My Infertility Journey: The Cost of IVF Meds (Part 35)
Obie Editorial Team
Once I got home from the education session, I started trying to figure out just how much all of these medications were going to cost me. The clinic was going to write the prescriptions once I was done with the birth control pills and had received a baseline ultrasound, so that gave me about three weeks to figure out how much money I was going to need and devise a plan to get it.
I started by looking at the list of medications I'd been given. They were in a chart form that was supposed to indicate when I would be taking them. It wasn't really clear, though, and not every medication had a dosage listed. Some of the flyers about how to administer certain medications gave more information on the dosage and how frequently it would be taken, but some things were still unclear. Based on what I had in front of me, I began looking for "cheap IVF meds" on Google.
This search led me to about seven or so online pharmacies and a helpful message board. Right off the bat it seemed that the cheapest medicines overall could be had from a pharmacy in Israel that delivers to the United States. That pharmacy didn't carry all of the meds I would need, though. In fact, only one pharmacy I found carried everything.
I was already planning to use the Compassionate Care program to get my Gonal-F, which is the most expensive of the medications. I figured I'd probably qualify to get it for free or at least at around 75 percent off its regular price. I called my health insurance prescription plan to see if any of the other meds were covered. None of them were, with the exception of the antibiotic that my husband and I were both supposed to take leading up to the embryo transfer. That one I could get for free.
I was estimating needing to spend between $2,500 and $3,500 on medications, depending on where I got them and how much of a discount I could get on Gonal-F. However, I really needed to know exactly how much of each medication I was going to need in order to get an accurate estimate and figure out where I should fill my many prescriptions. So I placed another call to the clinic's IVF coordinator.
I started by looking at the list of medications I'd been given. They were in a chart form that was supposed to indicate when I would be taking them. It wasn't really clear, though, and not every medication had a dosage listed. Some of the flyers about how to administer certain medications gave more information on the dosage and how frequently it would be taken, but some things were still unclear. Based on what I had in front of me, I began looking for "cheap IVF meds" on Google.
This search led me to about seven or so online pharmacies and a helpful message board. Right off the bat it seemed that the cheapest medicines overall could be had from a pharmacy in Israel that delivers to the United States. That pharmacy didn't carry all of the meds I would need, though. In fact, only one pharmacy I found carried everything.
I was already planning to use the Compassionate Care program to get my Gonal-F, which is the most expensive of the medications. I figured I'd probably qualify to get it for free or at least at around 75 percent off its regular price. I called my health insurance prescription plan to see if any of the other meds were covered. None of them were, with the exception of the antibiotic that my husband and I were both supposed to take leading up to the embryo transfer. That one I could get for free.
I was estimating needing to spend between $2,500 and $3,500 on medications, depending on where I got them and how much of a discount I could get on Gonal-F. However, I really needed to know exactly how much of each medication I was going to need in order to get an accurate estimate and figure out where I should fill my many prescriptions. So I placed another call to the clinic's IVF coordinator.
