So… Advanced assisted reproductive procedures require pre-certification. It was a month of multiple faxes because the insurance provider (one of the biggest in the country) gave me different answers each time. I had to fill up different forms because of their inefficiency. They rejected my pre-certification thrice.
We finally got IVF approved and after my doctor did a peer-to-peer with their medical director. Let’s just put it this way – insurance is dirty and these people are totally void of feelings. The medical director actually recommended me to go for more medicated cycles and more IUIs. She is absolutely mad! By that time, I already did so many cycles of Letrozole and even failed IUI that has injectables.
Thereafter, they messed up on my medication, at least 15 of their staff who spoke to me (came from all the different units in the company) said that my injectables were covered. They made my doctor re-prescribed medication 4 times. After 1.5 weeks, someone was smart enough and pointed out that my plan don’t cover injectables and only the procedure plus all the monitoring scans. Basically, everything except injectables.
As a result of their inefficiency, I had to start a new pack of BCP because insurance dragged the time and I had to prevent my menses from coming as I needed to overlap Lupron with the last 4 days of BCP.
When that staff informed me in the evening that injectables were not covered and they quoted me 20k USD for the medication required. I flipped. It is like daylight robbery. I told them, forget it. I’ll source my own.
I surfed GoodRX and found Freedom Fertility. My doctor also has a relationship with them. However, it was too late to call and I did it the next morning. The total charge was 4.5k USD for 3 boxes of Gonal-f 1050iu, 20 vials of Menopur 75iu, 14 days Lupron kit and Ovidrel (versus 20k quoted by my insurance pharmacy).
Eggs of Rainbow 