Non-city patients doing IVF

[calin]

Hi everyone,

I'm interested in hearing from anyone who lives in a regional area or country town and has to travel a long way to their IVF clinic. We're about to book in for our first cycle and live 5 hours from our clinic. Today I was told that unlike a city patient, my USs and BTs would not be included in my fee and I'd have to pay for them myself. I can't work out how this is fair - seems like it's favouring city patients or penalising country patients (whinge whinge, I know ). So I know this is a bit general, but I'd like to hear other people's experiences - do you drive/fly to appointments? How do you fit the travelling in around work? Does your clinic tailor things to you (ie, phone consults, mailing drugs)? Anything else I should know/consider? Thanks a lot ladies, I look forward to hearing from you.

[Pretty Butterfly]

My sister is a country girl doing IVF, not myself personally though.

She also goes 5 hrs away, to Sydney. Sydney IVF do have a consultant here, so it has made it a little easier.

She gets her medication sent to her, and the consultant keeps an eye on her. She did notice that all b/t and ultrasounds have to be paid for too though.
I guess if you live in the city they do them for you??

She can call and have a phone consult with her specialist, and this is also billed to her, around $100 per phone call, which I guess is the going rate for an actual visit?

She drives down and stays with family when she needs to. She gave up work once the time got closer though, so although money got hard, she could do anything she needed to at any time.

Sorry I couldn't help more.

My poor sis pays through the nose for each IVF attempt, not to mention the petrol, food and loss of DH's income for each visit.....

Good luck sweets...xoxoxo

[nic]

I only did the one IVF cycle, so not sure how much this will help you.
Our main clinic is about 1000klms away from us. They had a satelitte 'clinic' 2 hours away from us where we saw FS #1. FS#1 did our u/s (so we drove 2 hours to see him) and we also had to drive that distance to pick up my meds for and after IVF. When it came time for EPU and transfer, we drove to the main clinic.
I did have 3 months on synarel before we started our injections, so i did have plenty of time to research the area where the hospital was, places to stay, buses that ran to and from the hospital to accommodation nearby etc..

My FS#1, did NOT charge us for our appointments or ultrasounds, because he was the clinic's country contact. It was all a part of our 'fee', which i thought was fantastic. We travelled to another town for a couple of blood tests, which we didn't pay for either, well, apart from the fuel!

We are extremely fortunate that my DH has a fantastic roster where he works 11 days over a 3 week period, so he usually only had to take 3 days off to get a whole week off. When it was time for pick up, he had applied for time off, but the date was pushed back a week, so he just went to work and told them i was having a medical procedure and he had to change the dates of his 'holidays'

We could have flown for epu, back chose to drive, so we could have our car to get around, plus we didn't want to get there and find ourselves in a position where we had to stick around for another day or so when we had plane tickets for a certain day, if that makes sense?

If you know the name of the hospital, check if they have a website. Ours did, and it had info of what times buses picked up from the hospital, and also what hotels they dropped off and also picked up from. From there i checked out the accommodaton mentioned on the website. they also had details about car parking at the hospital, prices and what times you could drop off/pick up your car etc..

I spoke to the nurses on the phone, as we didn't know who would be doing our EPU and transfer till abotu 2 days before we left for pick up. They also said if we wanted to speak to the cousellor, we could do it over the phone. They also had a library we could ring and ask for books to be sent to us on loan.

I can't think of anything else at the moment. If there is something I have missed, ask away

[farmgirl77]

Hello,
We did 12 months of IVF in Melb, while living 3.5 hrs away. I was lucky though as I was working a couple of days a week in Melb and tried to combine IVF with work for the routine stuff. The exception was for EPU and transfers where I took time of work and DH and I drove down, often coming down the night before - esp for EPU. Sometimes we stayed with friends, but before our two EPU's we stayed in a motel as I did not want to be around other people! I was able to work in scans etc in Melb, but did blood tests up here - I had to find a testing place that could do the pg tests on site, rather than sending them to Melb which took an extra day. None of the hormone tests could be processed up here so all my tests for ovulation when doing a FET were a day later result wise - but that was ok. I never paid for a blood test - i think that they were all covered by medicare. If I could not have got to Melb for scans, I would have had to have paid extra to have them up here.

Meds I generally got while in Melb, but I could have had them (and think I had one set) sent up - the only prob is in summer the ones that have to be kept at a cool temp are a bit iffy and they are hesitant to send, even in a foam esky with an ice pack.

I could ring our FS at any stage - at no cost - she gave us her mobile number. I also did coucilling over the phone (except for the first session) and of course could ring the nurses and speak with them as required.

Wishing you lots of luck.
FG

[Possums]

Hi, we go through Sydney IVF and they have an office where I live, with a nurse here, so all ultrasounds, blood tests etc get done here...for EPU, and transfer, or to see my FS, I have to drive to the newcastle office, 3 hours away. We have sometimes gone down the night before, and other times got up really early and drove down, depending on what time the procedures are scheduled to happen. I find the nurse here fantastic.
To go see my FS I have previously taken a day off work, and done the trip down and back in the day.

Good luck with it all!

[Ninah]

Hi Hun,

Well you probably know most of my story already but I'll add it again.

We find with our FS a lot of the charges are included (scans, bt's etc) and what's not is usually covered by medicare. This is the "Global and Non Global" fees. The FSH is covered in the costs, but our Lucrin wasn't (around $250)....We have have everything done local except the EPU and ET which we have to go to Sydney for. Our Drugs were given to us in one go (the FSH and Trigger) and we have them in our fridge waiting for the big go ahead...

I don't think it's fair that you don't get them covered simply because you're not a city resident? Do you have to travel down there for the scans and BT's? or is it done locally? - if it's locally it may be because it's done through a seperate collection organisation then what they use down there?

*hugs* I know it's frustrating....