The Costs of IVF

1. The survey document was standardized with respect to types of charges that are usually involved with IVF cycle. However, there is wide variation with respect to how individual members charge for different services, and how these charges are grouped. Therefore, there can be a wide variability in charges for services that are in the same grouping.
   
   
2. IVF is a complex procedure involving a wide variety of consultations, technical physician services, endocrinology, andrology and embryology laboratory services and surgical services. Many different types of medical personnel, including physicians, embryologists, laboratory technician, nurses, IVF coordinators and mental health workers, provide these services. Additionally, non-medical personnel such as attorneys and donor agencies can be involved. There, there can be large variability in how these different personnel charge for services.
   
   
3. IVF services are often provided in many different settings, such as physician offices, other medical and non-medical offices, laboratories, hospitals and freestanding surgery centers. Furthermore, these facilities may be owned by different entities, such as physicians, hospitals, laboratories or others. Each of these facilities in turn can have independent, corporate chain, public, university or other ownership and therefore different structure for charging for services.
   
   
4. Charges for IVF services can vary greatly from region to region, and in different size metropolitan areas.
   
   
5. IVF care is individualized, so there are many different possible treatments available to IVF patients, and therefore many different ways to arrive at the charges fro any given patient.
   
   
   

* Low does NOT include ICSI, hatching or cryopreservation
** High includes ICSI, Assisted Hatching, cryopreservation and one year storage.
*** Average assumes that 50% of the cycles required ICSI, 30% had Assisted Hatching and 25% resulted in cryopreservation /storage of embryos. Additional prorated charges were added to Total Charges (Low) based on this percentage of cycles having these additional services.

NOTE: The Total Charges are not a sum of preceding charges because of variable reporting of charges into different categories. Respondents were asked for their total charges, and the n umber reported reflect those responses.

There is less than a $500 difference among Eastern, Central or Western charges, with Eastern being the lowest and Western the highest. Office based practices are approximately $400 lower than hospital based practices.

The cost of medications is NOT included in these charges. Pharmaceutical cost can range from approximately $2,000 to $6,000, with an average of approximately, $3,800.

Therefore, the total charges for an "average" IVF cycle are approximately $12,400, including controlled ovarian hyperstimulation pharmaceuticals. The range of charges for an "average" IVF cycle is approximately $9,500 to $16,500. Since every patient is different, charges for an IVF cycles may appropriately be more or less than these amounts.

Couples who undergo IVF with donor sperm, donor oocytes or a gestational carrier incur significant additional charges for identifying, screening and contracting with the third party involved. These additional charges can range from several hundred dollars for donor sperm, to approximately $10,000 to $15,000 for donor oocytes, to $20,000 to $60,000 for a gestational carrier. Additional medical charges are also usually incurred for the additional medical treatment needed by the third party patient.

Adoption can cost anywhere from $10,000 to $40,000 with an average in the $20,000 to $30,000 range.