What is the Fertility Clinic Success Rate and Certification Act?

Increasing numbers of people need to turn to fertility treatment in order to realize their dream of becoming parents. As fertility treatment is getting more advanced (and perhaps as infertility is becoming a more common problem), fertility clinics are also springing up everywhere. Choosing a fertility clinic can be a rather hard job, starting with assessing the quality of the clinic. The Fertility Clinic Success Rate and Certification Act serves to help you in this process. The Fertility Clinic Success Rate and Certification Act was introduced by Congressmen Ron Wyden and Norman Lent. Their wish was to make information about the actual functioning of fertility clinics known to the public at large. After all, it can be extremely hard to asses your chances of success with a particular fertility clinic for the particular type of treatment you need (IUI, IVF, ICSI, etc) if you have no idea what the track record of the clinic is. Infertile couples or individuals are often desperate to have a baby and are therefore, arguably, vulnerable to being scammed.

Clinics have a duty to report their success rates

Thanks to the 1992 Fertility Clinic Success Rate and Certification Act, clinics providing artificial reproductive technique (ART) services have a duty to report their success rates to a whole host of organs. This information is published by the CDC, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as well. In addition to other legislation for the certification of fertility clinics, the Fertility Clinic Success Rate and Certification Act ensures that their functioning is fair and transparent. What does this mean for you? ART is defined by the CDC as any procedure in which your clinic handles both eggs and sperm. That basically refers to all forms of IVF ("Normal" IVF, as well as IVF with Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection or ICSI, and IVF in which donor eggs are used). People who are considering pursuing these fertility treatments can help decide how to choose a fertility clinic by looking up the success rate for that clinic. Of course, checking a clinic's success rates shouldn't be your sole way to decide whether a clinic is right for you, but it can sure give you some very valuable information.