I know I've spoken pretty freely about the infertility insurance we were blessed with through my husbands employer. Were. Past tense, he ended his position with them last Friday and began a new position with a new company today. One of the biggest worries I had with him changing jobs was how that would impact our family building plans. With our previous policy we were VERY blessed to have 'full' coverage for 6 iui's and 3 ART courses of treatment (3 fresh or frozen IVF cycles). We live in a state that does not have mandatory coverage laws when it comes to infertility, so it was a huge blessing that Hub's company was based in a state (IL) that did have such mandates. It was a pretty big surprise to find out that our new policy would also have a bit of coverage. Though it isn't as impressive as the last package, it is something-- and money that we will not have to come up with when we are ready for an FET. Thank goodness!
In an effort to keep some info from our infertility treatment days without searching through EOBs, I took a little time today on our old insurance company's website to make a list of what we've spent on infertility and also a list of what was billed- since our new policy is a dollar amount instead of a # of cycles.
I kind of wanted to throw up when I saw that number. I talked to my mom last week and kind of off the cuff said without our coverage we probably would have spent about $40k on treatments so far. When I said that it seemed like a big number that was probably inaccurate. Guess who was painfully close to correct?
$42,620 for consults, testing, six IUIs and two fresh IVF cycles.
Oh my gosh. What would we have done if we didn't have that coverage? Found a way I suppose, but I am even more thankful now than I was then. To paint the whole picture, we only paid about 12.5% of that out of pocket-- most of which was co-payments.
Insane. It is heartbreaking to me that there are so many couples who are unable to do all that we've done because they don't have the insurance coverage we had and the money just isn't there to afford trying for the baby/babies they long for.
6 comments:
Adam and I are were lucky enough to have coverage on our medications. When we heard $15K we thought wow, that's a lot. Turns out we are at $14,500 of the 15 and we are out of pocket close to $30K. I hope that soon IVF will be available to all!
Girl, I hear ya. The timing of our IVF couldn't have been better -- getting pregnant with twins on my husband's company's insurance plan which covered 90% of IVF and 100% of the birth. And then he was laid off when they were 2 months old. We are now on my company's insurance PPO, which is very good, but has ZERO infertility coverage. We aren't planning on having more kids so I'm not going to stress about that 0 coverage. I do have 4 frosties I'm not sure what to do with though... and what do people do without coverage? My best friend just cashed in her 401k and now she's pregnant with 1, so it was money well spent. Her husband has a military pension so having to use up her 401k wasn't as difficult as it could have been.
First off, thank you so much for your incredibly kind and thoughtful words this morning. Seriously they meant more then you can know and gave me encouragement when I so needed it! Thank you!!
Next, wow you are SO lucky you guys had coverage previously and have some now! We've never had coverage and have had to pay for everything out of pocket, it sucks!!!
Our insurance covers NOTHING and we will be starting IVF in the next few months (God willing). Insurance can kiss my ass. "not medically necessary". Jerks
Our insurance covered very little....we did a total of 6 IUI's, 2 IVF retrievals, 1 Fresh transfer, and one frozen transfer (our miracle one!). We itemized our taxes in 2011 and we spent $29K in 2011. In 2010 we spend about $10K. Fortunately for us, our insurance was great for everything EXCEPT infertility....so those 3 times I had to go to the ER for OHSS - all covered. And once I got pregnant, I had several complications (including a hospital stay) and it was covered 100% too. It was really expensive but worth every penny!!
It is too bad that everyone doesn't have full coverage. My insurance was decent but definitely didn't cover our 5 IVF cycles. We jokingly refer to our babies as "million dollar babies" at times.
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