Obtaining fertility medications

There are many medications that can be used in the treatment of infertility. Most of these medications are administered in order to cause women to develop more than one egg to the point of ovulation in each menstrual cycle. Without fertility medications, women ovulate only one egg each month. Theoretically, more ovulations should increase the chance for pregnancy, although this is still somewhat controversial. The risk of multiple pregnancy must be weighed against the possible increase in the chance for pregnancy, and that calculation depends on each woman’s individual medical circumstances.

Understanding your insurance coverage for fertility medications, and fertility treatment in general, is very important.

Your insurance company should be able to go over your coverage and explain how to obtain the medications. There may be certain requirements, for example, you may be required to use a specific pharmacy or obtain pre-authorization before filling a prescription. Our authorizations and billing staff can also help you understand your coverage. In the event that you do not have insurance coverage for your medication, you need to understand that prices can vary greatly from pharmacy to pharmacy and prices change often.

We suggest that you confirm the costs with your pharmacy but also do a price comparison with other pharmacies before filling your prescription. Please call our Authorizations Department with any questions you may have. One of the many benefits of being one of the nation’s largest and most well recognized fertility centers is that our patients get access to special drug pricing from the manufacturers as well as from specialty pharmacies. We also get access to this special pricing due to the research that we have performed with the leading fertility medication manufacturers. In addition to this special pricing, from time to time, pharmaceutical manufacturers offer discount programs. These are always offered to our patients, so be sure to ask our staff about any discount programs.

Some fertility medications will be ordered through specialty pharmacies.

These pharmacies can provide the best prices and can also ship the medication over night to your home. Your physician will typically allow you to have refills on your prescription. Unlike with Clomid or Femara, dosing of gonadotropins is often unpredictable. We realize that these medications are very expensive, and we therefore strive to never prescribe too much. Unfortunately, as we never know exactly how much medication any individual will take, it is very important that each patient pay attention to how much medication she has left so that she can refill the prescription if she is at risk of running out.

We usually do not have any medication on hand in the office, so please do not rely on us to be able to loan you medication. This is especially important over weekends or holidays, as the specialty pharmacies are closed and cannot arrange for emergency medication shipments.