So, if you haven't guessed, I wanted to post about the costs of our fertility treatment to date. I was adding up the totals for myself and figured some people might like to see how the costs compare with their own situations/countries. Our insurance covers infertility testing but not treatment, so the HSG, MRI and lap/hyst, plus some of my basic bloods were all paid for - I might have had to think twice about some of these procedures if they hadn't been! The cost of treatment at expat hospitals out here is ridiculous and I probably wouldn't have been willing to have surgery at a local hospital (yes, I know that sounds like a crazy, contradictory thing to say given that I've been through 3 IUIs and an IVF cycle at a local hospital!).. but surgery seemed like such a scary thing at the time - turns out the HSG was more painful!
We probably could have claimed back the cost of some of our blood tests and my Bloke's SAs done at the local clinic, but we haven't tried - trying to get translations of the receipts, plus expecting our overworked Doctors to fill out insurance paperwork just seemed like it would be a nightmare.
Anyway, here are the costs:
Initial tests at clinic plus non-medicated IUI #1
Chinese RMB 5,129
GBP 492
USD 793
Medicated IUI #2
Chinese RMB 3,783
GBP 363
USD 585
Medicated IUI #3
Chinese RMB 3,575
GBP 343
USD 553
IVF Long Protocol
Chinese RMB 30,437
GBP 2,920
USD 4,705
Totals:
Chinese RMB 42,925
GBP 4,118
USD 6,636
What do you think? Compared to a natural conception... (30 quid for a bottle of wine and a takeaway?..), yes, it's a lot of money. But compared to other countries, I'm guessing it's pretty good. Obviously this doesn't take into account my loss of earnings since I had to leave work in September 2010 to pursue treatment! Best not to think about that, I reckon!
Part 2 to come in a post about the cost of pre-natal & maternity cover overseas...
