs at Foxhall do not take insurance. Also I tried switching to them sometime ago and they make you pay a $300 fee (for no reason) by the time you deliver so you have time to pay it off as part of their concierge fee (even if you see an in network doc). They also have a fee for “lab handling” which was nonsensical to me because all that can be claimed through insurance. Given all the lab work during pregnancy, I steered clear from Foxhall despite it being super convenient.

I hear bloom also charges some concierge fee - despite in network docs but others may know better. Hence why I ended up switching to CWC since it was more straight forward and nonsense with bulling etc.

There’s also Ritter Hill & Johnson but I’m sell familiar with them but appear to have a lot of female OBs.

*billing
*less than familiar
Sorry for the typos!

[Anonymous]

Beckerman does take insurance- but only United, and GEHA which uses the United network. He essentially has his own practice within the Foxhall practice. I was his patient and only saw him. But if I’d gone into labor while he was on vacation, someone else at Foxhall would have delivered my baby. My experience was recent, and there was no $300 delivery fee. Maybe that’s only for the OB who takes no insurance (Green, I think?). There was like a $30 lab fee which was strange but I could have gone to the Quest lab if I wanted to avoid it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Capital Women’s Care on K street is all women right now as someone mentioned above. Chances are you’ll have a female otherwise you can try the midwives at GWU.

I have delivered at GW twice (as a midwife patient) and requested female only providers, nurses, etc. They were extremely accommodating both times, even printing a sign for my door in both L&D and postpartum. With my first I had to have NICU team in the room which included a male MD so they put up a screen. With my second there was a male and female resident, female attending, and female hospitalist, and they made sure only the female docs attended to me.

[Anonymous]

Same delivered at GW.
They were accommodating.
The male OBGYN introduced himself prior to me changing into my gown and said, “If there is an emergency of any sort, do I have your permission to enter the room, do an exam. I will always ask to come in etc. I have a female backup who will attend to you; however, if she is in surgery yada yada.”

I thought this approach was kind.
Nothing happened.
It was nice to meet the doctor ahead of time in a situation where I didn’t feel so vulnerable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Bloom will absolutely not accommodate this. They are incredibly dismissive. If you want this, you’ll need to schedule an induction for when a woman (or two, if you are a first-timer) is on call..

Inductions often last >24 hours. You would want two back-to-back female only days of doctors. They will probably be dismissive unless there was a medical reason for the induction and the female-only schedule happened to line up with your induction window.

[Anonymous]

I had the same concern and after calling multiple practices I ended up at Advantia in Rockville. They have an all female staff and don’t cross cover with other practices.

[Anonymous]

This doesn't really answer your question, but you should absolutely get a doula to help manage delivery. Also, keep in mind that there will be other physicians involved, especially if you have to have a C-section, which is impossible to predict perfectly...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Capital Women’s Care on K street is all women right now as someone mentioned above. Chances are you’ll have a female otherwise you can try the midwives at GWU.

Thank you for being one of the only people who provided helpful information.

New poster here.
Wow, that was really rude and uncalled for. SEVERAL posters gave very good and helpful information.