IVF Costs?

[GaleTX]

I'm sure there is a thread about this somewhere, but I can't find it.  Plus, I know costs change all the time...

What is the "average" cost for IVF where you are and what does it include?  We are out of options and our next step is IVF.  I had an appt with the RE on Friday and asked the cost - I was told for one round it's $11k + about $6k for meds.  Is that in line with costs elsewhere?  I, of course, googled and have seen it cheaper elsewhere (like NY) but don't know if that's the real cost or not.  And what about the refund plans? Are they worth it?  Our insurance covers nothing, so all of our costs would be out of pocket. Thanks for any info you can offer!

[BellyBean]

When we had our fresh cycle back in 2009 we paid about 11,500 out of pocket (no coverage) which included monitoring, drugs, retrieval, transfer, hcg blood test and 6 week ultrasound.  One of the other clinics near us quoted closer to 16,500.  We went with the smaller clinic that had less overhead.  It worked out great for us for our fresh cycle, but now that we are doing FET's the smaller clinic is only available every other month so there is a lot more waiting between cycles.  But the price difference between clinics for the FET was 4,000 so I guess I am okay with waiting...

Something else to think about is most clinics have you order your drugs through an independent pharmacy.  You can "shop" those too.  We used Freedom Fertility and it was about $1600 for the drugs my RE uses.

Since every case is different, it's hard to use the stats for choosing clinics, but I still like to see the information. 

www.sart.org/find_frm.html

Good luck! 

[renavoo]

Hey Gale, i was quoted about 10-11k in NY and another 5-6k for drugs. DH and I decided to go to a Maryland clinic called shady grove though- for 19,500, they give us 6 fresh cycles to try for a live baby. If they fail or if we decide that we dont want to continue, they return our money. All of it. So, although it is more expensive up front, we thought it would help us feel less stressed. The drugs still cost 1,500 but they would have cost 5,500 without insurance. Additionally, there is the cost for hotel and transportation (we live in NYC and had to travel to maryland and hotel is not cheap.) we did many of the routine ultrasounds and bloodwork in NYC too. I went back and forth about whether it is worth it but DH and I thought the peace of mind was worth it. I'm at the tail end now...transfer on Wed and the process was fairly simple with mostly email communication with my nurse after our initial telephone consult with the doctor (I had diagnostics done in the year leading up to the decision to do IVF) hopefully it is worth it! Good luck!

[cheerma]

Have you tried SIRM? They're a national center with many clinics. Usually visit #1 is free and they give lots of info. They are very transparent about costs. Some places are kind of sketchy about giving costs.

http://haveababy.com/sirm-locations/dallas.html

[GaleTX]

Thanks for all the info - I'm definitely going to look into the places you guys mentioned.  I haven't done too much research on IVF because I never thought we'd get to this point (I live in a state of denial, but it works for me!).  The plan right now is to try with Clomid this month, naturally next month and do IUI with Clomid (try #3) on the third month.  All based on the statistics that conception chances increase the first three months following an ex lap. With the cost of IVF, I don't know when we'll be at a point that we're okay with it.  DH's biggest hang up is that we can spend $20K and still not have a baby. 

[renavoo]

Gale, Good luck on the clomid cycle!

By the way, I don't know what insurance you have but my insurance (Aetna) also said that they don't cover IVF costs. However, I went to a clinic that accepts Aetna and they never really charged me for my IVF monitoring visits before ER and ET  (I had those in NYC so they were separate from the IVF costs from Shady Grove.) That's another reason why the Shady Grove clinic was our top choice- for the actual process, we really did end up spending 'only' 19,500 (usually it is 20K but they gave us $500 dollars back for out of state monitoring)- i can't believe I'm saying only.... not including the cost of drugs/travel, etc. And since there is the money back guarantee, we feel no pressure.

As an alternative, we also looked around NY because my preference was to stay close to home. I also really did like RMA-NY (I first went to a consult with a doctor there and really liked him). I ended up going to RMA for my monitoring visits. For their costs, they have what is called the ARC plan.

http://www.arcfertility.com/family_building/financial_services.html

This is the financing plan that the clinic in NY (RMA-reproductive medical associates- they are also based in multiple states) took and they also have a money back or multiple cycle guarantee. Just as an example, I think it was around 28K-30K for 3 fresh/3 frozen (no money back guarantee) and around 38K-40K if we wanted the money back guarantee (70% of the money back). Actual cost is based on test results, age, etc.

