Fortunately the answer is probably yes. If you have health care coverage through your employer, check to see whether infertility treatments are already covered. If they are not, contact the insurance company to see whether it offers a supplemental policy. A supplemental policy is simply another policy with monthly premiums that specifically covers infertility treatments. There’s no reason your supplemental policy needs to come from your primary health care insurer if they do not provide one. You should shop around and compare premiums, coverage, and any criteria that you must meet before coverage begins.
Supplemental infertility insurance will usually cover diagnostic fertility tests, artificial insemination, fertility medications, and other types of assisted reproductive technology like IVF. Be careful to look at the conditions to these supplemental policies (or, if you are lucky enough to have coverage through your primary insurance, look for conditions spelled out there). An insurance company is motivated to encourage the lowest cost treatment options possible, and also to be sure they aren’t funding aggressive treatments for a couple that simply has not gotten pregnant but show no signs of infertility. As a result, policies might require that a couple be married for some period of time and have tried to get pregnant without success for at least a year. Sometimes that needs to be backed up with reports from the woman’s OBGYN or primary care provider. Many plans will also require that a couple try less aggressive (and less expensive) treatments like medication or IUI before providing coverage for IVF. Finally, most insurance plans will limit the number of IVF cycles they will cover. Anywhere from 3 to 5 appears to be a typical range these days.
Be sure though to understand when your insurance company will consider an IVF cycle to have begun. That might require a phone call to the insurance company if it’s not spelled out clearly in the policy documents that you read. The reason for this is that often a fertility doctor or clinic will stop an IVF cycle midstream if it looks like it won’t be successful (for instance, if the woman is not producing the number of expected follicles). The fertility doctor or clinic might then adjust the treatment protocol (dosages of medications for instance) to get better results on the next cycle. If your insurance company considers your IVF cycle to have already begun as soon as you begin injectable medication, for example, it may be in your interest to see the cycle through to the end even if your doctor thinks that your chances of getting pregnant on that protocol are lower than he or she would like. Explain to them that you’ve got for example “3 strikes” with your insurance company, and you don’t want to lose one on a cycle that isn’t taken through to completion.
Anna Short is has developed expertise on infertility through a combination of personal experience and thorough research. For more great information on infertility insurance, visit www.infertility-options-info.com
