IVF Couples Under Financial Stress: Financial Crisis Rises IVF Treatment Costs

Infertility rates are skyrocketing, partly because women and men decide to have children later in life, partly because of lifestyles people lead. With the rise in infertility rates, the price of fertility treatments rises too . Hey, the law of market ta-da: where is demand, there is a high price. The waiting lists are long, too long to wait, fertility treatments are expensive, not every family can afford them one round of IVF costs at least $6000. Besides there is no guarantee a treatment will lead to success and when the family finally can afford to undergo fertility treatment, the trend these days is to request their specialists to implant more than one embryo in their wombs. This results in riskier pregnancies, but luckily also in a rise in twin and triplet births. In Australia for example, the global financial crisis influenced the Medicare by raising the patient costs of each IVF cycle by around $1,500. According to experts this may lead to several choices:

dropping the idea of conceiving in the first place, insisting on multiple embryo implantation and this way causing a greater risk of embryo death, preterm birth and other pregnancy complications.

Of course, couples understand the risks, but the fact that they cannot afford to pay more than X number of IVF cycles, is the cause for such risky behaviour. Additionally, experts claim risks mentioned above are not the only risks involved: there can be long-term health complications for twins born as a result of IVF. Still, the financial pressure is bigger Shocking is the fact that specialists in Australia are overcharging their patients: there is a 80% discrepancy between doctor s fees and the Medicare rebate according to results that were offered by Australian health minister Mrs. Roxon in January. She said that a typical cycle costs approximately $6000, while the experts disagree and claim that an average cycle costs approximately $7500 because the expenses usually rise because patients need extra treatment. There must be a profit says ... even if the price is human life...