I was worried about this plan because 2 of my friends were unable to freeze their embies and I didn't want to be concerned that i only had 3 tries, if none would freeze. With SG, It's 6 fresh and pretty much unlimited frozen. (by the way, after going through the process, i think I would die if I had to go through this 6 times...towards the end, my arms ached from all the blood tests and my stomach hurt from the needles and the drug related bloating. If it works, it's all worth it though!!!) 

Please let me know if you have any questions. May I also suggest that you go on the Summer IVF thread? There are a lot of women who are going through the process and they are so wonderful to talk to and have some great advice. I really felt that the support I received (and continue to receive) from that thread helped me through the process. And a few of the ladies just got their BFP so this may provide support for your DH. :)

[GaleTX]

Thanks Renavoo!  I have BCBS of Alaska (and live in Texas, don't ask!) and they cover absolutely nothing related to infertility.  I have tried every which way to get things covered and they will reject it every single time.  I actually go to RMA of Texas for my RE and every visit, regardless of reason, BCBS rejects it - the gal in billing said they see fertility specialist and deny automatically and then rely on the office to contact them if it's something that should be covered. 

RMA didn't say anything about a money-back plan - I don't know if they don't offer it at the San Antonio location or if they just don't go into detail about all the options until you do a IVF consultation.  I've been looking at the eco-ivf - has anyone heard of it or have any experience with it?  Evidently you do clomid only and only get enough eggs for one ivf cycle - none left over for freezing, etc.  Because of that (and the fact that because there are few eggs, retrieval is shorter and doesn't require anesthesia) it is about half the cost of traditional ivf. I'd be curious to know if RMA offers it and what the success rates are with it.

[renavoo]

Hey Gale,

I looked up eco-IVF (or mini IVF) before I went down the route of traditional IVF. I saw this article and that made me think that I would rather just get the normal IVF.

http://www.newwavemediaonline.com/2011/05/mini-ivf-treatment-saves-money-experts-skeptical/

II was a great responder to clomid...I always had 3 or 4 follies at day 7 (taking it for 5 days for 3 IUIs) so I assume that had I continued on clomid, I would have had those 3 or 4 continue to grow. However, clomid decimated my lining (I had lining in the 3mm range!) so I can't imagine that it would have helped me get pregnant. Maybe if I took a month in between without drug? But clomid can stay in your system for a while too. Don't get me wrong...I think clomid is an excellent choice for getting the eggs but I am concerned about what it does to the rest of the repro tract!! I don't know if you ever used clomid before? My experience was rather side effect free...maybe some nausea but generally, I felt ok on it. I've heard other women suffer from really bad hot flushes and moodiness on clomid though.

Also, I don't know about the lack of anesthesia!! Descriptions of that procedure state that they stick a huge needle through the vaginal walls in order to retrieve the eggs from the follies!! I would WANT anesthesia for that...when I woke up, I had some cramping but otherwise, I felt ok. I can't imagine being awake for any part of that at all!!! Maybe they use a different procedure but I'm just not sure how else they would do it to get to your ovaries! However, I hear ICSI is covered if needed...that's awesome! If we needed ICSI, we would have had to add an additional $2000 to our costs. Luckily, I have the fertility issues, not DH! (nothing lucky about it...)

I really hate insurance companies...we don't get IVF covered either although we were lucky that for some reason, they covered the drugs. I have Aetna. Actually, I had Cigna and I had the same issue- RMA had to charge me for every little thing because Cigna would pay for nothing...I switched over to my DH's insurance and RMA charged me for nothing...it was actually quite stress free! But when I decided to go get IVF, we decided to go somewhere else and then we had to pay out of pocket.

Good luck with your decision!!! If you do go back to RMA for whatever reason, you should just ask to speak with their financing people and ask them about the plan...that's how we found out about it. We had a friend who introduced us to a money back guarantee program so when we went to RMA NY, we inquired about whether they had a money back guarantee too. That's the only reason the people at RMA mentioned it to us...I think it's a 3rd party program.