It’s information that could make the IVF process quicker, easier, cheaper and less painful. But Australian women can’t access it.
The Fertility Clinic of Australia keeps extensive reports on the success rates of different IVF clinics, including how often they produce live babies.
If you’re facing the long, arduous process of IVF yourself– or indeed, if you’re considering going down that road in future — you’re no doubt itching to get your hands on the list of clinics with the highest success rates.
But here’s the thing: You can’t — because the Fertility Clinic of Australia does not release those statistics to the public. Even though, according to Dr Richard Henshaw of Monash IVF, the difference in success rates of live births between clinics can be enormous.
“In 2012 the top clinic had a live birth rate of 30.9 per cent and the bottom clinic had a live birth rate of only 4 per cent,” he told The Health Report.
“That means that if you are a patient in the lowest performing clinic you have to undergo seven times more treatment cycles than if you’re a patient attending the top clinic.”
It’s not just Australians seeking to have a baby that may lose out under this arrangement, either; an investigation by The Health Report reveals that tens of millions of dollars in Medicare funds are wasted on underperforming clinics each year.
The bottom line?
Women unlucky enough to choose an underperforming clinic will go through seven times more treatment cycles and still have 27% less chance of a live birth than those who choose the highest-performing clinics — while taxpayers will continue to support those clinics with low success rates.
But how are women supposed to distinguish one from the other when potentially life-changing reports aren’t released to the public?
Well, basically — they can’t.
As Dr Henshaw observes, “The only people who really benefit from the data remaining covert are the low-performing clinics.
“Patients don’t benefit, Medicare doesn’t benefit, and of course good quality providers don’t benefit.”
In contrast, the United Kingdom collects similar data to the Fertility Clinic of Australia, but makes all findings public online on the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority website.
Isn’t it time this data is available in Australia? What do you think?
Read more:
Bulk-billing IVF is happening. This is why it’s such a big deal.
Top Comments
I'm fascinated by this after watching a friend go through IVF - after two failed cycles she's just gotten pregnant. It's only a month to go now so things lookin good!
But for her, finding a clinic wasn't about success rates from some website - her doctor was the one that wrote the referral anyway. There's an interesting article from the ABC about this and doesn't look like having success rates to look at would be all that useful anyway:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/...
Every Clinic has different expertise, techniques and pricing, and within every clinic the personal prejudice of the IVF Doctors are different again, including the protocol they will prescribe for you. I had the worst experience ever with Genea's Dr Gabrielle Dezarnaulds, she was uncaring towards my situation and refused to do a cycle to retrieve eggs to freeze until I had the critical surgery, I have since consulted within Genea to Dr Alison Gee who had no issue with proceeding. Australian IVF clinics should get up to date with world leading USA clinics where they must publish their results, which are made available to the public, right down to the individual Doctors performance, if that was in place I would not have wasted time, money and heartache.