Will the Medicare rebate being removed make a difference to you?
With the Medicare rebate for ART coming to an end in January (I think it's confirmed??), will it make a difference to when you do a cycle? We were planning an FET sometime next year, but now are seriously considering whether to do one before the rebate is taken away from us. Are we nuts!?
So has it affected you the same way? Will there be lots of September bubs next year because everyone is cycling in December?
The rebate isn't being removed completely, they are just capping the extended Medicare Safety Net.
For us, yes it will make a difference. I am doing a FET cycle at the moment and if it is unsuccessful I am probably going to argue for a stim cycle before the end of the year before using up any more of my frozen embryos.
we've talked about it a fair bit, and decided to have a big gap to give nature a chance before we go back, if we even will. we probably would have started mid to late next year but i doubt that we will now. if we start to seriously consider it again, we'll be finding out the breakdown of costs first - and may try IUI again - might even see if we can find something like letrazole and see if it works for me where clomid didn't. full ivf will be, for us, too exxy if i want to only work part time rather than full time
It means that we will simply use what frozen embryos we have and then that's it. But that's the position my health places us in anyway - no more stim cycles for me. Not with Sam to care for now.
I know a lot of people are jumping in to go earlier than intended so they can still take advantage of the full rebates, and I have to admit that it is somewhat tempting, but once again, my health makes that impossible.
I just worry that we'll find ourselves in the situation where we just can't afford to use the frozen embryos we have.
Yes sadly will make a difference for us, we always wanted 3 kids but I don't think we will do IVF again we will probably just try acupunture and chinese herbs and see how it goes.
Unfortunately it will make a difference for us too. We've been trying for 2yrs for # 2, done 3 x OI, 1 x IUI and have appt next week to move onto IVF. I'm absolutely kicking myself that we didn't do IVF sooner. We'll try with IVF for the remainder of this year but then we'll have to stop.
Originally I was going to do 3 cycles then have a break etc... but that's not an option now. Seems now we're faced with a 'now or never' situation and it bloody sucks!
Sorry for the rant, been a long day and this really bugs me!!!!
It could certainly make a huge difference to us. We have only gotten a total of 3 frozen embryos out of 3 fresh cycles (2, 0, and then 1), so for us it will make a huge difference as we keep needing to do fresh cycles.
Hopefully it won't be as bad as previously indicated. Check out the article in The Australian today (there's a link in this post: http://forums.bellybelly.com.au/foru...ml#post1957362). But we'll have to wait and see when the details are made public... I've never been so eager to read the Hansard transcripts from the Senate!!
Yes it will make a difference for us, as it will everyone Im guessing in some way.
We didnt get any emby's frozen our first IVF July/Aug and so its the whole thing again. I would like to get one more IVF in - perhaps October/November but we are really struggling financially now so we might not even get to do one.
If we can't afford IVF next year - perhaps we will give IUI another try.
It will make life a bit tighter around home, but we don't have any other options as DH had a vasectomy with his XP. We are going to ask about a reversal, but I don't know when too long is too long for it to work.
I'll just have to re think what I spend money on & stop being so material.
I called our Fertility Clinic to say that we wanted to make an appointment to go through our first ICSI procedure in February 2010... but the patient coordinator started telling me that a lot of people are going to go through the procedure in December rather than putting it off for next year.
I am soooo confused and I don't know what to do? Hubby and I would be more $$$ prepared if we waited til Feb... but it's a bit of a catch 22 because we will end up having to pay more...
The most frustrating bit is not knowing what the final figures will be - and how they'll impact us in the long run.
The information I found yesterday says they are proposing to increase the base Medicare rebate (ie before the Saftey Net) by $1100 for the first cycle and $900 for all subsequent cycles. In other words, you'll get less back from Medicare if you're not lucky enough to have it work first time. It didn't specify whether that was the first cycle ever or the first cycle each year. Probably ever if I had to guess... I read this in the Senate Hansard for the proceedings from 9 September:
(I didn't put the link directly to that day's proceedings because it's quite a large PDF. Just click on the date in question or right-click to download the PDF.)
As someone who has dealt (sometimes badly) with multiple IVF BFN's and is staring down the barrel of IVF#4, I can't help but feel it adds insult to injury. But it's also only $200 (ha! I never thought I'd say "only $200") so I guess it could be worse.
My FS told me the good news yesterday at my appointment that the safety net being dropped is looking like it will no longer be an issue and he said in fact we may be less out of pocket. YAY.
Fatboyslim - sounds like your nurse might not have been aware of the potential changes yet.
This possible change by the g'vment certainly made us feel like our hand was being forced even more than the fact we had to do IVF in the first place. I remember it all kicking off in March, just as we were discussing how lucky we were to live somewhere that made it a little more accessible financially due to the rebate.
We did a first cycle and even though got two frosties, when it was unsuccessful decided on a full stim. cycle straight away, which was also unsuccessful but gave me another 2 frosties only.
After many discussions, DH wanted me to make final decision as he said I have to go through it physically, so instead of using our frosties, we've opted for a 3rd stim. cycle, which will be in Oct. It will be our last chance this year...and although our FS told us that it was not getting passed in senate etc, we can't take the risk financially, and seeing as we can scrape the money together now, we'll try.
The way I've read the reports in the media and on the gov'ment website, the latest proposal means that as long as the clinic doesn't charge in excess of 6000 for a basic IVF (without ICSI etc) then people won't be worse off. The thing is, if clinic's change their prices (mine issued a letter months ago, advising of price going up next year - hopefully they'll review that) people will shop around and go to the clinics that charge the 'average' 6000.
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Will the Medicare rebate being removed make a difference to you?
With only $550 rebate it virtually is being removed IYKWIM.
I've never been so eager to read the Hansard transcripts from the Senate!!
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