Women frequently question if their insurance will cover the cost of freezing their eggs. The quick answer is that it is debatable. However, before we look into whether egg freezing also known as oocyte cryopreservation is covered by insurance, let’s take a look at why women opt to do it and what it entails.
Why Freeze Your Eggs?
Women today frequently have to choose between pursuing a profession and starting a family. Society has struggled to recognize these two pursuits as mutually beneficial without one “losing out.” More women are deferring having children in order to focus on their professions.
According to a recent study1, more women are freezing their eggs to prevent choosing the incorrect spouse and to give themselves more time to choose wisely. Women felt more secure in their capacity to have children later in life, according to the same study.
Some women decide for egg freezing in their 20s and early 30s to retain the chance of having children later on, when conception may be more difficult. This allows individuals to start a family in their late 30s or even early 40s, albeit there are significant hazards involved.
How Does it Work?
The technology was originally successfully presented in 1986 by Christopher Chen2, an Australian biologist who was the first to accomplish a successful live birth from egg freezing. It was only recently withdrawn off the market “procedure category “experimental” The procedure entails harvesting, freezing, and storing a woman’s eggs until she is ready to conceive.
Of fact, it’s a lot more difficult than that, and there’s no assurance that this will result in a healthy baby. However, as technology advances, the likelihood of success increases, making this a more plausible alternative.
“Unfertilized eggs retrieved from your ovaries are frozen and kept for later use. In vitro fertilization is when a frozen egg is thawed, mixed with sperm in a lab, and put in your uterus.
How Much Does it Cost?
Treatment and storage costs can range from $30,000 to $40,000, according to Fertility IQ4. This includes retrieval, prescription, and storage costs, and it assumes two treatment cycles (the average is 2.1). Women’s prices rise as they get older; (older women will pay more for more cycles and typically harvest few eggs).
The cost of a cycle varies by area, but the national average is roughly $15,991. Many women prefer to have two cycles of eggs harvested and frozen in order to boost their chances of success.
According to Extend Fertility, a clinic dedicated to educating and counseling women about fertility, storing eggs at a younger age can cut the overall cost of a live baby by over $15,000 when compared to typical fertility procedures at an older age.
Does health insurance cover the costs?
In 16 states, insurance companies are required to cover or give coverage for fertility therapy. Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Montana, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Rhode Island, Texas, and West Virginia are among the states in question. If you live in one of these states, insurance may be able to assist pay for coverage; however, depending on your plan, you may still be subject to deductibles and out-of-pocket payments.
Even if you don’t live in one of these states, your health insurance may cover some of your medical expenses, such as blood tests or ultrasounds. It’s a good idea to go over the fine print of your health insurance policy so you know exactly what to expect.
Some companies5, including a few in the technology industry, underwrite the costs of reproductive procedures and egg freezing. These perks are provided in order to attract and retain outstanding female talent.
Are there other ways to pay?
Fertility clinics are working hard to drive down costs or assist people discover other ways to pay for services as the practice becomes more popular. However, if insurance does not pay, the most typical payment method is for individuals to pay out of pocket. Financing may also be an option for some.
Next Steps
In the end, more and more women may choose egg freezing as a way to extend their lives and pursue a job while still in their twenties and thirties before starting a family. Instead of listening to their “biological alarm clock,” as the baby-urge is commonly referred to, they will spend more time picking a spouse. With the new finding that storing eggs at a younger age can reduce costs, more women may opt to undergo this process to assure that they have children in the future.
If health insurance isn’t going to cover it, getting a job makes the option of freezing eggs more affordable. It can help those who are in their late 30s or early 40s have a better chance of starting a family. It’s also more appealing to have a prosperous spouse to help pay for the costs of waiting.
Whatever a woman chooses, it’s comforting to know that she has options – that some states, and even some employers, are on her side.
Will insurance cover freezing my eggs?
Egg freezing can be an excellent choice if you want to postpone conception and plan to have children in your 40s or later. However, the procedure’s exorbitant cost may cause you to reconsider. Is egg freezing covered by insurance?
Although most infertility diagnostic and treatment costs are covered by health insurance, procedures such as egg freezing are rarely covered. This is because insurance companies consider egg freezing to be an optional procedure.
Let’s have a look at the price of egg freezing to see if it’s worthwhile.
