I picked out my donor. She’s 5’6”, with a fair complexion and dark brown hair like mine. She was a previous donor back in July of this year and the couple got pregnant with twins. She had 33 eggs retrieved, 18 fertilized, 2 were implanted and 6 were frozen. The recipient couple received a 5-day blastocyst transfer. She’s golden.
She’s also from Texas. Now, SPCT gives a run down of its fees and the costs you are expected to incur with its introductory package: $3,500 donor fee if she is from out of town, $5,000 if she is local; $1,500 travel allowance for non-local donors; $3,5000 agency fee; plus the cost of medication. “Fine” I said to myself, “Its income neutral whether I pick an out of state or local donor, let the games begin.”
But, after I’ve selected my non-local, donor and I’ve paid $500 to my RE to secure a date on his IVF calendar, I got the final contract and bill. And what is included in this adhesion contract is a demand for $2,000 for the cost of monitoring little Mrs. Texas; an additional cost I’m being charged b/c little Mrs. Texas will have to be monitored in Texas and not by my doctor. Well wait, Dr. Harvard will monitor little Mrs. Texas from afar and charge me a fee of $1,500 for that as well.
There must be some mistake I thought to myself. I’ve been through 3 IUI stimulation cycles with monitoring, an ultrasound here ($80), some blood work there ($40), etc…And it has never come close to costing even $1,000. I decided to call the Agency and Dr. Harvard office and explain this little oversight to them.
The Agency was unyielding. Their attitude was send in the $10,400 by Friday or you don’t have an egg donor. And while Dr. Harvard’s office expressed shock at this $2,000 charge for monitoring in Texas (why I ask you? He charges $1,500 just to read what they are doing in Texas), his $1,500 monitoring fee would not be reduced even though the majority of the testing will not be done by his office.
I’ve concluded that dealing with the infertility treatment industry is much like dealing with a governmental agency. There is no room for negotiation. In fact, Dr. Harvard’s billing clerked laughed when I asked about this issue of double billing for the monitoring and asked me “What? Do you want to bargain with the Doctor?” So basically, it is what they say it is; now bend over and pretend you like getting screwed the hard way!
