The Plan and the Insurance Sitch

First, see my previous post for the latest on my girly parts.

Second, here's the latest on the insurance situation:

I am definitely switching to the insurance at Big Large Corporation (BLC). It is unquestionably better coverage. If I exhaust my coverage under BLC, I can go back to my husband's insurance and then exhaust his coverage. Sneaky, eh?

Unfortunately, the insurance with BLC, which uses Well Known Insurance Company (WKIC), does not include Dr. McB as a preferred provider. In order to continue seeing him, I would have to see him as an out-of-network provider, which would completely defeat the purpose of having kick-ass benefits under BLC/WKIC. This is, of course, not an all together bad thing, what with the 30-40 mile drive (depending on whether you're driving from my house or my office), but you know? I had really begun to like Dr. McB. And we had a plan. And a timeline. And we were moving forward. And it was all good. Except the geography. But everything else was pretty good. Okay, so his SART Stats weren't great, but SART Stats, to be honest, aren't everything. Even SART says flat out that the stats can be deceiving because some clinics have a habit of purposely weeding out patients that will pose a greater challenge, and some clinics specifically see those patients that are more of a challenge, so their stats may be lower. So you see? It's all a little deceiving.

That being said, even the raw data for my old clinic is better - over 10% of their transfers are elective single embryo transfers, which is well above the national average of 3%, and well above the Hatchery's 0%. And the number of cycles initiated is vastly bigger - nearly 1200 compared to 36 in my age group. Bigger isn't necessarily better, but it does make their data easier to interpret since their sample size is bigger. There is defintely something to be said for the smaller clinic and the single doctor who isn't going to forget me. But I never felt like my doctors didn't know who I was at the big clinic, either. I never felt like a patient number at the old clinic (though I still know my patient number by heart).

Anyway, it's the right decision to make - to go back to the old clinic. Geographically, financially, and probably in terms of success rates. But it sucks because I had a plan, and now the plan has changed and because I really did like Dr. McB as it turned out, and I think he would have done good things for us. I hate that money stands in the way of the things we want in life. Or in this case, money and geography.

So the plan:

1. Get HSG done - either clinic could use the same HSG results anyway - CHECK
2. Schedule a pre-pregnancy consult with perinatologist - CHECK (Dec. 15th)
3. Schedule consult with Dr. Amazing at old clinic - CHECK (Jan 5th)
4. Go on BCPs when next period starts - I'm still going to do this in anticipation that Dr. Amazing will be on board with my plan to go forward with IVF and that way I won't be delayed in waiting to start a cycle - I'll already be on BCPs. Sneaky, right?

And now we wait.