Which insurance company covers egg freezing?
Blue Cross and Red Crescent Societies Blue Shield is one of the major insurance companies in the United States, and their customers are currently covered for egg freezing.
How much does it cost to freeze your eggs without insurance?
The cost of treatment and storage for egg freezing patients ranges from $30,000 to $40,000. This is determined by two key factors: the cost of each cycle, which ranges from $15,000 to $20,000, and the number of cycles each woman has (on average, 2.1).
The expense of medical treatment, medicine, and the cost of storing your frozen eggs are all essential line items on a per-cycle basis. Each varies depending on the clinic and the patient.
What is the average cost of freezing eggs?
The expense of freezing eggs is high: Experts estimate that a single cycle can cost anywhere from $6,000 to $20,000. This does not include the annual storage fees of $500 to $600. Even at such a hefty expense, however, there is no assurance of success: The success rate of egg freezing remains low.
What is the best age to freeze your eggs?
Fertility preservation is becoming more popular as more couples try to conceive at an older age. Women are increasingly opting to freeze and keep their eggs because it is well known that when eggs are retrieved from an older woman, the chances of a live birth are considerably reduced.
We’ve answered some of the most common questions we get about preserving eggs for a later pregnancy to help you determine if it’s appropriate for you.
What is the best age to freeze eggs?
Fertility begins to drop at the age of thirty and is drastically reduced by the age of forty.
As a result, the best time to freeze your eggs is when you’re in your late twenties. However, freezing eggs at a temperature of thirty to thirty-five degrees Fahrenheit is also extremely usual.
Is it possible to freeze my eggs if I’m aged 40 and over?
Yes, however because the quantity of eggs produced by the body is decreasing, the number of eggs that can be harvested and frozen will be limited. Eggs frozen after the age of 35 have a decreased pregnancy rate, hence it is often recommended to freeze eggs much sooner. Using donated eggs from a younger woman is frequently recommended for women over forty who want to delay their fertility.
What is the egg freezing procedure?
1. You must have blood tests for infection (hepatitis, syphilis, and HIV/AIDS) before freezing your eggs.
2. You get injections to help your ovaries produce more eggs.
3. Your eggs are then harvested and frozen during a procedure that requires a general anaesthesia.
4. When you’re ready to start trying for a baby, your eggs are frozen and fertilized by injecting sperm into the egg (ICSI).
What is the egg freezing success rate?
Because this is a new procedure, success percentages are difficult to predict. If the woman’s eggs were harvested before the age of thirty, the chances of success were higher.
How many eggs can be frozen?
The quantity of eggs that can be kept is determined by the woman’s age. 6 out of 8 eggs will survive the freezing and thawing process in general. The chances of a live birth from these 6 eggs range from 32 percent to 18 percent, depending on the woman’s age at the time she freezes her eggs.
As a result, roughly 30-40 eggs must be preserved in order for a woman to have a decent chance of having a live birth. To keep 30-40 eggs, a woman will need to go through at least two to five treatment cycles to guarantee that she has enough mature eggs. The presence of a large number of eggs in storage does not guarantee a live birth.
Does freezing my eggs guarantee a live birth?
No, there are additional things to consider when trying to conceive, such as the number of eggs stored, health, and age.
What is the cost of freezing eggs?
Elective egg freezing is costly because Medicare does not reimburse expenditures in the same manner that Medicare reimburses some IVF cycle costs when a couple is infertile. Because there is no Medicare rebate, the medications required to encourage the development of the eggs are not reimbursed, and private health insurance rebates for admission to the hospital for egg retrieval are not covered.
Elective egg freezing, on the other hand, costs around $10,000 each cycle. In addition, there are annual storage costs of around $400 per year until the eggs are to be used.
If you’ve been together for a long time but aren’t ready to start a family, you can freeze embryos, which have a greater success rate.
Is egg freezing worth it?
To calculate the cost-per-percentage-point, we divided the total expected cost of two rounds of egg freezing plus the requisite years of storage by a woman’s % chance of having a baby in the future.
As shown in the graph below, freezing eggs sooner rather than later increases a woman’s chances of having a child later in life. However, you’ll get the most bang for your buck if you use those eggs to try to conceive after your natural fertility has drastically reduced.
Can I buy insurance to cover IVF?
