We spent about 20K on medications alone.  YES- twenty thousand! Insurances don’t cover much of anything when it comes to fertility treatment (unless you’re lucky enough to live in a state where its mandated.)  I was in COMPLETE shock when I found out the cost of medications.  A vile of medication cost over $1,000 and would be used 3 times! I knew the process of IVF was expensive but didn’t know how expensive the medications were!  Any bit of financial assistance is helpful so here’s an overview of the meds and ways to save money on fertility medications.

Types of medications you take:

1. Follicle stimulating medication: causes your body to stimulate multiple egg growth during the cycle: follistum, gonal, menopure
2. Ganirelix or Cetritide: prevents your body from ovulating before egg retrieval
3. HCG: used during your stimulation for egg growth and as a trigger before egg retrieval
4. Estrogen pills: used after egg retrieval to thicken and maintain the uterine lining
5. Progesterone injections: used to thicken and maintain the uterine lining

 

 

These are the few ways to save money on fertility medications:

1. Compassionate Care Program
2. ReUnite Program

Compassionate care is the program from Serono, the manufacturers for Gonal and Cetritide.  They offer 25, 50, or 75% off these medications and is income based.  Visit: Compassionate Care

ReUnite is the program for Follistim and Ganirelix medications. They also offer percentages off depending on income.  Visit: ReUnite Program

Depending on which program offers a larger discount, your doctor can write the prescription for those medications.  Some pharmacies will also “discount match” the offers.  For example, I qualified for 25% with Compassionate Care, but the pharmacy in Chicago only carried the other brand of medications.  They said they would honor the 25% off.  All I had to do was verify my discount.

There are other medication coupons available but most require that your insurance covers a portion of the medication before you can use the coupon (which makes no sense to me!  A cash paying patient needs the savings more, in my opinion!)

 

Please visit these blog posts to see more in this Fertility series

Our Infertility Journey

Choosing an Infertility Doctor

Positivity During Fertility Treatment