Affording IVF

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Fertility Help for Non-IVF Patients

Going to a fertility clinic doesn’t automatically mean you’re signing yourself up for IVF. In fact, the best fertility clinics treat each patient individually and will do their best to get patients pregnant with the least invasive technique possible.

If you’ve been having trouble getting pregnant (meaning you’ve tried for a one year if you’re under 35 or six months if over 35) then it is time to seek the help of a professional clinic. We’ll be able to make sure you are ovulating regularly and check your ovarian reserve. And we’ll be able to do a semen analysis on your partner.

While we are nationally recognized for our high success rates with IVF, we are also very skilled at less expensive methods. Our goal is always to get our patients pregnant with a healthy, viable baby in a way that’s right for you.

So once we’ve established you’re ovulating and your partners sperm is active we have a few tricks up our sleeve.

Natural Cycles or ‘Timed Intercourse’: We can help you determine when you are ovulating and send you home to do the job on your own. We recommend an ovulation kit so you can find the right time and date and sometimes this is all our patients need to become pregnant.

Natural Monitored Cycles: You and your partner are basically doing it on your own with an ovulation kit and we add in an ultrasound to make sure ovulation occurred and perform a progesterone blood test after ovulation. Some of our patients have irregular cycles or skip months of ovulation due to PCOS or other conditions. This technique is helpful for women who do ovulate consistently.

Medicated Cycles: If we discover that a patient does have trouble ovulating then we can do an Ovulation Induction with medication. These are prescription oral pills followed by a series of in-office ultrasounds so that we can monitor closely when ovulation occurs. Then, we can either send the patient home to do the deed or we can do an IUI.

IUI: Intrauterine Insemination is a medical procedure where the sperm is washed and injected directly into the uterus timed correctly for ovulation. IUIs can be done with partner sperm or donor sperm.

We ‘wash’ the sperm so concentrated, healthy sperm reach the uterus just before ovulation and swim into the fallopian tubes to hopefully meet and fertilize one lucky egg. Washing sperm results in a much cleaner and more concentrated sample with most of the non-motile sperm and other fluids removed.

Also, we may recommend two sperm injections per IUI cycle for increased odds of success.

We are very skilled at IUIs and have excellent lab resources on-site. Fresh or frozen (then thawed) sperm can be used. So even if your partner is overseas, a planned IUI can work.

Medicated IUI Cycles: Stimulating the female patient to ovulate with oral tablets and injections, then using IUI with concentrated, healthy sperm injections twice during monitored ovulation can be highly successful. We offer packages of IUIs where you pay for two cycles and receive a third cycle free if needed. One of our IUI packages allows money spent on IUIs to go towards IVF if the IUIs are unsuccessful. This allows couples to try IUIs first before stepping up to IVF.

If a patient is suffering from PCOS, endometriosis or diminished ovarian reserve these enhanced IUI techniques may be all that’s needed to produce a healthy baby. And a medicated IUI package is substantially less expensive than IVF.

Every patient is different, and some patients find success with a combination of these techniques. IUI may not work on the first try but may work perfectly on the second or third attempt. We offer IUI Peace of Mind® packages where you pay a reduced rate for two and receive a third free if needed. If a technique does not work in three tries, we suggest trying something different.

Because women only ovulate once a month, time is of the essence when addressing infertility. A patient only has 12 chances per year. And an unsuccessful pregnancy or a miscarriage can take up precious months in your fertility window — in addition to the emotional toll. So if your dream is building a family, please don’t delay getting the professional help you need.

We are confident we can get you or your partner pregnant with a healthy baby with the least invasive method possible. We’ve been helping patients become parents for over 27 years and we love using new technology to uncover the best method for each of our unique patients. Make 2021 the year you take control of your fertility and come see us.

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IVF 100% Refund Program – Take Home a Baby or Your Money Back

Fertility treatments can add up. Especially if you end up paying for a series of treatments that may or may not lead to a baby. While the price tag is an important factor in choosing the best clinic for you and your family, be sure to also consider the quality of the fertility clinic and their success rates.

