Health and Life

How Much Does Artificial Insemination Cost

Cost of “In Vitro Fertilization” and Artificial Insemination

For some women, it is more than just a challenge to get pregnant. For a woman who is infertile due to blocked fallopian tubes or other medical difficulties, in vitro fertilization or artificial insemination may be the only options towards getting pregnant. Couples or single would-be mothers should consider the IVF cost and artificial insemination cost before deciding on either. A single cycle can range anywhere from $12,000 to $30,000 per cycle, and it may take more than one cycle to get pregnant.

Medication Cost

• The costs listed above can often be solely for the physical fertilization procedure itself, and to include anything else, like the medications usually prescribed to help make the female’s reproductive system more receptive to pregnancy success. Medication cost of I vitro fertilization vary considerably based on the woman’s age and general health. Older women closer to the end of their fertile period in life need larger doses of medications over longer periods of times, while younger women need less medication. These variations from one woman to the next can range from $1500 to up to $6000 for women over the age of forty. Woman under the age of 40 may only need $500-1000. Progesterone, Doxcycline, Medrol, and Lupron are only some of the medications injected prior to any in vitro procedures. There are also newer medications being introduced to the market on a regular basis that may in time help reduce the cost of artificial pregnancy.

“Pre-Cycle” Costs

• The “pre-cycle” is a series of procedures that take place before the eggs are even taken from the woman. This includes an initial clinic visit, the pre-pregnancy screening, to best determine the female’s overall health; this will help determine that there is a clear understanding of what needs to happen inside the body for the pregnancy to result in a health birth.”Pre-cycle” work also includes the “sonohysterogram”, which is the device that creates “ultrasound” images of the uterus, as well as any fetus that develops after the fertilization. These and other stages include a trial transfer procedure, to help ensure that the actual procedure will not encounter unexpected challenges inside the uterus. “Pre-cycle” preparation includes an analysis of the semen to be used in the fertilization. This includes a culture of the semen along with a scan of the FSH, TSH, and E2 levels, a Prolactin test, and a free T4 test to measure the unbound thyroxine levels in the blood. All together, these costs can easily add up to around $2,000 by themselves.

Cycle Costs

• The actual fertilization cycle has far less stages than the pre-cycle, but the costs do not go down. The base cycle cost is a little over $8,000 alone and anesthesia for the procedure is around $600 depending on what is going to be used.
• There are additional costs that can be involved for women who are older, or who have various physical limitations.
• Before any of this work is done, a person considering artificial insemination should consult at length with their insurance professional to determine what if anything is covered. This may involve more than a simple phone call or email, since it is quite possible in this day and age that the initial person handling the question may not either fully understand the question or may be fully qualified to answer it. It is also possible that different people inside the insurer may have different answers. The person wanting the procedure should understand these challenges going in, in order to ask the right questions and then to get documentation from the insurer when they get the answers they seek.