When Mara Varona was pregnant she decided to take a common prenatal blood test to screen for genetic conditions. It was part of a proactive approach she and her husband took to pregnancy.

"We're just information people," says Varona, who works in finance and lives in Miami, Florida. "We'd rather have as much information as we can."

Pay $349 now or ...

Shortly after her blood draw, the testing company Natera emailed and texted her an offer to pay its cash price — $349 and skip insurance altogether. The offers said she was out of network and estimated Varona's cost would be the balance of her deductible plus $100 to $200, according to a statement from Natera .

But Varona doesn't recall seeing the offers at the time they were sent. She found them in her records as NPR was reporting this

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