How to Choose a Fertility Clinic

As an Intended Parent (or any fertility patient!) it can be overwhelming to select a fertility clinic. There are so many choices and it can be hard to know what to ask or consider. Here are five things to look at when researching clinics!

            Location

 Do you have a preference as to where your clinic is located?  Will you be the patient yourself for the retrieval of gametes?  If so, you may be attending a large number of appointments and you may want to seriously consider your convenience and proximity to the clinic.  Or will you be using a donor so their convenience is actually the more important factor?  As a side question, does the clinic have monitoring locations or agreements with other locations that might make it more convenient for you or your donor?

            Clinic size

 Everyone has personal feelings about what size of medical practice they like to interact with.  There is no right or wrong answer!  Do you prefer a small and intimate practice where there may only be one doctor and a very small staff so everyone knows you by name?  Or do you prefer a larger and more bustling feel?  You may not know everyone by name in that situation, but it might be easier to be seen for appointments as there could be more availability.  Each has pros and cons and it’s really up to each individual to decide how they feel.

            Does the clinic have experience with surrogacy?

 Not all do!  Or some handle so few cases per year that it feels somewhat like reinventing the wheel every time they start a new case.  While there is nothing wrong with using a clinic that is new to surrogacy or handles very few cases, it may just take a bit more prodding to figure out the process they want to use (and it’s a place where a great surrogacy agency will come in handy as they’ll know what questions to ask of the clinic to make sure things keep rolling!)

            Reputation or success rate

 Of course, this one is huge!  We all want the best chance of success.  Friends or family members are a great place to go to hear about a clinic’s reputation.  If you like hard data, there are two places (SART & the CDC ) to look for success rates.  Do bear in mind that these measure the success of all IVF, not just surrogacy, and surrogacy success rates tend to be higher.

            Cost

 Everyone hates to talk about money, and we know that it’s impossible to put a price on growing your family, but the truth is, cost does matter.  Be a good consumer and cost compare.  Clinics have wildly varying costs for procedures.  Also, ask if they can run anything through your insurance.  Not all are willing to do so, but some will.

 We know the decision as to what clinic to use can feel overwhelming, but hopefully with a few tools as to how to compare you’ll be well on your way to starting the process and growing your family.  Bright Futures Families is always here to help in any way as well.