I am shocked at the amount of misinformation out there about the cost of fertility treatments. At just my clinic, you can ask one of the five women that I know who are or have been patients and they will tell you wildly different pricing for the same procedures. Granted, each person’s insurance coverage is different – the protocols are not the same – and the timing has been different for all of us, but it is just plain crazy to me that one of us will quote $15,000 as what was spent and another $8,000 – at the same clinic. The truth is that when you sort out the details we are all spending about the same and just calling it different things. I add everything we spent together into one total sum. My friend says that IVF cost her $8,000 because that is true – the IVF procedure costs about $8,000. What she does not figure into that total is the cost of medications (about $4,000 in my case). A lot of clinics quote it in the same way.
My clinic has a “new” pricing option that does a flat fee rate for IVF. $8,800 covers the cost of the surgery center, the lab, and the clinic fees. Sounds like a deal until you read that this cost does not cover: the initial consultation, pre-cycle visits and evaluation, the required IVF class, any and all medications, pregnancy testing, or ultrasounds. With all of that (most of which is non-negotiable and required for a cycle) you are in for $5,000 or more on top of $8,800 and that is before you are told that you should do ICSI or PGD, or a wash, or a frozen back-up sample, etc. for an additional fee.
No wonder people don’t really know how to answer the question of how much it costs, and I don’t think it is surprising that I get a little peeved when someone says “but, it’s only $8,000.” Resolve: The National Infertility Association (www.resolve.org) reports that according to the American Society of Reproductive Medicine the average price of IVF is $12,400. Of course, the ASRM does not note if this price includes medications or not. RESOLVE set out to investigate pricing and get a true picture of costs of fertility treatments and discovered that nationwide the average cost of an IUI cycle is $865. The average cost of IVF without medications using fresh embryos is $8,158. They also noted that the average cost of ICSI is $1,544 and PGD averages $3,550. This gives a picture more like what I (and apparently the majority of other women) experienced. I could care less about the price that does not include standard treatment procedures like consultations and ultrasounds or that does not consider the cost of medications. The question – are medications included, along with inquiries about other fees for things like lab work and monitoring should be asked at the very first meeting so you can get a true picture of what the treatment will actually cost. Asking if medications are included can seem similar to asking if the wheels come with the car you are purchasing but, when it comes to IVF, IUI and the accompanying treatments that question is essential when you are given initial pricing.
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