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hi Ladies,
My DH and I are just getting started on IVF with ICSI and I have been looking at all the costs involved. I was wondering how everyone is affording it, especially those that have had to go through multiple attempts. Now that the Medicare changes are coming in 2010 I am not sure we are going to be able to afford more then one go.
I look forward to hearing your experiences and suggestions.
Thanks heaps
We are yet to go down that path but getting ready (I only have one bodgy tube and DH has low sperm motility and morphology) I have enough for one cycle (had a few thousand saved to upgrade my car) plus I resigned from my job (got another now though) and got a reasonable large holiday payout. All the money is sitting in the bank for our treatment if/when we go down that path but it will only cover one cycle. We are looking at starting in approx 5months. I guess after that treatment if its not successful we would then look into other ways to afford another cycle (as we are willing to do a few). I have a piano and a horse float that are both worth thousands so I am prepared to sell them for another cycle before I would have time to save for one. It would take me a year to save the money for a cycle or I would have to start working alot more. I am only part time which I like to spend as much time as possible with my 3yr old before she starts school. DH and I have both agreed we wouldn't get a loan to fund it.
Also the clinic we plan to use is Private and alot more expensive then the public clinic which is also an option. We are yet to decide which clinic to use but the public clinic I was told is considerable less so depending on finances and what my Gyno suggests we might end up going through the public clinic which if successful would save us alot of money. The success rates I have been told through the private clinic are much higher and it is 300kms closer then the cheaper public clinic. So I guess if we used the public clinic we could afford two full stimulated cycles if needed for the price of one at the private clinic.
public clinic??? i didnt realize there was one here in qld
I am not sure. Its in Sydney the one I might go to. Hence the big drive to get there in comparison to the private clinic.
Thanks for that,
I have never heard of a public clinic either, would be interested to know of one in Brisbane or the Sunshine Coast.
I have family in Brisbane so that would not be out of the question.
I haven't fully researched the costs myself yet just from what my Gyno (who works at IVF Australia I think its called) has told me. When I said I was interested in Sydney IVF he told me the cost differences and said he will refer me to which ever clinic we decide. Also a lady I was looking after had IVF through both IVF Australia and Sydney IVF and told me to consider IVF Australia due to a variety of reasons including the cost differences (although her baby was conceieved through Sydney IVF but she had 6 full stimulations cycles before she got a BFP between the two clinics)
We just stick it all on the credit card, transfer the medicare rebate and any PHI as soon as we get it, and then pay off the balance as fast as we can by putting money towards it each pay. We let a couple of cycles mount up before we have a break to make sure we pay most of it off, so as to avoid getting into uncomfortable debt.
i made calls a few weeks ago and was told there is nothing publically in qld.
DH and I had a choice between Repromed in Mildura (45min away) or Repromed in Adelaide (5 1/2hrs away). Adelaide is more expensive but allows your follies to grow to blasty and Mild only 4cell, Adelaide has much better reputation and higher success rates.
Chose Adelaide, DH said if we were going to do IVF, might as well give ourselves the best possible chance to get it right.
Only you can decide, sometimes the finances decide for us, esp after Dec31st.....
Hi, we just finished a down regulation ICSI cycle as a public patient. It cost $5,300 which medicare gave back $3,500. We had to pay $287 for day hospital bed. and there may be an anaethetist fee of of about $100 or $150 still. Sperm storage for the year cost $198, that is paid after the first year in retrospect. We did this on our VISA because I'm not getting any younger. I received the hospital tax invoice the day after ET so went straight to Medicare to claim it.
Welcome to BB timeforafamily, best wishes for your journey ahead, make sure you drop by our TTC threads so we can get to know you X Babydust for your testing soon X
I have some money in the bank...and we've saved up some as well (my last few tax returns plus bits and pieces we've dropped in)
We're $6500 out of pocket right now (can't claim anything back until AFTER the cycle...apparently...) so can't wait to see what medicare wil give us back!
I am taxed at the highest rate (haven't bothered changing it since I paid off my HECS debt). For the IUI cycles and the first IVF cycle we paid using tax and savings.
For this last cycle we borrowed some money from my parents and paid the rest on a credit card. We paid $5200 for our last IVF cycle and received $3800 back from Medicare.
We decided to go ahead with the last cycle as our FS told us that the fees would be going up by at least $2000 more this year, as we would be expected to pay all fees upfront. He was also unsure how much return we would get via Medicare because of the new laws.
BTW, whatever you cannot claim through Medicare you can claim through tax. You will get back roughly 20 - 30% of the amount.
my husband and i are selling some assets, which only allow us pay for 1 treatment. if it doesnt work then i dont think we will be able to have another go :cry: which will only leave us the option of :pray: for a miricle :crossfingers:
........ When DP & i were about to embark on the IVF journey about 6years ago my Gyno (IVF specialist) who worked at the private Monash in Melb i told him we simply couldn't afford it (this convo was over the phone) i was astounded that he said " Ok then i will recommend a clinic in Sandringham they will DO it cheaper for you " ... and when i rang this Sandringham clinic i was shocked by the rudeness of the receptionist when i asked how do i go about finding out about costs$ involved ... needless to say i got put off when i rang to tell my Gyno of the rude outcome in which he just didn't care about and said he would get back to me and never did !!