Because there are so many factors in getting pregnant and having a healthy baby, even the best fertility clinics will often suggest buying a multi-round package for IVF. This package can take the stress off you as you go through IVF. Freeze-all IVF cycles, where your eggs are retrieved, fertilized, and grown to day 5-7 then frozen in a highly successful vitrification process can be a cost savings for multiple reasons. First, you may have multiple embryos ready to use, so if your first embryo transfer does not work, you’ll have another embryo ready to try again. Second, your clinic can perform a PGT-A biopsy to test and make sure the embryo’s chromosomes are correct which improves the success rate and limits the possibility of an early miscarriage. Lastly, after you have a healthy baby, it’s possible you’ll have another viable embryo ready to go when that baby needs a sibling.

At Overlake Reproductive Health we are proud to introduce the Peace of Mind® Program for IVF patients – the first and only program in the Pacific Northwest to offer a 100% refund guarantee for cycles using your own eggs as well as donor eggs – to give you the freedom to undergo the effective fertility treatment you need without financial uncertainty. We are so confident our IVF treatments will work, we’re one of the only clinics to offer this.

How Does the Peace of Mind 100% Refund Program Work?

The Peace of Mind 100% Refund Program is for cash pay patients – meaning we do not run it through insurance (most patients do not have fertility insurance anyway).

For couples who qualify medically, we offer up to four egg retrieval cycles with your own eggs or donor eggs, and as many frozen embryo cycles as needed, for a fixed discounted fee. If using your own eggs, all egg retrieval cycles must be completed before age 38. If using Donor Egg, all cycles must be completed before age 55, with medical clearance for pregnancy if appropriate.

You can continue treatment until you achieve a “take home baby!”

If you don’t take a baby home from the hospital after all available treatment cycles, we will refund you 100% of the Program fee. That’s how confident we are in our diagnoses and treatments.

The program fee covers all treatment costs except pre-cycle diagnostic testing, surgery other than IVF procedures, fertility medications, the cost of donor sperm if needed and/or egg donor screening, and egg donor compensation. These costs not covered because they are third party costs. We do cover the first year of embryo cryo storage (from the date of the initial freeze date).

If the treatment works the first time, couples will have paid more than if they had paid for one cycle at a time. But if you don’t get pregnant, or have a miscarriage, you have the confidence to keep going. If you need two egg retrieval cycles to succeed, you will have paid less than traditional fee-for-service pricing. If it takes more than that, you will pay substantially less and more and more of your treatment will be “on us.”

Are there any exceptions to the 100% refund?

Apart from a take home baby, only two. Couples can choose to withdraw from the program at any time, for any reason, once you have used all your frozen embryos to try to get pregnant. At that time, we will be happy to refund any money remaining after the cost of your treatments has been subtracted.

Occasionally, despite careful pre-cycle testing, we will need to withdraw a couple from the program after one or more treatment cycles. This is not common, and we will give you a prorated refund based on the number of egg retrieval cycles completed.

Do you offer the Peace of Mind Program to Out-of-State Patients?

Yes, and we offer an out-of-state discount. We have successfully helped couples from Canada and many states achieve their dreams. We can often coordinate your testing and treatment with a fertility clinic closer to home, and we can help you to plan for the occasions when you do need to travel to our clinic for procedures. We have more information here for Canadian patients.

So, if you’re thinking about IVF but concerned about incremental costs and needing multiple rounds, this may be your best option. It’s hard to know if one shot is all you’ll need, but with this package your baby’s in the bag either way.

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Choosing the best fertility clinic, not the cheapest, will save you money in the long run.

Many factors go into choosing the right fertility clinic for you and your family. Cost is certainly always one of them but be aware of what’s included and not included in the price. And pay attention to the clinic’s success rates. At Overlake Reproductive Health, we stand by our live birth success rates as being among the highest in the state of Washington.

Our Peace of Mind® 100% IVF program comes with a money back guarantee to take home a live baby, or all your money back. Not every clinic is confident enough to offer that!

Plus, it is important to note that our IVF programs include everything you might need to become pregnant including assisted hatching, ICSI, Preimplantation Genetic Screening, biopsy on day 5, 6 or 7, and vitrification (freezing) and thawing of your embryos by the best embryologists in the country.

We believe if you’re going to go through the trouble and expense of IVF, you might as well get the best treatment and care available. That’s why, at our clinic, we biopsy your embryos on day 5, 6, or 7, when your embryos tell us they are ready for the most accurate results. Our flash-freeze, or vitrification process, has a 99.9% successful thaw rate. Other fertility clinics may biopsy for PGS screening on day 3, which takes less skill and gives much less accurate information. Many clinics offer PGS testing for some patients, but we strongly believe all patients going through IVF benefit from PGS screening.

