Cost of Infertility Treatment

Dr. Saurav Maheswari
IVF SPECIALIST

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Ever visited a car showroom and looked for your dream car? You first choose the transmission type you want, Manual or Automatic. Then you choose the Car body type – Hatchback, Sedan or SUV. The sales guy offers you the available brands and models to choose from. Then there is an exhaustive list of car accessories from Park assist, Alloy wheels, GPS navigation to a trendy music system. There are a lot of choices and the overall cost of the car depends on the options you choose. Similarly, IVF is a broad term often misunderstood. So, whenever a couple enquires about the “cost of IVF”, they need to understand the various options applicable in their case before the total expenses are quoted.

The IVF package

IVF or In-Vitro (in a test tube) Fertilisation is the process in which the female egg is fertilized with the male sperm outside the human body i.e. in a laboratory. The process requires a strictly balanced environment similar to the human body maintaining which is a crucial step.

The whole process generally costs around Rs. 50,000 which includes:
• Consulting doctor’s fees
• USG scans for follicular monitoring (During IVF cycle)
• Injection administration charges.
• OT charges for ovum pick up (OPU)
• OPU charges of the IVF specialist
• Anaesthetist’s charge for OPU
• Daycare bed charges for 3-4 hrs stay after OPU
• O.T medicines for OPU procedure
• Embryologist’s fee
• Culture of Eggs/ Embryos in IVF lab
• Disposables for IVF lab, OPU & ET (Embryo Transfer)
• One cycle of FET/ET without anesthesia & 1-hour stay at IHR, post-ET
• Dietician visit
• Counsellor visit
• Yoga sessions

Ovarian Stimulation Medicines:

To increase the efficacy of treatment and the probability of success, multiple eggs are taken out of the female. Medicines are given to the woman to stimulate her ovaries where these eggs are produced. These medicines cost somewhere around Rs. 30,000 to Rs.1,00,000 depending upon the type of medical doctor seems appropriate based on the woman’s age, weight, AMH levels, previous treatment response, ultrasound findings, etc.

The Freezing Charges

One of the biggest advancement in today’s era of IVF is the provision for Cryopreservation or Freezing. Most of the recent scientific studies in Reproductive Medicine concluded that the success of IVF increases significantly when the Embryo Transfer (ET) is done in a cycle different from the ovarian stimulation cycle.

At IHR, we have an All Freeze policy wherein we preserve the embryos developed by IVF and transfer them in a later cycle giving us excellent results. This too comes with an additional cost of approximately Rs.15,000

The Male Factor

ICSI (IntraCytoplasmic Sperm Injection) is a procedure where the male Sperm is directly injected into the female egg. It is helpful in cases where the sperm count is less (Oligozoospermia) or absent (Azoospermia), in cases where sperm has been extracted directly from the testes (TESA), and in cases where previous conventional IVF resulted in poor fertilization.

Magnetic-Activated Cell Sorting (MACS) is another useful technique in cases where there a substantial DNA damage of the Sperm (especially if the Male partner is a smoker – another hazard of smoking !!)
The usual charges for these additional procedures for the sperm vary from Rs.10,000 to
Rs.20,000.

Donor cycle IVF

Donor cycle IVF is much different from those in which the patient’s own eggs or sperm are used. The donors (male or female) are recruited with utmost scrutiny. They are thoroughly screened and investigated before they are stimulated with the medicines and prepared for egg retrieval and IVF. The total cost of the investigations and incentives to the donor comes to somewhere around Rs.50,000 which adds up to the cost of IVF.

Newer Procedures

PGT (Pre-implantation Genetic Testing)
With the ever-advancing science, it is now possible to test the embryos for major genetic defects even before the pregnancy is established. These testing costs around 20,000 per embryo and are indicated in selected cases like advanced age (>35 years) of mother, genetic problems of the couple, Recurrent Pregnancy Loss (RPL), repeated IVF failure, etc.

ERA (Endometrial Receptivity Assay)
Implantation failure is one of the major reasons for the failure of IVF and repeated implantation failure is frustrating and disheartening for both the clinician and the couple. In such cases, the precise timing for the embryo transfer can be calculated based on the implantation window via Endometrial Receptivity Assay.

PRP (Platelet Rich Plasma) Infusion
Our blood has an inherent capacity for cell rejuvenation and this property of blood cell (platelets) is being tried world-over for ovarian tissue rejuvenation and in cases of thin endometrium.

Assisted hatching is an assisted reproductive technology that is sometimes used in conjunction with conventional IVF treatment especially in cases of repeated IVF failure. The theory behind assisted hatching is that it could possibly help with embryo implantation. At IHR, we use the Saturn Active 5 laser system to provide our patients with the fastest, safest, and most uniform way of Assisted Hatching available today referred to as Laser Assisted Hatching.

The total expenses of IVF treatment thus depend on multiple factors which vary from couple to couple and also on the various a la carte options required for them.