Embryo storage costs

[janegold]

Just got our first bill for embryo storage for our 3 frosties.  Guess we must have had 2 years included from our initial retrieval cycle.  It was more than I was expecting!  For those of you who have embryos stored, how much do you pay?  If you have an FSA, do they reimburse you for the fee? (I'm going to submit for it anyway but from Googling, it looks like there is a lot of variability with FSA administrators).  

We don't really know what our plans are for a second yet - possibly a FET as early as August/September of this year, but possibly the following year instead, if at all. And no idea about a third yet...I don't want to pay these fees indefinitely, though it's better than going through another retrieval cycle I guess.

[midwest07]

I think ours was around $325 a year, and I am not sure that it varied based on how many you had. I did use either FSA or HSA funds to pay it.

[King26]

At the current place ours are stored it's $500 per year. At the first clinic we were at it was $1800 per year

[scm1011]

I’m still waiting for our first bill (we had a feb retrieval so I’m guessing next month), but I’m pretty sure MGH charges $800 a year. We’re aiming to do a FET around August as well. Two is our limit, so hopefully we’ll only have to pay 1-2 years.

[pooh8402]

500/yr, number of embryos doesn't matter.

[thoseareradishes]

$1000.

So last year after I had E, I called my nurse to tell her. A few weeks later I got a bill for embryo storage, so I called my financial person to pay. She said the bill was prorated for 2017 and I'd have to pay the full fee in 2018. After I got off the phone, I was like, wait, did I really just pay for 4 additional months because my kid was born early?!

[pooh8402]

Jan 10, 2018 19:53:32 GMT -5 thoseareradishes said:

$1000.

So last year after I had E, I called my nurse to tell her. A few weeks later I got a bill for embryo storage, so I called my financial person to pay. She said the bill was prorated for 2017 and I'd have to pay the full fee in 2018. After I got off the phone, I was like, wait, did I really just pay for 4 additional months because my kid was born early?!

I'm confused by this. Why does it matter when your kid is born? The clock on my embryo storage started as soon as I got the BFP.

[konapoppy]

$45/month. I don’t know when we will decide what to do (we have 1 potentially normal one left). I hate paying that fee though so probably no more than 2 years.

[janegold]

Bah, so mine definitely are on the high side. Over $1000/yr. Hopefully the FSA will accept it.

[trace]

$85 per month. The first three months were free. We’ve been paying for just over two years so $2025. We’re planning on FET in late spring/early summer and then we’ll be done since we only have one embryo. We used our FSA to pay for some of our fees.

[thoseareradishes]

Jan 10, 2018 21:19:04 GMT -5 pooh8402 said:

Jan 10, 2018 19:53:32 GMT -5 thoseareradishes said:

$1000.

So last year after I had E, I called my nurse to tell her. A few weeks later I got a bill for embryo storage, so I called my financial person to pay. She said the bill was prorated for 2017 and I'd have to pay the full fee in 2018. After I got off the phone, I was like, wait, did I really just pay for 4 additional months because my kid was born early?!

I'm confused by this. Why does it matter when your kid is born? The clock on my embryo storage started as soon as I got the BFP.

I don't know, it confused me too.  I assume when I told my nurse she was born, she noted it on my chart and that flagged something in financial.  Or, maybe we paid for a year initially (in April 2016), and the year was up so then we were paying for the rest of 2017 and then we'd be billed in January every year.  The timing just seemed weird since we got the bill shortly after letting them know E was born.

[shauni27]

This just reminded me that I needed to email our clinic and ask about this.

I am fairly sure that we pay a storage fee as part of the IVF process for them to store the embies for up to X years. But then there is an additional cost. However, I could very well be making this up, so I just emailed to ask!

[icedcoffee]

We didn't get any frosties (wahhh!), but we have 6 vials of sperm on ice because my H had bad MFI and these vials were ok so I am hesitant to get rid of them. They're my safety blanket. Anyway---I just paid $600 for 2018. We paid $530 for 2017 (prices went up). 2016 was free, I guess.

We'll keep it frozen until our family is complete, but man is it expensive.

[icedcoffee]

Also---I can submit to my FSA, but I forgot about this expense and didn't elect enough money. Sob.

[scm1011]

Jan 11, 2018 12:11:04 GMT -5 icedcoffee said:

Also---I can submit to my FSA, but I forgot about this expense and didn't elect enough money. Sob.

Same. I didn't consider storage fees or anything related to our planned FET 

[daisyfay25]

We pay $400/year. I know our clinic works with people to figure out any kind of payment plan they are able to handle.

[G22]

We pay $40 a month ( So $480 a year) for our storage.

[knx9211]

$300 or $350 a year. I forget. But we have two separate batches saved so it’s doubled.

[mrsgoontz]

Jan 10, 2018 19:08:14 GMT -5 pooh8402 said:

500/yr, number of embryos doesn't matter.

Same here. Paying next week actually.