Ever watched “Say Yes to the Dress?” We confess, we’ve seen it a few times. One of the things they say is important - from the very beginning, know how much money you have available to spend. After all, if you walk in the door, start trying on dresses and fall in love with a $25,000 and your entire wedding budget is $20,000, you’re going to be mighty disappointed.
As weird as it sounds, fertility treatment isn’t that different. Since most fertility treatments are not covered by insurance, the fact remains that treatments are affected by available cash. As such, we encourage patients to talk to their health care providers about their budgets and how their financial situation was going to impact the types of medical decisions they made.
A fertility doctor, whom we have the deepest respect for, recently said to us that he did not feel it was appropriate to tell patients to talk to their doctors about money. After all, he explained, “the cost of treatment should have no bearing on medical decisions. As a doctor, I make the best treatment recommendations regardless of cost or the patient's financial situation.”
In an ideal world, we agree. But even fertility doctors are beginning to see the impact of limited dollars affecting fertility treatment decisions.
ASRM recently reported:
• More than half (58 percent) of couples diagnosed as infertile who opted not to pursue treatment said cost was the primary reason;
• About 7 percent of couples who had leftover embryos in cold storage discarded the embryos from October 2008 to March 2009, a number that was almost three times higher than six months prior. The theory is that couples were no longer able to afford a frozen embryo transfer, or not able to afford the costs of freezing the embryos.
We encourage you to make medical decisions based on what’s best for you and your family. We wish the sky could be the limit when it comes to your family building. We really do. But, the reality is that almost everyone must face financial limitations. Infertility can be draining. At My Fertility Plan, we want you to be healthy…emotionally, physically, and financially.
As weird as it sounds, fertility treatment isn’t that different. Since most fertility treatments are not covered by insurance, the fact remains that treatments are affected by available cash. As such, we encourage patients to talk to their health care providers about their budgets and how their financial situation was going to impact the types of medical decisions they made.
A fertility doctor, whom we have the deepest respect for, recently said to us that he did not feel it was appropriate to tell patients to talk to their doctors about money. After all, he explained, “the cost of treatment should have no bearing on medical decisions. As a doctor, I make the best treatment recommendations regardless of cost or the patient's financial situation.”
In an ideal world, we agree. But even fertility doctors are beginning to see the impact of limited dollars affecting fertility treatment decisions.
ASRM recently reported:
• More than half (58 percent) of couples diagnosed as infertile who opted not to pursue treatment said cost was the primary reason;
• About 7 percent of couples who had leftover embryos in cold storage discarded the embryos from October 2008 to March 2009, a number that was almost three times higher than six months prior. The theory is that couples were no longer able to afford a frozen embryo transfer, or not able to afford the costs of freezing the embryos.
We encourage you to make medical decisions based on what’s best for you and your family. We wish the sky could be the limit when it comes to your family building. We really do. But, the reality is that almost everyone must face financial limitations. Infertility can be draining. At My Fertility Plan, we want you to be healthy…emotionally, physically, and financially.
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