The cost of fertility treatments can be eye-popping for people struggling to have a baby. But one Colorado doctor started a low-cost, high-volume clinic, hoping to give more people the ability to have a family.
“My philosophy was, how do we give access ?” said Dr. Paul Magarelli at High Quality Affordable Fertility Centers in Colorado Springs. He’s on a mission to bring down the price of IVF.
“When I turned 60 I sort of looked at my life,” Dr. Magarelli said. “For me to be able to help create a family, and have more people have access to it, that’s important,” he said.
The price of IVF varies widely and is generally not fully covered by insurance. According to fertilityiq.com, the average cost of one cycle is about $23,000. Dr. Magarelli has dropped his price to $7,700, plus the cost of medication, and he hopes other clinics will follow.
With the change, his clinic went from doing 8 IVF cycles per month, to doing 55. “Within 6 months we grew 600 percent as a company, and so that convinced me it could work,” he said.
Dr. Magarelli believes the IVF process is pretty standard now, and there is no need to pay more. But other fertility doctors disagree, and say there can be big differences between clinics and labs.
“I would say IVF isn’t the same everywhere,” said Dr. William Schoolcraft with the Colorado Center for Reproductive Medicine.
He says patients need to do their research. “The outcomes, the price, and really the quality behind the lab, I would say is far from standardized. I would take great exception to that,” he said.
CCRM charges about $16,000 per IVF cycle, plus the cost of medication and other testing.
People like Julie and Tony Gittens were glad to find a lower priced option with Dr. Magarelli and HQA. “At least we were able to give it a try.” Tony said.
After two IVF cycles, they got the baby they always wanted. Little Jamie is now 18 months old, and his parents couldn’t be happier.
“It was just something that we really wanted,” Julie said. The lower price made that possible.
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