When we biopsy on Day 5, 6 or 7 the embryo has matured to the blastocyst stage, and its cells have multiplied to over 100. Inside the egg’s protective shell (zona pellucida), two different types of cells serve two different purposes:

  • The inner cell mass (ICM) will form the fetus.
  • Trophectoderm cells become the placenta.

ORH’s skilled embryologists tap through the egg’s outer shell so that a small proportion of trophectoderm cells begin to push through the microscopic opening. They remove about 6 to 9 of these cells and send them off to a lab for genetic testing. Then all of your tested embryos are flash-frozen, or vitrified, for safekeeping until it’s time to plan the embryo transfer in a future month.

The trophectoderm biopsy performed in PGS will not harm your embryos. The cells that are removed make up the placenta, not the baby, and their removal does not affect implantation of the embryo or development.

Why do we wait a month between retrieval and implantation?

The short answer is so we have the results of your PGS test in hand and can choose the healthiest embryo. But it’s worth noting, that IVF requires over stimulating the ovaries with prescription drugs to produce multiple mature eggs at the same time. By producing multiple eggs, we hope to gain one (hopefully more) perfect egg that will fertilize successfully and go on to mature into your healthy baby. A fresh IVF cycle will farm your eggs, not test for chromosomal abnormalities and genetic defects that typically cause miscarriages, and place a fertilized egg into your uterus to implant during the same cycle.

Blastocyst

We now know that the medicines used to make multiple eggs can impair the lining of the uterus, leading to lower success rates for fresh embryo transfer cycles. Knowing that, other clinics will often place two of more embryos at the same time hoping that one will be genetically normal and grow. Implanting multiple embryos helps increase fertility clinics’ success rates but can also result in twins or triplets. While multiples may seem like a great idea initially, they often cause complications that can be harmful or even fatal to the mother or fetuses or both. The best clinics, like Overlake Reproductive Health, perform PGS on day 5 and only transfer one embryo at a time for a safe, healthy pregnancy.

Reasons why Day 5, 6 or 7 Trophectoderm Biopsy is preferential.

  • Significantly more accurate
  • Less False Positives
  • Less damage to the embryo

In addition to PGS, we also use a MitoScore to choose the healthiest embryo to implant. Overlake Reproductive Health has the most experienced embryologists in the country, fertility doctors, IVF lab capabilities, and advanced technologies to perform these intricate processes.

RFID Tags for Security

ORH is the first fertility clinic in the NW to add an extra layer of security through our RI Witness program which labels all patient samples with a digital ID tag that is continuously monitored throughout the process. Thanks to self-adhesive RFID tags attached to all the laboratory plasticware, it is possible to ensure only compatible samples are worked on at any one time. We implemented this secure process for total confidence. While this system is required in Europe, you’ll find very few clinics with it here in the US.

Getting it Right the First time Saves You Money

Our goal is to compete on being the best and stand behind our success rates (82% Implantation Rate and 66% Live Birth Rate). And, because we often achieve a healthy pregnancy right out of the gate, we do wind up being the least expensive option. Especially because many of our package programs offer money back with early success!

We are confident that no matter what your individual challenge with infertility is, we have the right expertise and skillset to help you have a healthy pregnancy and a healthy baby.

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Affording IVF Step By Step

Despite what your inner screamer is telling you, just walking into a fertility clinic will not cost you millions of dollars. In fact, it will most likely save you time and money.

The truth is, no one’s ever gotten pregnant from just eating Goji berries. Women will often go to great lengths to get pregnant. With so much information out there, we try and take it all in, and sometimes we can make ourselves nuts. When truthfully, often the best thing we can do for fertility is relax.

Easier said then done, I remember. I still have a cabinet filled with Basel Body temperature charts, saliva thermometers, primrose oil, and horse pills of god-knows-what.

If only I’d known then what I know now. The key is to keep your eye on the time. All these things may work, but while you’re busy scouring the underbrush of Amazon for the perfect fertility berry, your ovarian reserve could be getting low.

If you’re under 35 and have been actively trying to conceive for one year, or 35 and over actively trying for 6 months, it is time to have some basic tests done by a fertility specialist.

