Shady Grove Fertility Center
Rockville, Md. – Since launching its Shared Help financial discount program for fertility treatment early this year, Shady Grove Fertility Center has helped make the dream of parenthood more affordable for over 275 infertile couples.
Designed to help make infertility testing and treatment more affordable, the Shared Help Program offers discounts to Shady Grove Fertility Center (SGFC) patients with no insurance coverage and limited personal resources to cover the out-of-pocket expenses. Of 374 Shared Help applicants through October 31, 2009, 74 percent were approved for discounts on infertility treatments such as in vitro fertilization (IVF), intrauterine insemination (IUI), donor egg and more. On average, six applicants per week have been approved so far in 2009.
“Our top priority at Shady Grove Fertility Center is to clear obstacles our patients face who are trying to start a family,” said Michael J. Levy, M.D., an SGFC board-certified reproductive endocrinologist, and the brainchild behind Shared Help as well as SGFC’s other innovative financing options. “In fact, Shared Help is just one of several innovative options we offer to lessen the financial stress of the infertility journey and associated decision-making.”
Shared Help provides SGFC patients, whose income is $85,000 or less and who meet additional criteria, with a 10- to 50-percent discount off the cost of most fertility services provided by SGFC. The percentage discount is based on annual household income as confirmed by two years of U.S. federal tax returns. Program criteria can be found on their website http://www.ShadyGroveFertility.com.
“There’s no way we could have afforded more than two cycles of IUI without Shared Help unless we’d put it on our credit card,” said Emily, a 26-year-old cosmetologist from Cecil County, Md., who – along with her husband – is about to undergo her second round of intrauterine insemination at Shady Grove Fertility Center’s Bel Air, Maryland office, one of 12 locations throughout Baltimore and Washington, DC. The couple’s health insurance only covers infertility blood work and diagnosis, and their savings were minimal since her husband lost his job a year ago and wasn’t able to find a job for six months. Shady Grove offered a 40-percent discount for each IUI cycle. “We’
An additional financing option Shady Grove Fertility Center offers is Shared Risk, which covers up to six IVF or Donor Egg treatment cycles and guarantees a 100-percent refund if a baby is not delivered. For more information, visit http://www.shadygrovefertility.com/
About Shady Grove Fertility Center
Shady Grove Fertility Center is America’s largest fertility center based not only on the number of practicing physicians but also on the number of in vitro fertilization (IVF) cycles performed annually (more than 4,000), which is more than all other Baltimore/Washington area fertility clinics combined. Twenty-
