Private Vs Self Fundinf

[BewilderedBee]

Hi whilst we are in lockdown me and my partner have talked extensively about the potential wait for NHS treatment after covid-19. At best, due to CCG funding, we'd be waiting until January 2021 on the NHS (we've been TTC since Oct 2018). And we have come to the decision to pay for our treatment. I'm just waiting on costs for self funding to arrive In the post. Our clinic has private prices online and it was only by phoning them today to enquire they talked of the self funding option. I just wondered if anyone here has self funded rather than paying private and what kind of savings there were. Also, do you have to pay for medication under self funding?

Thanks in advance.

Isn't self funding the same thing as private? Or do you mean paying to have treatment at an NHS Hospital?

It was my understanding you still had to pay for drugs

@BewilderedBee
Hi, I'm a self funded patient at a NHS hospital.

You have to pay for treatment; which includes, demo of administering drugs appointment, scans, the procedure, sedation & transfer.

The cost of drugs is seperate. The hospital prepare your prescription, and send directly to the drugs company, they in turn contact you for payment of the meds. There is also a delivery charge which differs depending if you need cold storage or not.

Have a look at Create, if you have the cash they are offering huge discounts if you pay in advance to start treatment once restrictions list.

I'm with them started treatment in March before things got crazy, they me to through to egg collection and I'll be having a FET once restrictions lift, they have offered 6 months free freezing and will be absorbing the cost of the drugs for FET,

The offer price you see on the website be aware that doesn't include freezing and drugs, they are also doing initial consults over video calls at the moment

I'm with create and have found them really good so far - I've got one more egg collection from a 3 cycle package to do once the clinic reopens and have 4 embryos frozen so far x

Ivf in the Czech Republic - Zlin xxxx

Hi everyone thanks for all your responses. Yes I was talking about self funded NHS which I am told is cheaper than private. Private is personalised care where companies make a profit. Self funded with NHS means paying for what you would usually have on the NHS, I spoke to my clinic yesterday and they said self-funders are treated the same as NHS patients, so there can be changes of doctors and consultants throughout the process. Where as, with private I am told it's the same person for all stages of treatment.

I'm happy with the self funding option if it saves us money!

Thanks @ivfgottostaypositive and @Ijustlikefood . I have looked at create and the low costs are tempting and I will definitely be comparing this with def funding costs (were waiting on these to arrive in the post at the moment). My worry with create and mild ivf is that we might need more than one cycle where as we have a higher chance of success with conventional ivf. Our thoughts are that we self fund or go private for one cycle and if that fails we can use our NHS eligibility. How did you all decide on mild ivf? I've done quite a bit of reading on it. I'm 32 and our infertility is unexplained.

Comparing with *self funding costs

What do you mean by mild?? Natural Ivf or protocol?? Sorry I've never heard that term

To be honest we found it a bit of a mind field and quite overwhelming picking a clinic, I'm in the mindset that we will only think we made the right decision if it's successful so only time will tell, for us the difference if I remember correctly was around £800 between private and self funding through the NHS, so it came down to practically of location really, I work about an hour away from home and the hospital was 30 mins in the other direction of home and Create are about half way between home and work so for going to appointments before / during work it was easier.

I'm also classed as unexplained, my follicle count is on the low side and womb lining on the thin side for implantation. I had 10 follicles but only 3 eggs I was devastated at thinking was that all, but I have 2 top quality for FET, Create are more about the quality then quantity and that takes a bit to get your head around as physiologically you think the more eggs the better .

Also have a look at ABC they are part of a Create and are cheaper as your appointments are nurse lead and not consultants based, but they have strict criteria to accept you must be under 38, and have at least 12 follicles each month, so we didn't meet the criteria but they are based in the same clinics as Create, there quite a few threads on him about them they came in around £2500 but that doesn't include freezing.

I'm with the Wilmslow clinic and the staff have been really good.

it all depends im at a private clinic but they also do take NHS patients there are a number of different consultants and nurses but i am sure not as many as the NHS. i am pretty sure even self funded or private clinic depending on what ones costs are similar and you will need to check the fine print as someone else said about freezing. But my clinic the IVF cost also included the freezing for a year, drugs are drugs they are expensive depending on what ones you get even if you get them on PP . so i would see if you can work out rough costs on what you are happy to afford and also look at local clinics along with the NHS self funded.

@BewilderedBee Sorry to the bearer of bad news but as I understand it, if you go private/self funded you no longer have the eligibility for a round on the NHS. I live in the West Midlands and that is the case here, as far as I'm aware, it's the same over most of England.

@Pinktruffle thankfully we would still we eligible for NHS with our CCG. We're in Wales and the limit in our CCG is that we'd lose NHS entitlement after 3 private cycles.
We'd never be able to afford 3 anyway, but we're very lucky we can gamble on private knowing we can have a NHS cycle after if it doesn't work.

I do wonder why CCG's take away people's entitlement once they've gone private for one cycle. In my view, they shouldn't be putting people off going private. And if people are successful with a private round, it means they're not eligible for NHS treatment taking pressure off the service! Obviously I understand that if people can afford several rounds private, then perhaps they shouldn't be entitled to NHS funding, but just doing one cycle privately and then stripping entitlements seems bonkers to me!! The postcode lottery is awful and I feel so sorry for those in areas where they don't provide any funding.

Oh that's fantastic! Yeah, the postcode lottery for funding is nuts. My CCG only fund one round, I was lucky because I also got 1 year of frozen embryos too (they don't normally find frozen) but that was only because my specialist specified that he recommends a FET for me over a fresh - the docs doing my treatment ignored that and did a fresh anyway so I also managed to get 3 frozen. We are lucky that we will be able to afford to pay to continue to freeze them once the year is up.

@BewilderedBee

Please don't think "conventional" IVF will get you more numbers than Create's mild/natural
Modified approach. Here is a run down of my cycles with Create

Cycle 1 - mild ivf - 14 eggs - ICSI - SAME. NUMBER as my friends doing conventional IVF. Less than 30% fertilisation rate - 3 average quality blastocysts on day 4 (SAME NUMBER OR MORE THAN MY FRIENDs ON CONVENTIONAL IVF)

Cycle 2 - mild IVF - 14 eggs - ICSI - again fertilisation rate not great but for 2 average quality blastocysts (again same as my friends on conventional IVF)

Here is where things get more interesting....

Swapped to natural modified IVF - stims only every other day - whole thing over in 9 days

Cycle 3 - natural modified with ICSI - 2 eggs - BOTH FERTILISED BOTH TOP QUALITY

Cycle 4 - natural modified with ICSI - 7 eggs - 100% fertilisation - 2 top quality blastocysts

So what I'm trying to say is don't go into this thinning you'll get 12 blastocysts on day 5 unless you are like 21 - you'll be severely disappointed.

For me less eggs meant much better quality. And in fact I got the same or more blastocysts of decent or top quality to freeze as my friends doing conventional IVF

My doctor said why push my body to behave like a Ferrari by pumping it full of stims and forcing it to create loads of follicles if it was only ever going to go as fast as a Ford Focus - some peoples (MOST peoples) aren't designed to get more than 2 blastocysts per month

I decided on mild IVF first because I have had 5 miscarriages and 2 ruptured ectopics where I nearly died - I felt like I had out my body through enough. The first 2 cycles showed my egg quality wasn't the best so we stripped things back even further by going with the natural modified route and it has massively increased our blastocyst quality x

Thanks @ivfgottostaypositive that really helps and I've researched it a lot today. And I've just paid for a consultation for us! Eeeek! Excited. X

I'd just say check success rate of the nhs clinic and compare it to private ones.