Fertility Treatment Timeline: When Expenses Typically Happen

To be able to plan ahead to start saving for and building your family, you need to be on top of not just how much IVF or egg freezing will cost, but when in the fertility treatment process different expenses may arise.

Payment timing can vary based on the clinic you choose, your insurance or fertility benefits company, and the pharmacy you use, but in general, knowing the typical sequence of payments in the IVF timeline ahead of the game can help you prep financially and ask the right questions before your treatment starts. (No one likes receiving a surprise bill.) Here’s your guide to the fertility treatment timeline and the types of expenses that might appear at each stage. Your bank account will thank you for the heads up.

Before treatment begins: consultations, testing, and planning

Ahead of your fertility treatment cycle, you’ll shop around for a clinic. This may involve going to a couple of different clinics for an initial consultation. If you are interested in pursuing IVF because of potential infertility, it’s possible you may need diagnostic testing, ultrasounds, or other lab work to confirm what’s going on physically before your fertility specialist can come up with an individualized treatment plan.

At this stage, you can probably expect consultation fees for the initial appointments, and some bills for fertility testing, lab work, and imaging. These charges will depend on the clinic, so make sure to ask upfront about what is or isn’t included in an IVF package (Sunfish care coordinators can also guide you through this process). Check on the following questions to better understand your IVF expenses:

• What does my insurance cover?
• What will I owe out of pocket?
• Which services are billed separately?
• Are medications included in the clinic's estimate?

Before your IVF cycle starts: treatment and medication payments

Once your specialist consults with you on a fertility treatment plan, when do you pay for IVF? Your clinic and pharmacy you use may require deposits prior to your cycle beginning or prior to ordering medication, even. It’s important to ask your chosen clinic for a payment timeline.

Note that the “IVF cycle price” you’re getting may not be the full cost of all the IVF treatment you’re receiving. The full financial picture, beyond the cycle and treatment fees, will likely also include costs related to your fertility medications (which vary in cost based on varied dosages from person to person), monitoring appointments while you’re taking the fertility injections, and any lab and embryology testing services you’ll be using. It’s also possible that you’ll need to pay separately for costs related to anesthesia for your egg retrieval procedure. Touch base with your insurance provider first though to triple check what’s covered!

During your cycle: monitoring through egg retrieval

When you’re in the thick of the IVF cycle, you’ll experience ovarian stimulation through the medications you’re injecting, coupled with monitoring appointments to check on your progress leading up to your egg retrieval. And then, you may proceed immediately to the next step of fertilization and embryo development—or it’s a possibility that you’ll take a break from the immediate path to parenthood if you’re primarily freezing eggs rather than embryos.

You probably will have started paying for a good portion of the IVF cycle charges already via a payment plan, split payment option, or fertility loan, but there may be some additional expenses that you should be aware of. For example, depending on how the monitoring of your ovarian stimulation is going, you may need extra medication or more appointments to ensure that your egg retrieval will be successful. If you proceed to the embryo stage, your lab and embryology fees could be due at this point (they may not be collected upfront with the rest of the charges for the cycle).

After retrieval: embryo testing, storage, and transfer-related expenses

You’re done with the egg retrieval—phew. What’s next is a bit of a choose-your-own-adventure. You may select to freeze your eggs and move on to IVF at a different time. Or, you may want to move forward with embryo testing for viability and freezing those embryos. If it’s the former, you’ll have to start paying storage fees as soon as you freeze. If it’s the latter, you’ll also pay storage fees in addition to embryo testing and freezing fees.

Going straight to or returning to the embryo transfer stage? Expect some charges a few weeks or months after the original IVF payment for either frozen embryo transfer preparation (you have to thaw whatever you’ve frozen) or for a fresh embryo transfer. From there, you’ll wait to see what sticks and start thinking more about your future family.

Check on the following questions before you agree to freezing or transfer fees:

• Is embryo storage included, and for how long?
• Are embryo transfers included in my original price?
• What additional medications could be needed for a transfer?
• Which services are optional versus part of my recommended treatment plan?

What if your treatment plan continues?

As much as we wish IVF could be a linear path, it often isn’t. You have to be prepared for anything on the fertility treatment journey. If your IVF cycle didn’t yield the expected results, that is totally normal—so many people have been where you are.

Know that you may be looking at further care and expenses, such as another embryo transfer, or additional hormone medications either to prepare the ovaries for a second egg retrieval or prepare the uterus for an embryo transfer. You could opt for further genetic testing for your embryos, or your fertility specialist might recommend other testing for you.

It’s not easy to mentally prepare for an IVF cycle, but it’s important to note that you may end up going through another egg retrieval and full cycle of IVF. On average, most people need two cycles to achieve a successful pregnancy via IVF. Some others may need three or more, so try your best to temper your expectations of the IVF timeline.

The bottom line

We can’t predict exactly how fast or how well your fertility treatment (and billing cycle) will go, but we can promise to make the process as predictable as possible–Sunfish charges one flat fee for an all-inclusive package. With our IVF Success program, you have the bonus benefit of unlimited embryo transfers. Our Gold Program includes several additional benefits and services, including our Financial Planning Tool which reduces financial uncertainty and the financial protection of a partial refund if you are not successful.*  Plus, you can always expect personalized guidance from one of our Planning Partners in coordinating the financial and logistical pieces of treatment.  We’ve got you through every aspect of the IVF journey.

Explore the IVF Success Program and get personal support for planning your next baby.

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*As part of the Sunfish IVF Success Program, Sunfish provides a Custom Financial Plan using Sunfish’s proprietary software that calculates the expected financial costs for each family to achieve a Live Birth based on a range of factors. If you fail to achieve a Live Birth within your custom financial plan budget and there are unexpected financial costs that were not accurately predicted by the Financial Planning Tool, our software Warranty may entitle you to receive a partial refund of your treatment package costs. Additional costs may be incurred outside of the Treatment Package Costs. See our Sunfish IVF Success Program Agreement for conditions and details.