IVF Girls

lmydogally

When did you pay for your IVF?  Did you pay when you went in for your cycle day 3 ultra sound and stuff?

  I'm having the strangest experience with the financial coordinator with my RE's office.  I have, no joke, been emailing her every other week for the past two months asking if we were approved by our insurance and if so what is our cost.

  She never emails me back. 

I finally called my insurance and they said they had never received any request from my RE's office for approval.  So I called her and only after I explained this to the girl at the desk did she actually answer the phone when they transferred me.  She said she did submit the approval and it came back that no approval was necessary that it's covered 50%.  All the paper work I have from our insurance states that we must have approval for IVF. 

 So then (this is a month ago) she says she is sending me an email right now that states our out of pocket.  Yet, she never sent it.  So I wait until this week, send her ANOTHER email and nothing.  It's like she hates me and won't get back to me on purpose.

 I have a pretty good idea what our cost is but I feel like there are lose ends that have to be tied up before I start stims next week. 

I keep thinking that I am worried for nothing but my god if we can't start because she messed something up, it's  a huge problem.  I have cleared this month to not travel for work and I can't just move this because someone didn't follow thru.

Put my mind at ease and tell me I just pay next week and I'm worried for nothing.

 

 

 

cmyrck

I think if I were in your shoes I'd call your insurance back and confirm whether or not they've received what they need in order to preauthorize your treatment (and document everything).   Basically, if they insurance has what it needs (pre-approval or whatever) then you're probably fine if the financial office of your RE doesn't have its act fully together.  On the other hand, if your preauthorizations or whatever steps haven't been handled, that's where you can end up with a problem and your insurance can refuse to cover, etc.  So that's where I'd put my energy if I were you.  I don't know how your RE's office was set up, but I have a nurse assigned to me, and I can go to her directly with any questions; if I were dealing with this issue, I'd let her know too so she could escalate it in-house.

For us, we had to do a deposit at the very beginning of the cycle; the day of the baseline tests.  We also had a nurse assigned to us by the insurance company that serves as a first point of contact for any questions, financial, medical or whatever.  We had to pre-register with the insurance's infertility program before we initially met with the RE.

Hope that helps!

lmydogally

Thanks, girl.  I just called my insurance and they confirmed that they must have told the office no pre auth needed. 

Ok, now to find something else to worry about. LoL

Desneige

I would spend a few minutes clarifying your pharmaceutical coverage with the insurance coverage.  With our insurance Class 4 drugs (follistim is one) are only covered at 25%, up until a $2500 maximum per calender year.  This was a HUGE shock for us, after being told we were covered for IVF.  Our first IVF cycle cost $1500 for our 25% copay-we were expecting a copay, but in the hundreds-not the thousands.  Not trying to worry you-just to help you think of things that would be helpful to think about.  I know I didn't even think to think about this!  Good luck!

lmydogally

Oh my drugs have already been paid for and sitting my frig.  we only had to pay 20% and it's AWESOME.  Our Pharm stuff was a separate approval process.