[somo_chickenlady]

Hello! I just posted my TTC journey on the main TTC w MA board, but I had a couple questions about IVF specifically, so I thought I'd post here.

The RE that I saw said that there was no explanation for our infertility, but insisted that we needed to go straight to IVF if we wanted to get pregnant again.

Mainly, my question is how does payment for IVF work? Do you have to pay the whole thing upfront, or do they allow you to pay a certain amount and then can you pay the rest in payments? Can you pay ANY of it in payments?

The reason I ask, is b/c we can afford payments, we can always work something into our budget, we just can't afford such a large chunk of money all at once, especially $20k+.

If you don't mind me asking, about how much does it cost in general?

I'm still not 100% sure I even want to do IVF...heck, I'm not even 10% sure...I just thought I'd ask. We've thought about adoption, but that is just about as expensive as IVF (if not more), and DH said that if given the choice, he'd rather have a biological child than an adopted child. Not that he would love an adopted child less, that's just his opinion. KWIM?

Thanks!!

[KDD]

Hi Kara,

I think it really depends on your clinic's payment policy. At ours the procedures had to be paid for prior to treatment. Here are our itemized IVF costs - all in $CDN (thankfully our insurance covered some of the drugs).

IVF Registration - $250
IVF Drugs - $1830.50
IVF procedure - $5700.00
ICSI - $1500
Assisted Embryo Hatching - $450.00

If you can shop around, each clinic sets their own prices and some are more costly than others.

Good luck!

[mom_of2]

Office visits - $500.00
U/S (approximately 7) 1225.00
Lab Services - all bloodwork $1000.00 (before and after transfer/retrieval)
Retrieval, Culture & Fertilization of Oocytes, Prepared embryo for transfer and transfer - $10,000
ICSI - $2500.00
Assisted Hatching-$500.00
Cryopreservation - $1000.00
Medication - $3000.00-4000.00
Anesthesia for retrieval - $600.00

My inuranced covered just about everything but that is a financial breakdown including all the doctors visits through the transfer. After a positive beta you are monitered with bloodwork and u/s every week up until 8 weeks. I hope this helps. Every place is different but they will give you fee schedule at your first consult. Good luck.

[Laurenj915]

Here is costs about $14,000. My insurance paid for half of my IVF cycle. I had to put a $2000 deposit down and 4 weeks later I am still waiting for the rest of the bill. Lots of IVF clinics offer financing programs and there are also a few companies that offer IVF financing.

Also, I looked into IVF "vacations" because IVF is so much less expensive outside the US. There were lots of options but the only one I probably would have used is one in Canada since it's not too far and there wouldn't be a language barrier.

Good luck!

[HopefulinOrlando]

Hi! For our office we had to pay upfront. We acutally did the refund package that offered a portion of our money back if we where not succesfull....it just took so much of the stress off of us! We get three fresh cycles tries and if we are lucky to be able to freeze any left over ones we can use those too and they are covered.

We spent a total of $15,000.00 because my insurance covered the monitoring and the sonograms and bloodwork. The medication was a total cost of $1500.00...but some of it was as well covered.

I know its so hard to come up with so much upfront. There are financing programs out there....the one our office offered was through a company called Springstone. We actually decided to use part of my 401K to get the money upfront......it was worth it to us in the long run. I am about to have my procedure this weekend....so we are hoping for the best. Best of luck to you!

[lynnette74]

I am not sure what industry you both work in but I know where I live they have huge discounts for Service Industry. The entire IVF cycle, excluding meds, was only $5,000. I also got insurance through my husband and my job and my medicine is only costing $250 out of pocket. You will have to do the math on your own particular situation but sometimes it is very beneficial to have dual insurance if the premiums are low enough.

Also, my husband and I will be donating any fertilized eggs to couples on a waiting list at the clinic. At our clinic it is much less expensive as the majority of the cost is in the retrieval and fertilization.

Hope some of this was helpfull...

[Blondn6ft]

Look into the ATTAIN program ... don't know if they are in your area butthey might be. They finance and can assist. We just started to look into them just in case this IUI doesn't take and we are going to step into IVF ... our insurance covers NOTHING pertaining to IVF !

[NCAMomma]

We spent 20k per cycle with a top clinic in San Francisco who was wonderful but after the loss of twins we had to reevaluate our finances and found an amazing clinic in Guadalajara Mx and now have a 4 month old. With the exchange rate we paid around 6k including meds and had a nice little vacation at the same time. IMI and Dr. Ruvalacaba made it work for us.