how in the heck does one afford it? (xposted in ttc)

[girlie1125]

Hey ladies! I haven't been posting (or even looking truthfully, I can't handle it) in Infertility or TTC for a while now, but have a question I'm hoping you wonderful folks can help with.

DP and I are still on a ttc break (have been since September), and thinking about what and when our next steps will be. I am pretty sure I want to go ahead and take the plunge and do IVF with her eggs. I know from my RE's office this will run me about 14K. My insurance covers almost nothing. I am aware that I can get financing through a credit card type company, and am looking into that.

But I was wondering if all you experts had some other resources that might help? I know the fertility lifelines site has a grant type of deal, but I don't know that we'd qualify. We have an OK income, but just don't have 14K lying around, and it would take us quite a while to save it up.

And this is assuming that the first try would do the trick. Unfortunately, we all know that isn't always the case. I'm not sure how anyone can afford to do IVF multiple times!

Any wisdom to impart?

Thanks in advance.

[ann109]

Hi!

We also are ok financially, but did not have the $ hanging around and did not want to wait until we did. Our vehicles are relatively new (2003) and since they were paid off, we were able to take out a secured loan on one of them for 3 years with a good interest rate (3.5%).

Good luck!

[YummyYarnAddict]

After utilizing all of the money I had set aside for ttc#1 (because, of course, I thought the IUIs would work and I wouldn't need IVF), I took out a loan against my 401k for my first IVF cycle (which, fortunately, did work). With ttc#2 though, it wasn't that "easy." By that time I'd repaid the loan and had put money aside again thinking that since it worked in one cycle before, I'd be fortunate enough for it to do so again. Nope, 3 fresh and 3 frozen cycles later, I had cashed out the 401k all together and traded in my late model car (which was paid for) for an old "good enough" vehicle. I can't retire, but I'm very very fortunate that the IVF cycles worked and I have two children to spend my older years with.

[girlie1125]

Thanks, Ann, for the reply...but we're still paying on our vehicles...so that good idea wouldn't work for us...

YYA - Omg. I hate that you had to go through that, but can totally see myself doing the same if it came to that. We spent probably close to 5K this year on 5 IUIs, and obviously none worked. I think I'm done with spending 700-2K per cycle on IUI cycles and going through the heartache of more BFNs. I know where you're coming from.

Having been through what you have, though, would you recommend the shared risk programs? Where you pay upfront for 2, 4, 6 cycles and if you don't end up with a baby at the end of it, most of your money is refunded?

[azzeps]

Hi there,

Just peeking in on this thread to gather up any possible ideas for my SIL, who is starting injectables this month, and insurance covers nothing. Hoping someone will have some good advice for her.

The only things I've thought of suggesting to her are to see if her employer has a Flexible Spending Account plan so that she could set aside some money tax free and then get reimbursed. Also, I have heard that medical expenses that are not reimburseable are often tax deductible, but you have to have spent over a certain percentage of your AGI to take advantage. So I was thinking of telling her to save all her receipts, count the mileage to the RE, everything, to see if they might be able to deduct in a year. The only other thing was my mom thought she might have luck buying the drugs most cheaply at Wal-Mart, since she has to pay for them out of pocket.

Anybody else have any suggestions? My SIL has been diagnosed with PCOS - why doesn't insurance pay for something to treat that, as it is a disease that should be treated, regardless of if you want to get pg or not??? Sorry, it's really frustrating and I don't understand it all.

[ItyBty]

One way to get meds cheaper, although sadly not as cheap as if insurance covered it, is to buy meds from people who had insurance coverage and are selling meds that they didn't use. Websites like http://freegaragesale.com/medical.htm are a great place to finds meds for significantly cheaper. Also, some doctors have patients with successful cycles and leftover meds who donate them for other patients without insurance coverage. You can also try buying the meds online, from overseas or Canada, where its also much cheaper.

[kristenok18]

Originally Posted by azzeps

Hi there,

Just peeking in on this thread to gather up any possible ideas for my SIL, who is starting injectables this month, and insurance covers nothing. Hoping someone will have some good advice for her.

The only things I've thought of suggesting to her are to see if her employer has a Flexible Spending Account plan so that she could set aside some money tax free and then get reimbursed. Also, I have heard that medical expenses that are not reimburseable are often tax deductible, but you have to have spent over a certain percentage of your AGI to take advantage. So I was thinking of telling her to save all her receipts, count the mileage to the RE, everything, to see if they might be able to deduct in a year. The only other thing was my mom thought she might have luck buying the drugs most cheaply at Wal-Mart, since she has to pay for them out of pocket.

Anybody else have any suggestions? My SIL has been diagnosed with PCOS - why doesn't insurance pay for something to treat that, as it is a disease that should be treated, regardless of if you want to get pg or not??? Sorry, it's really frustrating and I don't understand it all.

I don't really have any bright ideas about how to do this without it costing us a fortune (if anyone does, let me in on the secret!!!!), but I just wanted to mention that many women who have pcos respond well to femara. Clomid was a disaster for me, but femara worked well. Since it is technically classified as a cancer drug and not as a fertility drug, it will often be covered by insurance where other fertility meds aren't. Have her check out the femara thread in the ttc forum at soulcysters.net if she has questions about it.

