Most commercial insurance plans now include IVF as part of a New York State fertility insurance obligation. Furthermore, all such insurance plans must include coverage for medically essential fertility preservation, such as egg freezing. GENESIS is dedicated to informing people who are experiencing infertility about how these laws can make treatment more accessible. The following are some of the most frequently asked questions about the mandate.
Are there any age restrictions for coverage?
There is no age restriction in the law. GENESIS Fertility’s experts can help you figure out if you’re a good candidate for IVF.
Is egg freezing covered by the new law?
Both yes and no. All insurance plans must cover medically essential fertility preservation, which includes egg freezing, under the new rule. This is especially beneficial to women undergoing life-saving cancer therapies such as surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy. The mandate does not, however, include egg freezing as an option.
Does the new law cover single women and female couples?
Discrimination based on marital status, age, sexual orientation, or gender identity is prohibited under the bill’s anti-discrimination provision. As a result, lesbians and single women are covered.
Do insurance companies pay for egg freezing?
Although most health insurance policies do not cover egg freezing, some do if it is done for medical reasons. The federal Access to Infertility Treatment and Care Act filed a bill in May 2018 to require fertility preservation insurance coverage. The bill aims to help people who are undergoing fertility preservation operations like egg freezing as a result of medically essential procedures like cancer treatment.
Moreover, some aspects of the procedure, like as a physician consultation, ultrasounds, bloodwork, and ovarian reserve tests, may be reimbursed by a variety of insurance providers.
In the United States, only 16 states compel insurance companies to cover infertility diagnosis and treatment. You might be surprised to learn that leading corporations like Google, Facebook, and Apple provide egg freezing to their employees as a workplace benefit.
It is recommended that you study your insurance policy or contact your insurance carrier to have the coverage explained to you.
Is Egg Freezing Worth the Cost?
According to a Yale Medicine study, egg freezing only increases your chances of having a baby by 3-5 percent. Doctors, on the other hand, frequently collect numerous eggs, increasing the chances of a late pregnancy.
Women who are thinking of freezing their eggs should take their time. Choose this surgery after a long discussion with your doctor and without any pressure.
You should also think about your reproductive goals, your health, and the total expenditures. The woman’s age and overall health play a role in her success. The older you get, the less likely you are to become pregnant with a frozen egg.
Alternatives to Pay for Egg Freezing
Is egg freezing covered by your insurance? If that isn’t the case, don’t give up! Other funding alternatives are available to you.
Consult your financial counselor to see if there are any other options. Many fertility clinics also offer egg freezing as a payment alternative. You can also use crowdsourcing and borrow from a friend or family member.
To summarize, egg freezing is a viable option if your health objectives and money allow it.
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.
Does Blue Cross Blue Shield MA cover egg freezing?
During a covered cycle of IVF, egg cryopreservation will be covered for members who have surplus (supernumerary) eggs that cannot be fertilized (i.e. no sperm can be produced on the day of egg retrieval or there are too few sperm for the number of eggs retrieved on the day of egg retrieval).
Is IVF covered by insurance?
Most health plans consider maternity and newborn care to be essential benefits, while infertility treatment is frequently not. Some insurance plans cover in vitro fertilization (IVF), but not the injections that women may also need. Other plans cover both. Some plans only cover a limited number of treatments. Furthermore, some insurance plans do not cover IVF at all.
How many eggs does a woman have at 35?
Of course, women vary greatly; some are tragically diagnosed with primary ovarian inefficiency (POI, also known as premature ovarian failure), which occurs when a woman runs out of eggs in her 20s or 30s, while others are blessed with an incredibly high ovarian reserve well into their thirties and forties.
Of course, we’re talking about averages and estimations when it comes to how many eggs a woman has in her 30s. Because ovarian reserve drops dramatically in the late thirties, women in their early thirties are generally better off than those in their late thirties. A lady in her 30s, for example, may have 100,000-150,000 eggs in reserve. That number is anticipated to be about 80,000 by the age of 35. That number might be as low as 25,000, 10,000, or even less in the late 1930s.
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.
How do people afford to freeze their eggs?
As a strategy to protect their fertility, an increasing number of women are opting to freeze their eggs. If you’ve looked into egg freezing, you’re probably aware that it’s not cheap. There’s a lot of information regarding the egg freezing procedure there, but not so much about how to pay for it.
Egg Freezing: How Much Does It Cost?
One of the queries you could have is, “How much does it cost to freeze your eggs?” The first phase of egg freezing, collecting and freezing your eggs, costs between $5,000 and $10,000 on average. However, there are extra expenditures such as medications (which stimulate your body to produce several eggs in a single cycle), storage (which keeps the eggs frozen), and in vitro fertilization (IVF) if you need to use your eggs to try to get pregnant later.
The overall expense of freezing your eggs and eventually using them to conceive can be well over $50,000. The cost will vary depending on your location, the number of rounds required to recover enough eggs, the number of years of storage, hormone expenditures, and whether you decide to proceed with IVF afterwards.
*If you are able to become pregnant naturally later, you may not need to use your frozen eggs for IVF.
Ways To Save On Egg Freezing
Take a look at your employee perks. Some employers cover the cost of egg freezing in part or in full.
Check with your health-care provider. Some health insurance policies cover costs associated with infertility, such as egg freezing.
Make a comparison. Even on the same street, clinic prices can vary greatly. You can even haggle on occasion!
Make many phone calls to different pharmacies. As previously stated, the hormones required for egg freezing might be costly. Varying pharmacies will have different pricing, so shop around and look into online pharmacies as well!
Donate some of your eggs to the cause. A special program at some clinics and egg cryobanks allows you to donate some of your eggs to a lady in need. In exchange, you can get a discount on services.
Ways to Get The Funds You Need For Egg Freezing
- Save! Examine your pay stub to see how much you can set aside each month for your egg freezing expenses. An auto-deduction might assist you in maintaining your savings discipline. You Need a Budget (YNAB) and Digit are two apps that can help you understand your budget and save automatically.
- Look into getting a loan. Some lending companies offer loans to people who are facing substantial medical bills, such as fertility-related bills. Keep an eye on the interest rates and costs.
- Use a credit card with a rewards program. Most fertility clinics accept credit cards because they recognize that some people cannot afford to pay in full up front. This can be a fantastic strategy to get a new credit card’s sign-up bonus. Points, cash back, or frequent flier miles can all be used as sign-up bonuses.
- Use CareCredit or another card with a 0% APR. Credit cards like CareCredit might offer 0% APR financing for a limited time, which can help you with the upfront costs of egg freezing. However, keep an eye on interest rates after the promotional period has ended, as they may jump drastically. If at all possible, pay off the bill during the 0% APR term.
- Consider enlisting the help of family and friends. Sites like GoFundMe and Indiegogo are excellent resources for sharing your story and soliciting donations from friends and family to help defray expenditures.
What is the best age to freeze your eggs?
Fertility preservation is becoming more popular as more couples try to conceive at a later 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.
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.
How do you pay for IVF?
Here are some of the finest ways to pay for IVF treatments if you need them.
- A loan from a fertility professional. Who it’s best for: Those looking for a lender who works closely with their reproductive clinic.