Wednesday, December 3, 2008

The costs of an IVF cycle in France

I thought it might be interesting to show the cost breakdown for an IVF cycle here in France - both as comparison with prices in the US, where I know people easily pay $10,000+ for a cycle, and as guideline for any readers who live here too and are planning an IVF cycle.

The total amount of our IVF cycle: € 3,022 (for what's included, see below).

Of this total amount € 2,368 was covered by the general state-run health insurance, minus € 60 (edit: changed amount from € 43 after receiving latest insurance statement) of co-payment. Our additional insurance (we're covered through my hubby's work) paid for the remaining € 654.

Everyone in France, whether employed, unemployed, retired, etc. is covered under the general state-run insurance. Not everyone has the benefit of additional insurance, and if you have it, it depends on the contract what will be covered and what not (luckily we have a very good one). So this means that the most any legal resident of France would pay for an IVF cycle is about € 704 (i.e. the co-payment amount + the part optionally covered by the additional insurance).

This is of course great, and we're very happy that we can benefit from all of this. The question is how long France can keep a health care system like this without going bankrupt. The government is aware of the problem, however changes cannot be made easily because the whole country will go on strike as soon as any president or health care secretary tries to do something about it.

For those of you who want to know more, here are some details about what is included in above mentioned total costs:
Pre-cycle lab tests (€ 357 for blood work, pap smear, semen analysis)
3x u/s during stimulation (€ 70 each)
5x blood work during stimulation (€ 6 for nurse, € 19 for lab work)
Pre-ER consult with anesthesiologist (€ 45)
Determination by RE of trigger date (€ 110)
ER (€ 276 + € 243 for general anesthetic)
The actual IVF in the lab (€ 432)
3x beta test (€ 17 each)
u/s to confirm pregnancy (€ 57)
Suppression drugs (Enantone LP - € 137)
Stimulation drugs (Puregon, 2x 900IU at € 363 each)
Ovulation triggering drugs (Ovitrelle - € 41)
Progesterone suppositories (generic version of Utrogestan, 8 boxes of 15 capsules at € 5 / box)
Baby aspirin (Aspegic100, 4 boxes of 20 sachets at € 2 / box)
Follic acid (5 boxes of 30 tablets at € 4 / box)

Some observations/comments:
Nurses are very badly paid here. The one that came to my house to do the Enantone injection could only bill € 3 for the injection and € 2,20 for the house visit. I don't know how they can make a living off of that...
The € 110 for the 'determination of the trigger date' (I don't know how else to describe it) is pretty overpriced, compared to other costs.
I've actually had 5 u/s during stimulation, but our clinic always bills a maximum of 3 per cycle.
A Puregon pen is not included in the cost, since I already had that from my IUI cycles (I think it costs about € 60).
The u/s to determine the pregnancy is cheaper than the ones I had during stimulation because it was not done at the IVF clinic, so not the same prices...
I have not included the cost of a consult with our RE (which we had in July) - he charges € 70.
The above mentioned amount of vaginal progesterone suppositories is based on the period ER - 12w check-up (u/s), baby aspirin from ET - 12w and follic acid from pre-test phase (August) - 12w (although I've been taking that for ages already...).

2 comments:

Paula Keller said...

I'll have to look up the conversion, since I am totally uncultured and have never been to Europe. Well, I'm uncultured in the sense that I haven't DONE things, not that I haven't studied. I did take two years of French in college, and I took two years of Spanish in high school, and I've studied art, history, etc... so it's kind of a shame that I have been stuck in the US!

THANK YOU for the E2 levels! I replayed the nurse's messege last night after my post and she did say not to worry. However, it was interesting that your levels jumped so much on those last two days. I know it's still early.

lostintranslation said...

Today's conversion rates:
1 US Dollar = 0.78886 Euro
1 Euro = 1.26765 US Dollar