[Perdita_in_Ontario]

Line of credit. :-)

Are IVF drugs really cheaper in Canada? My first cycle cost us $15k CAD, which would have been about $10k USD at the time (2004).

[jazcat]

We have friends who spent $50K + on many IFV attempts until finally successful. Then they wanted #2, but this time they were living in France (they're French). In France, each IVF attempt cost them 400 Euros! They couldn't believe it. And now they're pregnant. They went to a private clinic, although I think it was somewhat subsidized by the government (my own research). Anyway, it might be worth looking into.

[YummyYarnAddict]

Originally Posted by girlie1125

Thanks, Ann, for the reply...but we're still paying on our vehicles...so that good idea wouldn't work for us...

YYA - Omg. I hate that you had to go through that, but can totally see myself doing the same if it came to that. We spent probably close to 5K this year on 5 IUIs, and obviously none worked. I think I'm done with spending 700-2K per cycle on IUI cycles and going through the heartache of more BFNs. I know where you're coming from.

Having been through what you have, though, would you recommend the shared risk programs? Where you pay upfront for 2, 4, 6 cycles and if you don't end up with a baby at the end of it, most of your money is refunded?

I absolutely would have done the shared risk program if I'd have qualified for it. The thing that "tripped me up" so to speak is that I have frozen embies from my first fresh cycle and I used those first, conceived, and had two consecutive pregnancy losses so I didn't qualify for shared risk when it came time to do another fresh cycle. A friend of mine went with shared risk for her first IVF cycle and conceived twins. She has no plans to do any more treatments and even though it wasn't necessarily "cost effective" when all was said and done, she has no regrets at all.

[YummyYarnAddict]

Originally Posted by azzeps

Hi there,

Just peeking in on this thread to gather up any possible ideas for my SIL, who is starting injectables this month, and insurance covers nothing. Hoping someone will have some good advice for her.

The only things I've thought of suggesting to her are to see if her employer has a Flexible Spending Account plan so that she could set aside some money tax free and then get reimbursed. Also, I have heard that medical expenses that are not reimburseable are often tax deductible, but you have to have spent over a certain percentage of your AGI to take advantage. So I was thinking of telling her to save all her receipts, count the mileage to the RE, everything, to see if they might be able to deduct in a year. The only other thing was my mom thought she might have luck buying the drugs most cheaply at Wal-Mart, since she has to pay for them out of pocket.

Anybody else have any suggestions? My SIL has been diagnosed with PCOS - why doesn't insurance pay for something to treat that, as it is a disease that should be treated, regardless of if you want to get pg or not??? Sorry, it's really frustrating and I don't understand it all.

Yes, if she spends enough on fertility treatments, she can claim most -- if not all -- of her out of pocket expenses on her taxes (depending on her tax status of course.

As far as the PCOS is concerned, she should try to find an endocrinologist who specializes in PCOS. There are some out there who are quite good and if that's her "primary" infertility issue, getting the PCOS under control with an endocrinologist who is covered by insurance may save her from having to see an RE.

[YummyYarnAddict]

Originally Posted by ItyBty

One way to get meds cheaper, although sadly not as cheap as if insurance covered it, is to buy meds from people who had insurance coverage and are selling meds that they didn't use. Websites like http://freegaragesale.com/medical.htm are a great place to finds meds for significantly cheaper. Also, some doctors have patients with successful cycles and leftover meds who donate them for other patients without insurance coverage. You can also try buying the meds online, from overseas or Canada, where its also much cheaper.

The huge caveat with freegarage sale is that it's an illegal source of meds and the FDA does occasional crackdowns of purchasing from that site. The other thing is that there's no way to know for sure whether or not people there have stored the meds properly and there has been a good amount of fraudulent activity -- e..g, people getting the wrong meds or not getting anything at all or getting expired meds.

It is definitely worth it to shop around and there are some pharmacies abroad that have lower prices. One RE I used to see worked with a pharmacy in the UK for patients without Rx coverage.

Another source is to check to see if your clinic has any meds that have been donated. I always donated my leftover meds to my clinic and I have several friends who benefitted from donated meds. When I finished my last FET, I had enough meds in my fridge to see one woman through an entire IVF cycle (she was on high dose stims and I was on low dose, so this was quite a bit of meds). It easily came to over $6K.

[lranderson50]

I agree with pp- see if you can make some friends who are going through IVF- I ended up with several at my RE's office. I was very blessed in that my insurance covered a good deal of my IVF and I ended up with a lot of left over meds. I got pg my 1st try so I sold them to a friend for basically my co-pays(about $300) and it ended up being enough for 2 cycles for her- 2nd time she got pg too! There is also something to be said for your mind thinking they are 'lucky' meds. Good Luck!

[poetgirl]

I can definitely sympathize. I'm currently wiping through my stay-at-home for first year baby fund to actually be able to have said baby. Sigh. I have heard of a friend of a friend who did IVF successfully in a very modern facility in Japan for only 5K. I could try to find out where exactly. It's in the back of my mind as we proceed...GL. This is hard.

[mummamilk]

I live in a state where insurance is mandated to cover fertility treatments. Dr visits are a co-pay. Prescriptions are a $35 max co-pay.

In the book I was just reading the author suggests patients with no coverage to move to mandated states with full coverage. I thought it was a bit extreme, but if you are paying 50k it is not really.

I live in MA. I didn't read the other states.