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Infertility
tiffy68111
member
Looking for fertility doctor recommendations-Houston
tiffy68111
member
in Infertility
Does anyone have any recommendations for fertility specialists in the Houston/Sugar Land area?
Re: Looking for fertility doctor recommendations-Houston
If you're looking for an infertility specialist to start out with, however, I'm not sure if that clinic really does anything other than IVF and I'm not familiar with any other REs in the area. If you end up dealing with male infertility, Dr. Lipschultz at Baylor clinic is supposed to be the expert in the area. We went for an initial consultation at his office and liked him, but ended up going to Dr. Russel Williams instead since his surgical facilities charged $4k less for my husbands surgery.
Hopefully this helps and someone else can give you some info on REs in the area.
@Joyzie77 I know you're in Houston, any advice?
Unfortunately, I’ve had to become a patient of fertility clinics. As I do not know anyone going through this, I had to rely on the internet for information as well as trial and error. Hopefully, this review of my experiences will help someone else.
When it comes to medications, pay cash and don’t use your insurance. At the end of everything you can try to submit the bills to insurance for reimbursement. BCBS of Illinois outsourced to Freedom Pharmacy which charged them twice the price as cash for the meds. Consequently, my lifetime limit for fertility was maxed out. Despite multiple requests to both companies I never saw invoices for the charges and was only told when I was halfway through an induction cycle and had not yet paid for the retrieval. Freedom angered me on a second occasion when FedEx was experiencing a massive shipping delay and I needed the meds on a certain date- they did not seem to have a backup plan for incidents like these. I had to do the legwork for them and find a local pharmacy that carried the medication as customer service kept blowing me off. This was not an easy task considering I work 50h/week after hours these specialist pharmacies are closed. I was happy to find FastIVF- the meds are shipped from Europe but the cash prices are much better than Freedom. Another company called MDR is US based and have good rates too and fast shipping.
If you freeze your embryos/ eggs, you can transfer them to a different lab associated with another clinic but it may not be a good idea. As I understand it, each lab has its own process for thawing. If an outside specimen is not viable after a thaw, I don’t think the lab minds as it may not impact their success statistics.
Houston Fertility Specialists- This is the group I started off with based on a recommendation from my gyn and I was happy at first but as the unsuccessful procedures kept repeating I started to hear the cha-ching of the cash register every time I walked through their doors. I also noticed that they became very busy over the course of 2-3 years that I had appointments there. As of one year ago I was hearing that it was taking 6-8 weeks to get an appointment as a new patient; however, things may have changed since that time. I don’t know if they have a large turnover in staff or they had to hire additional new staff, but I was not impressed with their new staff. They appeared to be 22 year olds on the first job out of nursing school. When they go over your scan results, they can’t make eye contact and just sit there looking at their computer screen chomping on gum and twirling their hair. The patients know more about the process and what to do than these young girls. At one point I left the nursing line a message about rewriting my scripts for a smaller amount of med (larger amount =$$$$) since I did not need the excess for the treatment plan. I receive a message back saying to call the again and “we can explain to you how to use your medications…” I was slightly livid over that one. It’s very difficult to communicate with the nurses- everything is based on their convenience. You can’t call and talk to a human- you leave a message on the nurses’ line and wait the rest of the day for them to return your call. If you miss the call, they don’t call back and you have to call and leave a message all over again. When I started my first induction cycle I followed their instructions and called with the first day of my period. I did not hear back and tried to email but no response. I left a couple more messages over the next few days and I became nervous because the weekend was approaching. Finally on a Friday at 4pm someone called me back with my instructions.
I liked the physician I saw on a personal level but I felt that I was not given recommendations. We never obtained solid answers for our questions but understood that there are no certainties in this specialty. This fertility group is part of one of the largest ob gyn groups in Houston and I have been told that there are physicians in this group that are not happy. This made me feel like the physician was there simply to punch a timecard and counting down until retirement. I felt like there is a general protocol given to all patients without too much tweeking for the individual.
Other gripes- Medical records took 6 weeks to obtain. I have a credit of a several hundred dollars on my account as insurance reimbursed some procedures; however, they have not issued me a refund which they have acknowledged is due to me and they have had the money for almost 1 year (I have been trying to obtain the refund for the last 4 months with no success). They failed to advise me to pay for my meds in cash which caused me to max out my fertility benefits.
Center of Reproductive Medicine- When I was unhappy with HFS, my gyn gave me the name of a physician at this clinic but I was hesistant to switch because I felt I was already invested at the other clinic and I was concerned that the physician may be a little inexperienced. I wished I had seen this doctor earlier. I believe that this physician attended residency and fellowship programs that differ from many REs in Houston and brings a different approach because of that. I was given solid answers to questions and references to research and treatment plans seemed to be tailored to the patient. I stopped going to this clinic because my insurance changed and they were not in the new plan.
The office is smaller so it is easier to contact the nurse- no leaving messages and waiting all day for a call back. There were a couple things that slipped through the system which were annoying to rectify but in the end it was ok so I was not that bothered by them. Questions about billing were quickly resolved.
Houston IVF- I saw a physician at this clinic for a consultation and this person appeared to tailor protocols for the individual patient. The clinic has strong SART statistics and is affiliated with the Colorado Center for Reproductive Medicine which is a big name. At the time I thought the physician was a little condescending but I figured that is something I can tolerate if they can be successful for me. By the end of my cycle I saw all four physicians for my scans/procedures and I would feel comfortable seeing any of them. Patients belong to a particular physician but others help monitor the patient according to schedules.
The clinic says they routinely advise patients to buy meds in cash rather than use insurance. They have early morning appointments for lab draws/ ultrasound which make it a little easier that taking time off work to get these things done. There is an office at Memorial City as well as one in the Med Center- the multiple locations made it easier to have my US and labs performed. However, procedures are performed only at Memorial City. The Center is also open to the use of accupunture to supplement cycles and there is an accupuncturist who performs treatment pre and post retrievals.
Nursing was very easy to get a hold of with questions. I was thrown off almost every time with the nurse immediately picking up my call vs rolling into voicemail. I had no real issues with the billing office. I had a credit owed to me and it was given to me without much fuss. However, I felt like they would not have given it voluntarily had I not mentioned it first.
My only potential gripe was that their Memorial City office is very nice and shiny and occupies one of the entire top floors which made me concerned how much their prices are increased to cover their rent. Additionally, the Center requires all the patients to undergo a hysteroscopy which I felt was extraneous in my case because our problem was obviously my low ovarian reserve.
Good luck to everyone out there!