High Cost IVF – making people deterrent to go
for it
Past few
years have seen a tremendous change in the mindset of people towards
infertility treatment. While IVF is gaining ground and losing stigma, it is
preferred choice by the childless couples if they have no hope left to conceive
by other conventional methods. Though it’s also true that only 5% out of so
many fighting with infertility have enough resources to get through the disease
taking help from fertility treatments. The childless couples are often found
wary of the program’s complicated procedures and high cost.
Many couples think their life to be incomplete without
having their own sibling. Their status as parents is the important aspect of
their identity. To complete their family, some sterile couples agree to go for
the treatment taking tremendous stress on themselves and their relationship
accepting the worst part that there is a possibility that after exhausting all
the financials also it may not even pay off in the end. Rest settle down
calming themselves that these extreme steps to pay for treatment just don’t
make sense for them and doesn’t fit with their life plans.
Majority spends all their savings on the first
few cycles of IVF and its treatment. Unfortunately, if they are unsuccessful,
they are not in a position to either continue the treatment or quit it. If they
give up in the middle of procedure they are unsure about the results and outcome.
To continue the line of treatment, desired people do not hesitate to borrow
money from family or friends, or take unsecured bank loan. They even mortgage
their valuables –jewels, house etc to fetch out money and somehow complete the
treatment for bringing the bundle of joy to their home.
On the other side, there are numerous barren
couple who get deterred by the high cost IVF treatment. Many couples who are to
undergo IVF treatment are deterred by the need of daily injections and the
additional high costs of medications. On an average, the cost of IVF lies
between one lakh (Tier II cities) to five lakhs (metros) per cycle in India.
Though the clinics usually quote the lesser amount but the charges build up
even more than this as the cost of medication and monitoring is not included in
this. Fertility drugs, injections, ultrasound, blood work, monitoring,
locomotion, food and lodging are always considered extra.
Couples who are deprived of one of the most covet
wish of having children naturally, medical infertility is a big challenge for
them especially when they are not wealthy enough to afford private IVF
treatment. Being able to avail the right to parenting, income should not be the
deciding factor. The government must financially assist couples who are unable
to afford the treatment. This will help childless couple to not to forgo costly
IVF treatment.
Since
the high cost of IVF treatment keeps it out of reach of a large segment of
society, infertility specialist holds the view that the Government in some
capacity should step in. So far, the Government has only focused on controlling
the growing population of the country. Nobody has bothered to take a look on
the other side of the coin where childless couples face a hard time. The
Government must come up with some policies for this segment also. For instance,
it would be great help if this kind of treatment can be covered under any
insurance. A rehabilitation center should be set up so that the people facing
the same kind of problem can discuss and understand the problems with each
other open-heartedly. A special counseling unit should be established which can
give timely advice to the couples saving them from the acquiring other diseases
like depression.
By
funding the IVF treatment, the state would be able to overcome many of the
inefficiencies implicated in expensive medical treatment. Since economies of
the scale are exploited, costs can be brought down .This way when state health
services will purchase large orders of drugs and equipments, they will be at
better bargaining power. Within population, the rate of treatment will increase
safely and would definitely improve the outcomes reducing the cost since
medical department will become more experienced.
Most considerably, an asymmetry of
information exists between doctor and patient (as it does with all medical
treatment) – patients are usually not aware of what services they require, and
are unable to decide from the various options available to them. At certain
places, this drives up prices, as some doctors gets lured for getting incentives
to ‘overtreat’ patients, and not to treat patients in the most cost-effective
manner. State funding would make either state the purchaser or direct provider
of IVF services. This will in short remove either the ability to ‘overtreat’ or
slash away incentives depending on whether the state is the provider or buyer
of IVF services.
Since the treatment of infertility is
expensive, the private IVF clinics also try their bit to dilute its impact.
They give their best to achieve the highest possible pregnancy rate so that the
number of treatment cycles gets reduce and hence the overall expense can be
curtailed. Recommendation of only effective preliminary test and necessary
testing can also save some bugs. No additional
charges for office visits, sperm freezing and/or semen analysis, embryo
freezing, blastocyst culture, assisted hatching or ICSI is also very helpful. Furthermore, a transparency while making
financial dealings with patients might help them to fully prepare themselves
financially.
Matter of
concern is this that most of the insurance plans do not offer coverage for
infertility treatment . Although in some cases partial coverage is provided but
a major part of the expensive treatment like IVF goes uncovered. According to a report
published, a typical IVF procedure for women has success rate of 42.9 % for
aged under 35 with fresh embryos and 39.3 percent with frozen embryos. Doctors
found that the quality of the embryo and the chance of a successful pregnancy
in “low-cost” IVF were on par with the results of conventional lab procedures.
Therefore, to
make IVF cost effective, government should shoulder its responsibility and
bring infertility treatment within the reach of maximum childless couples.
Article published in IVF INDIA magazine with byline
Image Courtesy: Google
Comments
Post a Comment