we had savings from the sale of my house when i moved in with DH - so we used that, then rebanked the refund amount. since that one, we've done some house reno's (which is what the money was initially for) so we spent that money, and just saved like crazy every cycle - thankfully IUI wasn't as much as IVF
hi
we are going though westmead IVF it is 1450.00 we live in qld so we will be doing a heap of travels
we are getting money from hubbys old job as it closed it's doors so that is paying for ours.
We did pretty much the same thing as Kelly D. Paid up front on C/C and then refunded from medicare and paid the difference off ourselves. We had one IVF/ICSI cycle that cost about $3,800 up front and we ended up out of pocket about $1,200. It just so happened that at the time that this happened I got an unexpected payment from my private health insurer who were combining with another insurance company and basically giving something back to their clients. Would you believe that this ended up being almost exactly $1,200! Strange how things work.
We then did a FET straight away and that cost about $1,200 up front and because we had gone over our safety net, we ended up out of pocket only about $300. Luckily for us, this was when we got our BFP.
It really does depend on what clinic you go to and also what state you are in.
We did the same as Ellie, saved some money, got a interest free for 6 months credit card, paid for the cycle, put the refunds on the credit card, and then paid the difference with what we had saved.
We were lucky enough to even have a little left over.
We were slowly saving in a reasonably half-hearted way for a house deposit. That money got redirected to IVF.
We paid cash upfront for each cycle, with the medicare rebates going back into that account. Killing the medicare safety net limit helped heaps, but as our treatment spanned two years we had to do it twice.
From experience - if your treatment is going to go over two calendar years, try to time things so that you have a FET cycle first up to kill the safety net, and then everything else is a whole lot easier. Not awalys possible, but it helped us out a lot at the start of this year to do it that way.
After three stim cycles and three and a half frozen embryo transfers (half because our last embryo failed to thaw) even with the recycling of medicare rebates, we'd depleted the savings and were at the point of having to save like mad to be able to go again. Fortunately, that last transfer took.
Of course, using existing savings is only an option if they exist - but we don't have a mortgage to redraw on (we rent) and really didn't want to get a credit card with a limit high enough to cover our stim cycles as we'd be tempted to use it for other things and then have trouble paying it off. It's all a matter of finding the system that works for you.
We used our credit card to make the initial amount, and then the medicare rebate went straight back onto it. While it's not ideal, we didn't exactly have 10k lying around in cash so we did it. Also you get frequent flyer points on DH's credit card so it made sense at the time. Once you pass the safety net things become much more manageable anyhow.
we used the credit card to pay the out of pocket amount, then redraw off the house loan to cover that until we get the medicare rebate - and to cover anything that the rebate does not. as a result we are not as far ahead on our home loan as we would like, but that is just the way it is
I paid $3360.00 up front just before I started taking my injections. After my transfer Melbourne IVF sent me an official receipt and I went to medicare. Medicare reimbursed me $2702.00 which left me out of pocket $658.00. If I had private health insurance that covered assisted reproduction then I would of been able to claim a portion of the $658.00 as well. But we didn't.
TIP: You must register for the medicare safety net. The medicare safety net runs from Jan - Dec (Calendar Year) Once you have reached out of pocket expenses of $1048.00 they you automatically receive 80% back from Medicare.
Suggestion: Start your IVF treatment in January. You shoud reach the safetynet after your 1st cycle and if you have to do subsequent cycles at least you get 80% back for the rest of the year.
But if you start now, you will have to be out of pocket $1048.00 or there abouts, before you claim 80% and then start all over again in January.
As someone said above each clinic is different. Best you check with them.
I think we would end up going the credit card road. We would just lift our limit on our current card and pay it back when we are reimbursed by medicare. I like the suggestion of not doing another cycle until the card has been fully cleared - great motivator to pay off the debt!
Thanks all so much for your input. I know it's a personal question and now I have a much better idea of how we can do it (if we need to). At least I don't have to dread trying to save up for the next 1000 years!!
I love how you are doing all your research - very exciting. At our clinic we only have to pay the gap upfront (aroung $2500 for ICSI). So we just call up each pay week leading up to the cycle and pay around $500 till it is paid off.
With the larger amount you will need I can see the credit card option working well for you. Thank god for the safety net hey? We areally are lucky here is Australia - even though I know it is a bit of a pain coming up with the inital payment - once you have reached your threshold it isn't so bad...
I wish you every ounce of luck with your ICSI PGD journey.... I'l be cheering for you when the time comes hun.
I am sorry you are struggling so much right now and I am praying you dont have to worry about needing IVF but if in the event you do I would definately look at private health cover. I am with HCF and I joined them specifically because of my fertility issues as they have EXCELLENT coverage for this sort of thing. Since we couldnt afford for us both to get top coverage, I have the coverage and will change to a family coverage 2 months prior to birth (when we do get pregnant). Its something to think about and it takes to stress of the financial cost of it all. We did this because a close friend of ours went the IVF route and unfortunately it did not work for them and they used their entire house deposit. Its really through their experience we were able to jump ahead and plan a little bit more. I wish you all the very very best
i agree it's worth shopping around for PHI Amy - i have changed my PHI to another provider simply because they cover an unlimited number of hospital admissions for IVF related procedures - some will restrict access after a certain number of attempts. given you're not looking at doing this for 12 months, and most of them have a minimum 12 month waiting period, it's worth asking about it now. an extra couple of dollars a week is worth it when you think you have to be admitted for EPU and for transfers so you have to pay for a bed both days (for like HALF AN HOUR on ET day!! lol)
Ok so you know since you are already with a private health fund, HCF will not make you wait for anything you are already covered for with your current one. You may have to wait 12 months for IVF but you may not . I did find though once we thoroughly looked through all the private health funds we found HCF the best and we used iSelect. I would do it through iSelect, you can call them up too because they are completely nonbiased PLUS you get a free flight I think atm. When I joined last year we got a 10% voucher card, totally spewing they didnt have the flights back then lol. Good Luck!
Amy, just remember that if you do need to go the IVF route, that your health fund, whoever you end up with, may change their policy too. We thought we were stuck when told IVF, because at the time our health fund had a waiting period of 2 years for IVF, then when I spoke to them it had only recently changed to a waiting period of 1 year thank god!
Don't forget to enquire about the little extras, like will they pay for some of the medication that may be used after a transfer (like pessaries) I had to stay on these till week 12 and it was $100 per fortnight, and my health fund paid for half it, every fortnight. I had other medication I was taking as well, but they didn't pay out on this as it didn't reach a minimum amount when I bought them.
We were also fortunate enough to have our health fund pay some money towards fuel costs (based on klms driven) and accommodation (though for this one, I needed a letter or something which I didn"t organise so we missed out there)
Though you may not need to travel for treatment like we did, so it probably won't matter (hopefully you won't need to head down the IVF path anyway)
There is a thread here somewhere, think it may be the IVF costs thread, that has posts saying what people got from their health funds in regards to IVF. Will see if I can find it for you
Nic
Last edited by nic; October 17th, 2008 at 05:36 PM.
: adding something..
Nic that sounds like an awesome health fund - and should we need to go down the IVF road we will need to travel (2hrs to Canberra). Would you be able to PM me the name of your health fund?? We are looking at changing.
Registered User
. I did find though once we thoroughly looked through all the private health funds we found HCF the best and we used iSelect. I would do it through iSelect, you can call them up too because they are completely nonbiased PLUS you get a free flight I think atm. When I joined last year we got a 10% voucher card, totally spewing they didnt have the flights back then lol. Good Luck!
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