Dollars and Sense

Dollars and Sense

by Evelina Weidman Sterling

Fertility treatments are expensive. And about 30 percent to 50 percent of the total costs can be chalked up to fertility medications, particularly the injectables. For a single cycle, the medication costs can easily exceed thousands of dollars.

For many families, it’s hard to budget for the high cost of fertility medications. Given our current economic crisis, people are finding it harder and harder to afford fertility treatments as well as the costs of the medications needed for the treatments to work.

I'm happy to report that pharmaceutical companies are feeling your pain, and many are finding new ways to ease your burden. Three major fertility drug companies — EMD Serono, Ferring Pharmaceuticals, and Schering-Plough — offer special programs that lessen the cost of many of the most common medications used in fertility treatments today.

Discounts on Gonal-F
A call to EMD Serono’s Fertility Lifelines (866-LETS-TRY or www.fertilitylifelines.com) gives you access to a Benefits Coordinator who can provide you with more information about affording treatment. Their special medication savings program called FertilityAssist 2 allows health care providers to enroll their cash-paying patients for discounts on Gonal-F. By simply placing a sticker on the Gonal-F order and filling the prescription though the online specialty pharmacy Freedom Fertility Pharmacy, patients receive savings on their first cycle. If you need a second cycle of Gonal-F, you can save another $250 to $500 depending on the amount of Gonal-F needed. Additionally, EMD Serono offers the Compassionate Care program which allows some patients with no insurance coverage and documented medical and financial need to receive EMD Serono medications free of charge.

Savings on Bravelle and Menopur
Ferring Fertility offers the HEART Program (which stands for Helping Expand Access to Reproductive Therapy). This program is specifically designed for patients who do not have insurance coverage or benefits for fertility medications and covers medications like Bravelle and Menopur. If you are interested in this program, ask your health care provider for a HEART Rx Initiative brochure or contact Ferring directly at www.ferringfertility.com/heart or 888-FERRING. To receive your discount, you will need to fill your prescription at a participating pharmacy (for a pharmacy near you, click here). Although it costs $10 for a one-year HEART Program membership, you can save $18 on every vial of Bravelle (up to 100 vials) and up to $3 on every vial of Menopur (up to 100 vials). This can result in a total savings of $2,100.

Reduced Costs for Follistim
To offer more patient discounts, DesignRx has partnered with a number of fertility-related companies, including Schering-Plough (which recently merged with Merck), the makers of Follistim. These discounts can range anywhere from 15% to 30% depending on which specialty pharmacy you choose. For a list of the DesignRx network of fertility pharmacies, click here. Through their Managed Cash program, DesignRx negotiates drug discounts on behalf of its members. Membership is free and can be obtained by visiting www.designrx.net or calling 877-416-6600.

To find out which program will work best for your individual protocol and treatment plan, talk with you health care provider.

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Evelina Weidman Sterling, PhD, MPH, CHES, is the co-author of Budgeting for Infertility: How to Bring Home a Baby without Breaking the Bank along with several other best-selling and award-winning books about fertility, including Having Your Baby through Egg Donation, Living with Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS), and Before Your Time: Living Well with Premature Ovarian Failure and Early Menopause. She is also the co-founder of My Fertility Plan, an innovative company that provides patients with the information, skills, and tools they need to fully understand their own individual fertility and progress through their infertility treatments in the most effective and efficient ways possible.