Refund Programmes (Access Fertility)

[HarryP123]

Has anyone had IVF using clinics such as Access Fertility which offer Refund Programmes ... up to 100% Refund if a Live Birth is not achieved?
We have had 2 Cycles of IVF which have not been successful.
The first was in Prague which was a complete nightmare and I would not recommend anyone going abroad for treatment!
The second was in Newcastle where we received good treatment but still failed.
Now, my wife feels very insecure about IVF and prefers to know that the Clinic is definitely doing their best to succeed. At least, when a Refund is offered, one can be sure that they are giving their very best, even though the costs are higher.
As it happens, we are already down some £18,000 with nothing to show and at least if the Refund Programmes are not successful, we will have our money back!
Any information or advice would be most appreciated, please.

Just bear in mind the 100% refund programme is dependent on several factors - eg how many failed cycles you had previously, miscarriages, age etc. It's done on a case by case basis so you can't be guaranteed to accepted on to it.

Because I had had 5 miscarriages previously I wasn't accepted on to it. I recall we were offered the 50% refund one I think but you are also limited to what clinics you can go to and I wanted to use Create so went with their 3 cycle package instead

Also they make you use all the embryos from each cycle before moving on to the next so if you had any doubts as to egg quality on one batch you can't keep them in the freezer whilst you do another collection?

@ivfbeenbusy were you successful at create? Out of interest?

@HarryP123 £18,000 for 2 cycles? I'm sorry to hear they weren't successful. Do you mind me asking, most IVF cycles I've seen are advertised at £3-4000. Do they usually end up costing more?

@CycleGirl20

Yes I'm currently 28 with twins and 2 more top
Quality blastocysts in the freezer (these are from the 3 cycle package I did)

I did do 5 cycles in total though - total bill in the region of £35k - that was for 5 egg collections, 4 transfers, PGS testing on one round

The advertised cost of £3,000-£4,000 won't include the drugs which can cost £1k - £3k depending on the protocol/what they think you need. Also won't include ICSI or some of the other things you might need like extended culture to 5 days, scans and blood tests, freezing and storage

My 3 cycle package of natural modified IVF with all drugs, ICSI, freezing and transfer - basically all in cost was £13.5k

(I paid circa £10k per cycle for the short protocol cycles I did for cycles 1 & 2)

@CycleGirl20
Much of the initial cost was down to airfares and hotel bills in Prague.
My wife developed severe OHSS as they over stimulated her and she was rushed to a local hospital. This was a nightmare as no one there spoke English and they were obviously not on good terms with the clinic, whom they regarded as having passed their 'problem' onto them. My wife was in a terrible state and I really thought that I was going to lose her!
Trouble was that, since they had our frozen embryos, we were obliged to go back 3 times for embryo transfer but none worked. I am sure the stress of flying was at least partially the cause.
Newcastle Fertility Centre were very good with us but we were still unsuccessful ... all hard earned money spent with nothing to show.
Now it boils down to a matter of Confidence. My wife feels more trusting where she knows that the Clinic will do their very best, knowing that failure means they will lose out.
The total quoted by Access Fertility, excluding medications, is £16,000 for their 2 year Unlimited Plan with 100% Refund if we do not have a 'Live Birth'. There is an alternative 3 Cycle Plan at £11750.
Acceptance on either is dependant upon recommendations after a Consultation Appointment at their Darlington-London Women's Clinic, due in the New Year. This and Initial Medicals etc will need to be paid for separately.
We have looked at other clinics such as abc but the nearest is in Leeds and ends up costing just as much when taking into account travelling etc. Meanwhile, especially with Covid, time is catching us up as my wife is nearing 40 years of age, so we have no time to waste!

WE will be going to the Darlington, London Women's Clinic which is very close to us. Of course, as you say, much depends upon their Consultation as to whether we are accepted on to one of their plans.
How did you find Access Fertility generally ... did they make you feel confident of success?

I am with access fertility, I went with the 2 cycle plan, no refund, but it allows unlimited FET (Until you run out of embryos). You always have to pay for medications on top by the way in all of their packages. I think my package was about £7300. It looks like I have lucked out because I have just had one lot of egg collection and we have 9 blastocytes, unfortunately the fresh transfer was not successful. But we still have 8 frozen embryo transfers to go from cycle 1 and I can then go through a second egg collection if none of those work.

I have a high AFC so I never saw the number of blasts as an issue. If that was the case for you guys then this may be a better option than the refund package. There was no medical involved either and as part of the package my embryos were kept in an incubator being monitored 24 hours a day and the tech from that helps select the best embryo.

Thanks all. I'm sorry to hear you and your wife had such a hard time @HarryP123. I hope you can find a good package and get your baby soon!