California, unlike some other states in the US, does not require your health insurer to cover in vitro fertilization. While this is disheartening, there are health insurance plans in California that cover IVF fees on a voluntary basis. Employers who want to provide additional perks to their employees, on the other hand, pay for these advantages. As a result, in California, IVF health insurance is only offered through employer-sponsored health insurance plans and cannot be purchased through individual health insurance.
Individual Health Plan Coverage
So far, we are not aware of any individual health plans available on the ACA marketplace in California that cover in-vitro fertilization. This is unsurprising, given that coverage of in vitro fertilization would raise the cost of health insurance. Advanced fertility services are rarely covered by low-cost health insurance. While only a small percentage of members with fertility issues would be affected, the bulk of other insured members will benefit from cheaper monthly costs. If you live in California, your sole option for obtaining individual coverage for in vitro fertilization is to relocate to a state where fertility services are required to be covered by all insurance policies. Another option is to show that IVF is medically essential, such as in the case of a serious genetic disease. In most cases, low sperm count or obstructed fallopian tubes will disqualify you from those exclusions. One of our patients, a fragile X carrier, was able to convince the California Department of Insurance that advanced fertility procedures, including implantation genetic diagnosis, were medically necessary, forcing the insurance company to pay for them.
Employer sponsored health coverage
The ideal circumstance is to work for a company that offers these perks. Only affluent California firms, such as Google, Apple, Facebook, Tesla, and Warner Bros., are thought to provide health insurance with IVF coverage in California. Not everyone will be able to find work with those businesses. Corporations like Starbucks, on the other hand, may provide fertility coverage to their employees, and acquiring a job there may be easier than at the other companies mentioned. Benefits may be restricted to a higher-level employee group in some circumstances, but each organization sets its own policies. Prior to starting work, phone the HR department to confirm your position’s health insurance benefits.
Kaiser insurance will be available to a large number of Californians. Kaiser Permanente is used by several companies to provide health insurance to its employees. Unfortunately, Kaiser insurance plans purchased on an individual basis do not include fertility coverage; however, many members with employer-sponsored plans do. We’ve created a particular page to Kaiser Permanente members’ fertility coverage due to the significant number of Kaiser Permanente members in California.
Plan rules for IVF coverage
Even if your health insurance supports in vitro fertilization, there are frequently conditions that must be met before treatment can begin. In most circumstances, you’ll need to go through numerous rounds of intrauterine inseminations before you can use your IVF coverage (typically between 3-6). However, if your sperm quality is low or your fallopian tubes are blocked, you may be able to proceed to in vitro fertilization right away. Some insurance companies will recognize advanced reproductive age as a reason for IVF treatment right away.
How can I get insurance to cover IVF?
If your organization doesn’t already provide them, this may appear to be a risky step. Some employers, on the other hand, follow the advise of their insurance brokers and are unaware that they can ask brokers to include coverage for reproductive therapy. They might request that their broker:
- Employees can choose between two health plans. One provides IVF benefits, while the other does not.
- The more employees that contact their Human Resource Departments, the better companies will understand that the scope of coverage supplied should not be limited.
- Employers want to stay competitive, so they want to know which businesses provide coverage and what types of benefits they provide.
- Employers are either self-insured (benefits are managed by insurance companies, but the employer pays the claims) or fully insured (benefits are managed by insurance companies, but the employer pays the claims) (insurance companies manage benefits and pay the claims). When self-insured businesses learn about the cost reductions associated with providing benefits, they are driven to give IVF coverage.
Patients tend to transfer fewer embryos in an IVF round when the infertility benefits are plausible. A singleton pregnancy (from conception to birth) is predicted to cost $21,458, while twins cost $104,831 and triplets cost $407,199. In addition, there are cost reductions in mental health benefits. When companies learn that this could affect one out of every six employees, they take it more seriously.
Is freezing your eggs painful?
All patients will be sedated for around 20 minutes, resulting in a painless procedure. Patients may feel sore, achy, and cramping when they first wake up. Most people recover in a few days, while some may take up to a week.
Should I freeze my eggs at 25?
“When should I think about freezing eggs?” Between the ages of 25 and 35 is the optimal time to consider egg freezing. Even if you use your eggs when you’re 40, the eggs you freeze when you’re 25 will still be 25 years old.