In the United States, around 12 percent of women ages 15 to 44 have difficulty getting pregnant or carrying a pregnancy to term, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Some of them turn to in vitro fertilization to try to conceive, with more than 72,000 babies born as a result of IVF and other “assisted reproductive technologies” in 2017, according to the American Society for Reproductive Medicine.
Conceiving is just one obstacle these patients face. There’s also the question of how to pay for the treatment.
“The total cost is roughly $20,335 per (IVF) cycle,” says Jake Anderson-Bialis, co-founder of FertilityIQ, which provides research on fertility treatments, doctors and clinics.
Most IVF patients don’t get pregnant the first go-round. Many require multiple cycles, spending $60,000 or more in the process.
The sky-high costs and scant insurance coverage — only a handful of states require coverage for fertility treatments, and that coverage varies widely — leave families struggling to pay on their own.
DISCUSS FINANCIAL LIMITS
You want to stay optimistic, but it’s important to think ahead. While your physical and emotional limits can be hard to anticipate, you can sketch a plan for your financial ceiling.
Thinking about what comes next if IVF doesn’t work is painful but necessary, because alternate options like surrogates, donor eggs and adoption are also expensive.
FIND WAYS TO LOWER COST
There are several programs that can help you reduce your overall costs, including:
• GRANTS: Free money for fertility treatment does exist, but it can be hard to track down. You can search for grants and scholarships by state using CoFertility’s Find a Grant tool. Some grant programs also offer donated medical care, rather than cash.
• DISCOUNTS: Clinics may offer discounted services for low-income patients. Some also extend discounts to people in certain professions, including teachers, military, and police and firefighters.
• SHARED RISK: Your fertility clinic may offer a shared risk program, which typically offers multiple IVF cycles for a flat rate. This can save you tens of thousands of dollars if it takes multiple IVF cycles for you to conceive.
• CLINICAL TRIALS: Research studies are typically narrow in scope, making it difficult to qualify. If you do meet the criteria, you’re often able to get treatment at a steep discount. Clinical trials come with inherent risks, so understand all of the details before committing.
WEIGH PAYMENT OPTIONS
One couple funded their treatment primarily via savings and budgeting, but that’s not realistic for everyone. Many couples take on debt to pay for some or all of the costs.
Credit cards are one way to pay for treatment, but the average interest rate on a credit card is 16.97 percent, and some cards charge rates as high as 26.99 percent, depending on your credit.
Personal loans are another vehicle to help you pay for IVF. You’ll often find the lowest interest rates via a credit union, even if your credit is a little banged up, but the process can take a bit longer.
Fertility loans are increasingly common, too, with lenders like CapexMD working directly with fertility clinics to help patients finance treatment.