Step one; you absolutely must—even if it takes a breadcrumb trail of blazing hot chicken wings—get your partner in for a semen analysis. Over 35% of infertility is caused by men. It’s relatively easy to rule out and, if there’s an issue, a hurdle that can often be overcome.

Step two; get a Snapshot of your ovarian reserve by a board certified fertility specialist. Do not send in a cheek swab to some anonymous online website. They cannot reach through your computer and give you an ultrasound—yet. It will not save you time, money, or sanity in the long run.

Women are born with over 1 million eggs but by the time of puberty, only about 300,000 remain. Of these, only 300 to 400 are ovulated during a woman’s reproductive lifetime. Testing your ovarian reserve gives you a rough estimate of time left in your fertility window. And though that information is priceless, it’s actually very affordable.

The Fertility Snapshot at Overlake Reproductive Health in Bellevue, WA is an assessment of a woman’s current reproductive potential that includes the following:

  • Blood work: AMH, LH*, FSH*, E2*
  • Ultrasound to assess antral follicle count (AFC)
  • Summary report of results reviewed under MD supervision

*unless on hormonal birth control

The cost is $249 out of pocket with or without fertility insurance. If your ovarian reserve is low and you choose to take action, you’ll already be a patient at ORH and in the capable hands of one of the best fertility clinics in the Pacific Northwest.

The truth is, walking into a fertility clinic does not cost you millions of dollars. It can be a life-altering time saver. And if you keep your eye on the prize—a baby—then the sooner you find a fertility specialist you can trust, the sooner you’ll be up all night changing diapers instead of Googling the latest fertility craze.

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Bye Bye Fresh IVF Cycles, and Why This is a Good Thing for Your Pocketbook

Fresh IVF is leaving us

2014 is winding down and I really hope that everyone had a great year. I know that sometimes life has a way of throwing curve balls and those who are visiting this site probably know that fact quite well. Still, it is how we deal with the events in our lives that really affect who we are and how we feel. So if you are stressed out about life or are having a hard day I would encourage you to sit still for a few seconds and take a couple deep breaths. I guarantee you will feel better and more relaxed. Then the next time you are stressed out, try to remember how a simple thing like taking 30 seconds to breath can make you feel so much better (seriously, it’s science).

OK, I’ll get off my soapbox now. What I really wanted to talk about today was an exciting new trend in the infertility world that will mean higher success rates for everyone going through IVF with their own eggs. I am talking about the end of fresh transfers (using your own eggs) as we know it. Recent evidence has shown that the medications women take to hyper-stimulate their ovaries in order to force their body to mature many more eggs than it would in a normal cycle can have a negative effect on implantation rates, and thus lower the chances for a successful pregnancy. Essentially the stimulation required for IVF is, in fact, bad for IVF success. (Now some of you might be thinking, “what about minimal stim IVF?” – That is a whole another topic for a different day.)

What this means is that an increasing number of fertility clinics across the country have switched from offering fresh cycles where your embryos are retrieved and subsequently transferred during the same cycle to a fresh/FET (frozen embryo transfer) model where your embryos will be retrieved and grown in the lab then frozen (vitrified, hopefully) and then transferred back the embryo(s) on another cycle in which you will receive no stimulation medications, just like any other FET cycle.

This trend is bolstered by recent advances in freezing technology/techniques. Now the industry standard is vitrification. Where the egg/embryo is frozen quickly and, most importantly, the thaw survival rate is in the 95-98% range. Compare that with slow freeze techniques of the past which boasted rates between 30-50% and it’s a game changer. Effectively, the embryos can be frozen and thawed again with little chance of something going awry.

Most importantly, these new treatments have increased the success rates for all patient populations using their own eggs as much as 10% across the board! That is a huge increase! Higher success rates mean less cycles will be required on aggregate to achieve pregnancy.

What this means to IVF costs is a higher cost to get to the transfer stage, but a reduced average cost per successful cycle, across the board. On a cycle by cycle basis there might be some cost increases, as the newer techniques require more work, but, on average, less cycles will be required. Resulting in lower total average costs. This is a good thing!

If you are looking at IVF clinics right now for treatment I would encourage you to ask about both the clinic’s use of vitrification in the lab, as well as if they offer this type of fresh/FET cycle (often referred to as Freeze-all cycles). If they don’t then you might want to think about another clinic – it could save you money.

Cheers!