State helps pay for fertilization

The average paid out by the New York state program is a little over $14,000 per patient.

MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS

LONG ISLAND, N.Y. — It’s the baby business and it’s booming — with new ways to finance costly fertility treatments for women such as Gladys Carlesso.

As fertility practices compete for business, patients focus on the bottom line — the cost of expensive medical procedures that help some women achieve pregnancy.

Financial organizations are jumping on the fertility bandwagon — offering loans and other ways to help, even as New York State is offering grants to assist would-be parents.

When Carlesso began to consider more expensive fertility treatments, she learned that one in-vitro fertilization (IVF) cycle could cost up to $15,000 — and that her medical insurance would not cover it.

For years, she had longed for a baby and had undergone repeated artificial insemination procedures — in which a doctor places sperm in the uterus — in an effort to become pregnant.

“People always ask me, ‘How many kids do you have?,”’ said Carlesso, 35, a part-time real estate sales agent whose husband, Guillermo, is a machinist.

After an acquaintance urged her to investigate IVF — a laboratory procedure that unites eggs and sperm — a fertility expert at the Center for Human Reproduction at North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset told her about state financial assistance.

So Carlesso underwent IVF. The bill came to about $28,000. Carlesso and her husband paid about $9,000, and a grant from the New York state Department of Health Infertility Demonstration Program paid the rest.

Today, Carlesso is expecting twins.

The average amount paid by the state program — which has been extended through March 2008 — is $14,170 for IVF and for another procedure known as GIFT (gamete intrafallopian transfer).

The state payments go directly to care providers that participate in the program. As of June 30, 2006, 2,600 IVF or GIFT treatment cycles had been provided under the program.

Debora Spar, a business administration professor at Harvard University, estimates that fertility is a $3-billion-a-year industry — one that’s largely unregulated, making revenue-tracking difficult.

The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta estimated in 2002 that about 1.2 million women in the United States had a fertility-related medical appointment during the previous year. And CDC statistics show the number of live-birth deliveries to U.S. women using assisted reproductive technology began growing steadily in 1996, when such pregnancies resulted in 14,507 live births. By 2004, the tally was 36,730.

Applicants for the New York state grants must have health insurance and meet criteria including a household gross income of no more than $195,000. There is no marriage requirement.

Deborah Dickson, director of the state program, said the legislation that created it required a patient to share the cost.

The ever-expanding baby business now offers other forms of financing.

Capital One Healthcare Finance — a branch of the banking and financial services company — offers fertility loans ranging from $1,000 to $25,000 for IVF and other treatments. The loans are paid back in monthly installments over up to five years.

And IntegraMed America Inc., a company that works with North Shore, has an IVF-financing plan that resembles an insurance policy.

Dr. David Rosenfeld, director of North Shore’s human reproduction center, says the cost of IVF has discouraged some potential parents. “There’s been an ongoing problem as long as I’ve been doing it,” he said, noting that many insurance companies won’t cover the costs of IVF.