In vitro fertilization treatment is not a walk in the park. One cycle of IVF treatment can be quite expensive. For couples with no other option but to go through IVF, they need to be prepared in many aspects. Considering the IVF rates per cycle and their success rates, couples may have pretty rough times not just financially but emotionally as well.
Generally, IVF rates would cost an average of $10,000 to $15,000 per cycle including medication. If the first cycle is not a success, you can avail of a less expensive IVF treatment the next time through frozen embryo transfer which costs around $3,000 only. The rates vary for every couple's infertility problems. On some cases, couples need to add other assisted reproductive technology (ART) procedures, the costs of which are not cheap. Additional ART procedures and their prices are as follows:
- ICSI - Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection would cost around $1,000 to $1,500 and may cost higher when other IVF options are used.
- PGD – Pre Implantation Genetic Diagnosis may cost $3,000 or more.
- Embryo freezing can cost about $700.
- Donated sperm would also cost an additional $200 to $3,000.
- Using egg donor would add extremely high expenses from $25,000 to $30,000 for one cycle only.
- Compared to egg donor, embryo donor is a lot cheaper. It would cost around $5,000 to $7,000. Embryos are already created and ready to be planted. But if you want to choose your own egg and sperm donors, this will entail considerably higher costs.
Why IVF rates are high
Many people speculate why IVF treatments are expensive and some feel that IVF rates are unjustified. Here are the reasons why.
- First, an average clinic needs to have at least 4 staff- at least one reproductive endocrinologist, an embryologist, a nurse, and a medical assistant to keep the clinic running. The medical staff is not working for free and their wages vary depending on their field of expertise.
- Second, equipments used in an IVF treatment facility are not ordinary equipments and they are all quite expensive.
- Third, considering the monthly maintenance and cleaning of the equipments, they all add up to the clinic's monthly expenses.
- Fourth, to keep up with other clinics, frequent upgrade of medical equipments is necessary. All these expenses together with a business monthly expense would be quite troublesome for clinic owners, which is why IVF treatments are expensive.
Tips to afford fertility treatment
- Some clinics offer refund programs. For an IVF treatment set amounting to $20,000 to $30,000 you can get your money back after three or four tries and still with no success.
- Find out the limit of your insurance policy. Most policies do not cover IVF treatment but a little assistance will come a long way.
- Know your payment options. Some clinics offer multiple payment plans or financing options to help couples who can't afford.
- Get to know different clinics' success rates. Success rate refers to the number of cycles with successful IVF procedures that resulted to live birth. You don't want to go through more cycles as this would add up to additional costs.
For some, having a baby could be very expensive. IVF rates are relatively high but the joy and happiness brought by the much awaited baby are worth it.