Tuesday, February 8, 2011

If you hate infertility...

Irony?  That would be my afternoon.  In fact, it would have almost been comical if it wasn't so cruel!  I left the office this afternoon with my ARC contract (more about that below) for IVF in hand.. hot off the printer... and still had it in my hand when I slipped in to support a co-worker at her baby shower!  Something's wrong with that picture!  I slipped out quickly to go read the darn contract.  Who hates infertility, raise your hand!

Paying for a one cycle plus package at Advanced Reproductive Care (ARC) will save about $2000 if we have to proceed with a frozen transfer.  If the fresh IVF cycle results in a live birth, we lose about $900 for paying for a frozen cycle up front but let me be clear that I.would.not.care!  *If the fresh cycle is canceled before ER for any reason, the options are a refund for all except $500 for bullcrap administrative fees or to pay the clinic for all services up to that point and use the package price for the next cycle.  **They do not pay for anesthesia.  ***They pay for up to 5 u/s and bloodwork monitoring visits.  Someone please warn me if I'm about to get into something with a lot of fine print!  

PC sometimes refers to crappy circumstances as a 'kick in the nuts.'  Here was my kick in the nuts today:   I don't even qualify for ARC's refund guarantee program because the information from my fertility charts suggests to them that IVF is not going to work for me.  Hard Kick!!!  They based that on my highest FSH (10) highest estradiol (144) and antral follicle count (10).  Can anyone give me some hope with those numbers?   


*Let's hope this does not happen.
**About $750 for a one hour nap.
***Nurse LLD said the average is 4-6 visits. 

5 bytes:

Anonymous said...

we did the ARC program as well AND didn't qualify for the refund due to our past mc...bullcrap. However, ours did cover the anesthesia....I hope you only need the one time and can smile at your BFP!

Bridget said...

My clinic is full of shit as you know from my post yesterday. Read every word of the contract and ask as many questions as possible. I'm still pissed.

~ebc~ said...

Those numbers for qualification for the refund type of program are very common to other clinics in my research and I hate not qualifying too. As I'm sure you know, it's so they don't lose tons of money b/c it is a business at the end of the day. That said though, those numbers don't automatically make you a for sure failure at IVF-the clinic just considers them not a great bet (again, to keep from refunding too much money). My numbers were a little worse (13 FSH and 8 antral) my first IVF and it was quite successful (yes, we lost the preg, but we lost them b/c of the random triplet we picked up somewhere along the way making it way too many for my half uterus...but we were technically successful through IVF). And, if you want to go kick the clinic in the nuts...I'll happily line up to help!

Anonymous said...

Sorry I don't know much about the numbers, but I just wanted to say hi. I'm a first time visitor and I love the Mac vs. PC thing. So cute!

marilyn said...

feeling really overwhelmed reading this post..but it is very informative and i am going to have two or three people go over all the contracts for ucsf. ahh..I hate to even think about a refund! anyways..I also want to say you are so lucky you have such a great team!! Oh and I awarded you on my blog!!