Try to nail down details, especially the financial ones. Nobody wants to battle a billing office or insurance company when they are trying to relax and get through a cycle. It seems inevitable that minor problems will pop up during the cycle, but hopefully you can head off the major stuff before you get started.
TIP # 1
Check your insurance policies. Find out what is covered, if there are lifetime maximums and what your deductibles and co-pays will be if there is coverage. Some companies will cover diagnosis but not infertility treatment.
TIP # 2
Create a budget for infertility. As soon as you suspect you might have trouble conceiving, start saving in a separate account designated for financing infertility treatments.
TIP #3
Join a clinical trial or research study. These are experimental procedures which researchers are trying to help infertile couples conceive. The treatment and monitoring you will receive as member of an infertility clinical trial is usually free or inexpensive. Some clinics will even pay you to participate. RESOLVE, the national infertility association, maintains listings of clinical trials on their websites.
TIP #4
Consider moving. Only fourteen states in the U.S. have laws requiring insurance companies to cover the costs of infertility treatment. Those states include Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Montana, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Rhode Island, Texas and West Virginia.
TIP #5
Take out a specialized infertility treatment loan. Several financial institutions offer loan programs specifically for the costs of infertility treatments. The ARC Fertility Program offer loan programs that allow partial to full refunds if they are not successful in helping you to conceive. www.arcfertility.com
TIP #6
Buy your infertility medicine online. Online pharmacies often have special agreements with the pharmaceutical companies so they can pass those savings on to their customers. You still have to pay for the procedures and medical care at normal prices, but the costs of the medicine are a huge portion of the treatment. Saving here will reduce your overall financing.
I hope this helps
Is it a standard practice to make sure the patient fully understands the cost prior to even purchasing medication? Our clinic waited till the day of our retrieval to explain the costs we needed to cover. They didn’t even get pre-auths. It’s a stressful mess.