******* So my SUGGESTION is could you ask your Gyno if he knows of a IVF clinic that charges at a lesser cost then others IYKWIM :think:
hi ladies, im in victoria and i am hopefully doing egg retrieval feb 8. I am using an egg donor and it is costing us $9067 and i think we only get about $1500 back from medicare then if it doesnt work first go it will cost about $2500 a hit not sure what medicare rebate you get on that though.
Does anyone know the time frame you have to wait inbetween cycles?
Hi ladies
yes the cost is a major concern we done one cycle of PGD IVF for genetic reasons we can conceive naturally but it is a risk we tried to avoid it cost us $14,218 and we got back about $8,800 then had the added $900 for the orgalutran so we could only afford one go which was unsuccessful now since the medicare changes we would not get much back at all and public clinics don't do PGD IVF so we have no choice but to try naturally and pray our baby is normal what is the government thinking?
We did something similiar to Slyder, where we put it on the credit card. I applied for one that had a deal of interest free for 3 months, and paid for the cycle as close to EPU as possible. We had 3 months to save some money as I was doing Synarel for the 3 months leading up to our cycle, but we also had travel costs to pay for as well.
Our savings covered our travel/accommodation costs first.
The anaethetist sent us a bill for our out of pocket, which was easier to handle a small amount instead of the full amount and wait for a refund.
FS sent his bill, and i think i claimed whatever refund we got for him, then sent refund cheque along with our out of pocket cheque.
Once medicare refunded for our cycle, it went straight back to the credit card, then we had enough in what we had saved to pay out the remainder on the CC. With plenty of time to spare in the interest free period... DH had to ring the bank and tell them we had made a 'purchase' that we wanted on the no interest for a certain period. It was a 1 purchase only on interest free, so any other purchases made were charged interest.
well we are about to start building and i'm talking the money out of our build funds, we're having a smaller house. still 4 bed room but 1 square smaller to pay for IVF/ ICSI.
last time we put it on credit card for some of it and i sold my car and down graded, got about $ 3000 for this. we all have to make sacrifices.
the thing is no one can really tell you what the new medicare rebates will be and thats just annoying.
we will be adding it to the mortgage,those interest rates are lot smaller than our other option(personal loan)
Im at a private clinic after being at both public and private Id rather pay the astranomical amount and have a better experience although this means lots of debt and waiting time between cycles. Our credit card gets a good working out each time...:doh::doh:
last cycle (our first cycle) was on CC :rolleyes:
our next cycle when we commence (end of year) we will be paying cash...saving saving saving...there are 2 payment options one which is around the $4k mark which can be claimed through medicare and the other $1450 which is NOT claimable at all we paid $1450 last cycle and it was claimable back then
Has anyone paid for IVF in the last couple of weeks or last month with the new government laws etc....
Im wanting to know what is the current $ for IVF. Im going through QFG in Townsville.
Thanks
We are lining up for stim cycle #5. Last year was a little easier with the medicare rebate but still hard financially.
My clinic fees for this year are 1st stim $6,400 with out of pocket $1979.10 and subsequent cycles $6,400 with out of pocket $1,469.10. This does not include ICSI, blastocyst and other meds (Lucrin, Synarel etc). So we are out of pocket about $3K for our Jan cycle. Great way to start the year.
Basically we have extended our mortgage to cover these costs, but funds are running out.
Dont know if it helps, but i just did my first ivf and mine cost $9067 and get just under $1500 back from medicare - this was using an egg donor though so might not be a help to you . But well worth it because im not 5 weeks pg :) good luck with everything ladies
I've worked out we will be out of pocket $5950 - (but then we can claim that on tax..)
We will have to outlay about $13000, but get a whole bunch back, and that's with the new laws. We are also doing PGD - so out of the $5950, we are paying $2100 for PGD testing that doesn't receive ANY rebates of any kind. (city IVF in Brisbane)
We have downgraded our car to afford this, and if we need any more, we are lucky enough to have an investment property that we can access funds from.
Tammara
regarding the time you have to wait between cycles. After having a negative if I remember correctly you need to have one normal period then you can go back. I began ICSI in Jan 2008 I had 6 attempts all in 2008 the last one being successful finding out I was pregnant on Dec 4 2008. We went back as soon as we could as had 6 attempts all up in 2008.
As for finances - we got a loan for our first cycle, then I would get the medicare rebate back. They kept putting up the price and we ended up also having to loan money off my parents & sister. We are now in the process of saving for a FET next year.