Medicare Archives - The IVF Club

IVF Costs in Australia

September 17, 2009 By Carol Leave a Comment

I always thought of IVF as expensive and while I still think it is, it is less expensive than in other countries. For example, in the United States IVF can cost up to around US $12,000.

This is pretty expensive when compared to the cost that Australians pay for IVF. For example, at a leading clinic in Melbourne Australia, the latest cost that I paid for IVF was around $6,900 excluding hospital costs. The hospital costs were $1,900 bringing the total cost of the treatment to AUD$8,800 (US$7,700). That’s a massive saving of over $4,000 for Australian IVF patients.

My upfront costs to the clinic were approximately $5,000 including medications. The difference in the cost is explained by the fact that the clinic and the health insurance fund does not charge the patient the full amount and waits to receive the rest of their payment via the government’s Medicare system.

Fortunately, my private health insurance covered the hospital costs. I received $3,700 back from Medicare six weeks after egg collection as I had reached my *Medicare Safety Net* threshold. So my total out of pocket cycle cost was $1,300. Expensive yes, but not as expensive as some of my overseas readers who do not get any rebates back.

Interestingly, the Government has announced that they will be revisiting the limits on the Medicare Safety Net threshold for IVF and may cap IVF limits. Details of this are not fully known but what is clear, is that the cost of IVF will be going up.

For overseas readers who do not understand the health system in Australia, the Medicare Safety Net effectively means that I can claim money back from the government from this calendar year because I had already spent a fortune on IVF and was entitled to a rebate.

Sure Signs You are Not Pregnant

August 12, 2009 By Carol 2 Comments

Bad news. Constant breast groping has revealed my breasts are back to normal. They are no longer sore and tender and pumped with hormones. The pimples on my face have gone down only to leave my nose with ugly flashes of red (thank God for make-up).

I take the breast thing as potentially bad news – it seems unlikely that I am pregnant. However, I remain in hope that this is not the case. That hopefully, the lack of tenderness I am experiencing is just a sign that my body has worked hard to remove all those excess hormones that developed as a result of the injections.

I really don’t want to think about the consequences of spending another $5,000 on yet another treatment. I am in denial and I am still weeks away from receiving any reimbursement from Medicare for yet another IVF attempt. Next year, some sweeping changes to Medicare will mean that IVF will not get as much favourable treatment so the out of pocket costs will definitely rise. The implications of this are yet unknown.

I contemplate the research I have been doing on IVF and count my fortunes that I do not live in the USA where IVF is more than double the cost of doing it in Australia. I guess there are small blessings in everything. The best blessing though, would be a pregnancy. Who I am kidding!

IVF and Managing Work

July 24, 2009 By Carol Leave a Comment

One of the difficulties in regularly undertaking IVF whilst working full-time is explaining why you are taking time off on sick leave. You know you are going to be in hospital – you just don’t know when. This simple fact, can create a myriad of problems. Like for example when I was expected to fly to another state to oversee a TV commercial shoot when I might potentially be in a hospital bed having my eggs collected.

As it happened in that example, I told my manager about my dilemma. I think this may have been around IVF cycle #2. Naively, I thought this may make life a little easier. Bad assumption! Since I told her about my plight, she asked me if I was taking sick leave or annual leave. I told her I had intended on taking sick leave.

My manager’s response was most interesting. I was questioned whether I should be taking annual leave or sick leave. The rationale being that she considered the treatment I was having as being “elective.” She then proceeded to tell me about another staff member who had to take annual leave (not IVF) when having elective surgery.

Ignoring the ethics of her disclosure, I contemplated her comment for a while. To say I was speechless would be an understatement. I was totally amazed that she had the gall to ask me this. Especially since I know that she herself wants to have children one day. In any case, it highlights to me that we are all really very ignorant of our ability to get pregnant. We take it for granted that it will just happen. I know I did.

But back to my story on annual leave versus sick leave. It was bad enough being asked this the once. But I was seriously offended when this was thrown up in my face on no less than 3 occasions over the course of six months. In end, I had to tell my Manager that I was offended by her comments. I thought they indicated a complete lack of regard for my situation. I hoped that she would never have to face the situation I was in.

On reflection, I strongly believe that IVF treatment should be considered sick leave and not annual leave for the following reasons:

1. Most people I know don’t choose to be infertile
2. Like any other illness, a person chooses to have treatment or not.
3. The condition may not be life threatening, but it is highly emotional and it is not uncommon for complications to occur as a result (e.g. Ovarian Hypo-stimulation, Depression)
4. A doctor issues a certificate for the procedure (I assume this is not issued when undertaking cosmetic surgery.
5. In Australia, the treatment is partially medicare refundable

In any case, I would love to hear the views of other people navigating their way through IVF and infertility. You all know my views but I am interested to hear other peoples opinions on the matter.