Access Fertility

[SK72]

Hello, has anybody used the Access Fertility for IVF treatment? How does it work? Would you recommend?

@SK72 I’m with access fertility, all our tests had come back normal and I have a high AFC so we went for the two cycle non refund package and ended up getting 9 blasts in the first fresh cycle, so now Access Fertility will keep funding for us to go through all of the blasts having FET, and if none of those result in a live birth then we can have another collection cycle. The embryoscope technology was included with the package which is also a plus. As the first transfer which we had in the fresh cycle wasn’t successful, financially it would have cost us more to keep going if we were paying the clinic directly.

I found it helpful to make a spreadsheet with every eventuality (e.g need ICSI or not) and compare how costs will accumulate with paying the clinic directly and with an access package.

[quote Gardenlady543]@SK72 I’m with access fertility, all our tests had come back normal and I have a high AFC so we went for the two cycle non refund package and ended up getting 9 blasts in the first fresh cycle, so now Access Fertility will keep funding for us to go through all of the blasts having FET, and if none of those result in a live birth then we can have another collection cycle. The embryoscope technology was included with the package which is also a plus. As the first transfer which we had in the fresh cycle wasn’t successful, financially it would have cost us more to keep going if we were paying the clinic directly.

I found it helpful to make a spreadsheet with every eventuality (e.g need ICSI or not) and compare how costs will accumulate with paying the clinic directly and with an access package.[/quote]
Thanks for your reply and the useful information. I wish you all the best.
I guess they do some tests to check your eligibility?

@SK72 they do ask for a medical for the refund packages, so you would have need to have had all the standard investigations and seen a specialist and those documents then need to be forwarded on. They told me that process takes 2 weeks. For the non-refund package they don’t have to do any checks, so mine was all sorted within about 24 hours.

You’d need to be confident that you’ll get a good amount of embryos to benefit from the non-refund package as you’ll only be able to try for that many cycles and you won’t get a refund.

The prices are different depending on age of the woman. If you give them a call they’ll talk through all the options and the costs, for me at age 35 the prices were:

2 cycles no refund £7,300
2 cycles 50% refund £9,200

3 cycles 100% refund £12,200, 70% refund £10,900 and 50% refund £10,250

Unlimited for 2 years 100% refund £15,000

The packages cost more if you need ICSI (injecting them sperm into the eggs), I went without as they told me I could either pay the extra with them or directly pay the clinic for it.

Your medications aren’t included in the packages, the clinics don’t include them in their prices either, expect to pay an extra £1200-2000 for a fresh cycle and about £200-300 for frozen cycles. You can get the medications cheaper by asking the specialist for a private prescription and taking it to Asda pharmacy, where they sell you the medications at cost price.

I'm with access fertility on a 2 cycle icsi deal. We had three embryos first round (no bfp at all) and have had a second round with 6 embryos now in the freezer. Financially it's better for us, but I guess it all depends on how many embryos are created.

One thing that I hadn't really considered until after we'd signed up was that you can't say do the three cycle deal and do three egg collections rounds in a row, you'd have to wait and use the embryos up as they're made. So if you were say getting old and worried about your eggs ageing then that's not ideal.

Can I ask a couple of questions too as I think we'll be in the IVF boat pretty soon.
I assume if you have a baby, you don't get to keep using the remaining round from the deals for another child? I guess that's something to consider, especially if you take a more expensive deal.

I also wondered if anyone knew how Access compares to the likes of ABC where it looks like you could pay for 3 rounds including meds for the £12,000?

@CycleGirl20 the contract with access fertility carries on until you have a live birth and then that’s it after that. So if you get the 2 year package or the 3 cycle package and you get pregnant and have a live birth on the very first cycle with the fresh transfer, then that’s the contract finished. If you got extra embryos in the cycle which were frozen, then it’s up to you to pay to keep them frozen and sort out paying to use them in the future if you want. I think my contract says I can’t have more than a 6 month break inbetween cycles.

As @seven201 mentioned you have to go through all the embryos that your specialist recommends are used until you can go onto the next fresh cycle, so you’ll have the fresh transfer and then have to use each of the other embryos frozen in FET cycles.

@CycleGirl20 as far as I’m aware ABC have quite strict requirements for who they’ll accept, although there is a medical stage to pass for the refund packages at access too, presumedly not as stringent. I don’t know the different packages that ABC have, you’ll have to get all the figures from ABC and Access and put them into a spreadsheet and see which will work out cheapest for you.

Thanks @Gardenlady543. The spreadsheet sounds like a good idea! I'm already on the pre-ivf diet to make sure I'm well below the usual BMI 30 cut-off.

Thanks for this great information

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,