I thought IVF would cost £3-4k total a cycle. Looks like that may not be the case 😬

@CycleGirl20

You can get a cycle for £3k-£4k all in cost at ABC but they are only able to provide a "no frills" one size fits all service if you meet fairly strict criteria on age, BMI etc

@CycleGirl20 I thought that as well, as my clinic have a price of about £3,500 for a cycle and I though wow that’s cheaper than I thought. Then it was an extra £500 for blastocytes (which seem to be standard these days), £750 for the embryoscope incubator, £1,200 if you need ICSI etc etcand this is all without medications. Most clinics don’t to price medications in as they say the cost varies, I was in a short protocol with low dose medications so I should have been at the low end but it still cost £1,200 and then when I got a rash with progesterone pessaries I had to pay an extra £124 per week for injections and if successful those can be needed up to 12 weeks.

I did a calculation for the access fertility package and concluded that was the best option, it’s less stress if it doesn’t work the first time (and for most people it won’t work the first time).

Sorry for all the typos in that last message!! Hopefully it’s still understandable.

it's Access who take the financial hit not the clinic, the clinic receive money from Access each time you have a cycle or an FER, and it will be Access who provide you with the refund should one be payable. I just wanted to let you know incase you were factoring that in your decision.

My experience is clinics want to get you a baby in the shortest possible time and want to maintain good success rates and patient satisfaction.

I am with access fertility - 2 cycles 50% refund programme. I am happy with it because you don't have to worry about pay for each transfer and scan. I have done the first collection, 8 egg was collected; 4 blast embryos. I also transferred existing 2 embryos from NHS and got transferred for free. First fresh transfer was failed: 2nd ends miscarriage; now i am on the 3rd 11 days after FET.

Thanks for all the info everyone.
We have to have ICSI because, having had a vasectomy reversed, my sperm quality is not good. Then, having developed bladder cancer, from which I am now recovered, my sperm was frozen free of charge, by the NHS ... so I have enough ICSI quality 'straws' to keep us going for the duration.
We have a Consultation booked for January with Access but fear that we will be refused their Refund offer due to my sperm quality and my wife's history of OHSS. Also, Access now tell me that they only do fresh transfers after the first egg collection.
The Newcastle clinic advised against this and said my wife needs one months rest and, therefore, frozen embryo transfer. Access charge an extra £1200 for this!
The thing is, Newcastle have all our records, as well as my frozen sperm. We are into extra costs for transferring this to any other clinic.
ICSI costs at Newcastle Fertility Centre have remained the same for several years, at £4300 + £500 for medications and we are tempted to stay with them. ( Med costs are not so much a problem as my wife works in a pharmacy and gets a good deal.)
An alternative is Gateshead QE which, with Live Births of over 30%, has the highest success rating in the NE, if the not the entire country. Friends who have gone there have all succeeded first time! But their ICSI costs are high at around £5,500 excluding meds. I suppose it's a case of 'you gets what you pays for!'
On top of that, my wife will be 38 next year, so, although she has a very high follicle count, could soon be excluded from the Refund programmes and the 'abc' criteria ... so we have to decide now! We find ourselves balancing our 'trust/faith' in the clinics against their costs!
I suppose most of you out there have faced this same dilemma and it's not easy for any of us ... but we will keep on trying and hope for success. Good luck to all of you and Merry Christmas!

@HarryP123 It sounds like you have a lot of things to consider, you seem really sensible in how you are weighing up the options, I found it helpful to make an excel spreadsheet. I put each cost in when comparing paying my clinic directly and with the access fertility package I was considering. I then looked at how the cost would increase up- so how much I would have paid both options if successful on the first attempt, and then each subsequent FET attempt. I figured out if it worked first time then I would have been better with paying the clinic directly, any more attempts than that and the package with access was the best option. But this is likely to vary depending on clinic costs and the package access offers you.

Access told me it costs more to do a freeze all as well, I can see their logic, because they will definitely not get a live birth out of the fresh cycle. The more cycles it takes for someone to achieve a live birth, the more access have to pay.

In relation to the clinic’s statistics, I wouldn’t focus too much on them for a number of reasons. Firstly it isn’t the same as a piece of research, in a research article there is consideration of bias, confounding factors etc. These are literally just statistics, perhaps a clinic has a lot of women in the oldest age bracket, while another clinic sees mostly young women. Some clinics with very high statistics do a lot of double transfers to increase their rates. With my clinic I had a rash and my consultant wanted to cancel the egg transfer on the day, now if she was concerned with statistics she wouldn’t have advised that. So you need to remember that clinics with higher statistics may be taking more risks.

Hi all,

Could anyone possibly share Access Fertility's T&C's, please?

The reason I am asking is that they could not provide us the T&C before we would have done the initial consultation and the initial screening at the clinic, and that's effectively already paying-out substantial sums of money, without even being able to know whether Access Fertility's T&C would suit us.

I have got Assured Fertility's T&C and they actually mention that if you have two miscarriages, then they kick-you out of the plan and don't refund the retail cost of any procedures already performed. Given my wife has a history of miscarriage, that's a no go for us. I wanted to check for the same clause in Access Fertility's T&C but they won't send us one without us having started the process already, and paid out some money (as mentioned above).

Many thanks,

@nufchavq I have the same question right now. Did you ever get an answer at all!