What are the costs involved with IVF?
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The overall average cost for one IVF cycle is around $12,000. For basic IVF, you can see expenses rising to as much as $15,000 or as low as the $10,000 price point. It is never usually lower than that. These approximate prices do not include the cost of medication, which can reach $3,000 each cycle.
A study conducted on a couple at a fertility clinic, tracking all of their expenses over the period of 18 months, saw them pay $19,234 for the IVF itself, the medication and monitoring. Each additional cycle after that was an average of $6,955. This study shows that if a couple went through three different cycles, they would be looking at just over $33,000 out of their pockets. Most insurance companies won’t cover your IVF, but it may cover certain expenses. For example, they may be happy to cover your monitoring or your medication, which can help to decrease the price a little for you. Even if you assume you cannot afford IVF, check it out before giving up as there are many options out there for people. You may need to research the various offerings clinics have, such as IVF sex selection, if this interests you.
Get a quote from your clinic
If your clinic gives you a quote of $13,000 and you are able to find another clinic that can do the treatment for a better price of $9,000, should you then choose the cheaper company? It is important to compare price and quality to ensure you are getting the best value for your money. However, you should first consider a few things, such as if it is the full quote or only some of it. Consider if the more expensive clinic is a better quality one. You cannot compare the numbers if one clinic is giving you an estimate for the total price of the process, while one is just giving you the quote for the IVF treatment without monitoring or medication.
When getting your quotes, you need to ask what the price includes, such as:
- Pre-IVF testing and consultations
- Mock embryo transfer
- Ultrasound and blood work
- Pregnancy testing including the hCG beta blood work
- Your fertility medications
- Cryopreservative of other embryos
- Storage feeds for the frozen embryos
- IVF gender selection facilities
What ways can I pay?
Most fertility clinics will offer a payment agreement and plan that will help make the treatment more affordable. There are several options available, so check what you qualify for with your local clinic.
It is important to check the price comparison, but you also need to think about their success rates. If the IVF clinic has low success rates, it may be why they are cheaper. In this case, you may need multiple cycles which can add up to the initial price of the clinic with higher success rates.
There are refund programs available when you are paying a set-fee, which usually sits around the $20,000 to $30,000 range. The clinic will refund part of the cost you have paid out if you fail to get pregnant after a certain amount of IVF treatments. This will vary from clinic to clinic, and not all couples will qualify.
There are advantages and disadvantages in the refund programs, such as they won’t refund you for medications. You will need to determine which refund program suits you best. Keep in mind if you are unlikely to get pregnant quickly due to a medical condition, you may not be accepted for the refund program.
If you participate in IVF for voluntary gender selection, for reasons such as you already have a child of a particular sex, you still must consider that you may not get pregnant on the first IVF treatment. For this reason, you still must weigh up IVF gender selection costs.