How to Choose a Fertility Clinic

Choosing the best fertility clinic is a very personal and subjective decision especially if you are looking for one in Orange County, California. A clinic that is best for your friend may or may not be the best choice for you as well. While it’s good to ask your doctor, friends, local support groups, and insurance provider for recommendations, it is important that you also do your own research on your options.

When researching fertility clinics, you can get information:

• On their websites.
• On the statistics report page on the CDC’s website.
• By talking to a representative of the clinic.
• By talking to present or previous patients (which can be found through local support groups).
• On the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology’s website.
• By scheduling a consultation and speaking with the infertility doctors personally.

Considering the Fertility Experts

A fertility clinic can only be as good or bad as its infertility doctors. Based on how the clinic works, you can be assigned a single doctor or see different doctors on a rotating basis. While both setups have their advantages and disadvantages, you will want one infertility doctor as your primary contact and case manager.

Questions you need to consider when selecting infertility doctors include:

Where and when did they receive training? Are the doctors board-certified reproductive endocrinologists? Are they members of the ASRM (American Society for Reproductive Medicine).

Do they entertain questions? Can you ask them questions via email during fertility testing and treatment? If the doctors don’t want to meet with you before you become their patient, they may have no time for you when you finally choose them. Unwillingness to answer your questions in advance is a big red flag.

Which hospitals do they work with? Does that hospital accept your type of insurance? Even if your insurance does not cover fertility treatment, you would want the insurance coverage if you need hospitalization due to treatment complications.

How long has the director been working with the fertility clinic? What about the other members of the staff? Because, the longer people have been with the clinic, the better the working environment may be.

How many reproductive endocrinologists does the clinic have? Who is going to handle your case, is it one infertility doctor or a team of doctors and fertility specialists? Who will you meet with on your hospital visits? If you have a complicated case, having a team of experts can be very helpful. However, needing to see several doctors at each appointment can feel overwhelming and impersonal.

Questions to Ask About Financing Fertility Testing and Treatment

A lot of fertility clinics in Orange County as well as in California have in-house staff who handle the financial aspects of fertility testing and treatment. They will answer any questions you have about payment plans and fees. You need to sit down with them and discuss the available options on your first clinic visit.

While it might feel a bit odd to be considering the cost when researching clinics, it is very important to consider the fee. Some fertility treatments can cost a fortune. As a result, a less costly clinic offering all the things you need may be preferable to the excessively fancy clinic offering more than you actually need, especially if you cannot afford as many cycles at the costly clinic.

Questions to consider regarding financing are:

What insurance does the clinic accept? Is it the staff who handle the Insurance claims? If the answer is no, will they give you the necessary paperwork to get insurance coverage by yourself?

What are the costs of various tests and treatments? Does your insurance cover any of them? And what do the quoted prices include exactly? For instance, when you get a quotation of the IVF cost in California or anywhere else, does that include fertility medications and monitoring? What about embryo storage? If not, what will be the total cost?

Does the clinic have a payment program? Will you need to pay something upfront? If yes, how much? What do you pay if your IVF cycle gets canceled prior to egg retrieval procedure? What if the cycle is canceled before embryo transfer?

Does the fertility clinic you are looking for in Orange County or Irvine recommend or offer any financial programs? Do they work with any infertility financing programs? Will the infertility doctors or members of the staff get financial incentives or kickbacks when you register with a particular fertility financing program? If the answer is yes, you need to be sure that the program is actually the best option for you.

What is the cost of embryo freezing and storage? How much does a frozen embryo transfer (FET) cycle cost?

If you live far away from the clinic, do you get discounted options for lodging? Perhaps, check to see if the clinic offers deals with nearby hotels?

Questions to Consider About Procedures the Laboratory

Questions to discuss with the infertility specialists & doctors are:

What is the age cutoff for treatment, if there is any?

Is there a cutoff for FSH levels?

Where will the tests and procedures take place?

Does the fertility clinic located in California have an in-house laboratory, or will you have to go somewhere else? If yes, how close is the place to the clinic?

What procedures can be done at this clinic?

• Do they perform: ICSI? IVF? Embryo transfer or other reproductive technology options? Are these procedures carried out at the clinic or somewhere else? If it is taking place at a hospital, what’s the name of that hospital? In case your place is too far from the clinic, can you perform some tests and procedures somewhere closer to your house?

What surrogacy or donor options are available at the clinic?

• Do they have a donor program, or you need to use an agency? If they run a donor program, do you have to use donors from the program, or are you free to use an agency if you like? Does the clinic render embryo donation services? What if you want to give out some of your unused embryos, either to an intended couple or medical science? Moreover, can the clinic help you with that?

What procedures are they suggesting for your case?

• Are they going to consider ovarian stimulation medications alone, or intrauterine insemination (IUI) before proceeding to IVF? If yes, how many IUI cycles will they agree to try? The treatment options recommended by different fertility clinics in California may be different, and only one may be the best for you.

How many embryos are transferred in a cycle?

• Who determines the number of embryos to be transferred: the patient or the doctor? It is recommended that young women with a good prognosis have one embryo transferred per cycle (at most, two). Also, who chooses whether or not a cycle gets canceled if the response is not as hoped? Can you ask that the cycle goes on anyway, even if there is a low chance of success?

Who chooses whether or not a cycle gets canceled if the response is not as hoped?

• Can you ask that the cycle goes on anyway, even if there is a low chance of success?

Does the clinic belong to the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology (SART)?

• Do they comply with the guidelines stipulated by the ASRM?

Do their laboratory has accreditation from the Joint Commission or the College of American Pathologists?

• For this purpose, you can visit the website of the College of American Pathologists to confirm accreditation, searching with the zip code of the fertility clinic in Orange County, California you are researching.

Does the laboratory perform cryopreservation of embryos?

• What about sperm and eggs? Where are the eggs, sperm, or embryos stored? Moreover, what emergency procedures does the clinic have if there’s an earthquake or a power outage?

Considering Success Rates

The clinic’s success rate is another key factor you need to consider. As mentioned earlier, you can check the IVF success rates of a clinic on the CDC/SART websites. However, you need to know that having the highest IVF success rates in California or in the whole country does not always mean that the fertility clinic is the best. Many clinics don’t handle serious infertility cases or refuse to treat women older than 40 who intend to use their own eggs. Surely, this can skew the statistics in their favor.

What you need to be checking is:

• Are the IVF success rates of the clinic higher than the national average? 
• You need to check the live birth stats for your age (not the pregnancy statistics, which include miscarriages). 
• You need to compare the clinic’s multiple pregnancy statistics to the national average.

If you are not pursuing IVF, look at the live birth rates particular to the treatments being recommended and particular to your situation. (Note that only IVF success rates are submitted to the CDC and SART, so you will have to ask the infertility doctors the success rates of other treatments). Your doctor should be experienced enough to help you decide if the fertility treatments are worth your while. You should walk away from any clinic that promises you success in just a single cycle. No matter the severity or cause of your infertility, there is no 100 percent guarantee that IVF will work.

Finding a fertility clinic that will best fit your individual needs is a very important step in your parenthood journey. At Coastal Fertility, located in Orange County & Irvine – California, we’re not just a fertility clinic, we’re family. We are here to support your parenthood dreams while providing the best care and resources. If you have any questions about what your family building options are or would like to discuss your fertility treatment options with our medical professionals, please schedule a consultation or visit us at CoastalFertility.com to get more info.