2013 experience only please: Have you found a good, organized clinic?

[Anonymous]

Another GW fan here! I love Dr Frankfurter and it's like an entire new place without Dr Gindoff being there. Catherine is still there and she's always been my nurse for all of my pregnancies and she is wonderful. The other nurses are great too and the finance guy is a wizard at getting all you can out of your insurance. It's a great place to cycle and they make you feel like a person.

[Anonymous]

Despite commentary to the opposite, I have to say that I had a very good experience w/ CFA!

[Anonymous]

Been to both GW and SGF in 2012 and 2013 and liked them both. Decided to do IVF with sgf due to sart rates and Gindoff leaving GWU as he was my doc. Failed first IVF at sgfc and am doing one more. If that doesn't work then I will go back to GWU for next IVF as I need someone to truly dig into my case to understand my Dx of unexplained. Considered CFA and really liked Abassi but their finance folks have scared the bejesus out of me and I haven't even started cycling there. I second everyone's opinion about Brian at GWU and Catherine both being fantastic.

[Anonymous]

Please dont even consider cfa. They are a disaster. I saw them 5 years ago and from what I have heard nothing has changed.

[Anonymous]

2013 experience with CFA. Love them. No billing issues and I adore dr sacks

[Anonymous]

23:25: did you find someone who worked out better than CFA? I am consistently hearing that Sacks is wonderful and it is CFA's finance department that is the problem.

[Anonymous]

Like others GW was awesome (even if it didn't work - old eggs, etc). Brian is beyond fabulous as is Dr F!! Another thing I discovered is with GW (atleast with my insurance) there are no co-pays for monitoring while SG and Dominion (using them for local monitoring for out of town DE cycle) both have co-pays which can add up quickly at $30/pop.

I had horrendous issues with billing at SG (prior clinic to GW) - they didn't submit preauthorizations for one procedure, messed up meds and could never get a response from my billing contact.

[Anonymous]

I'll also jump on the GW bandwagon. We had success there and I love Dr. F and the nurses! Brian was great too - very helpful!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:23:25: did you find someone who worked out better than CFA? I am consistently hearing that Sacks is wonderful and it is CFA's finance department that is the problem.

This is 23:35...I ended up using Dr. Gordon Dominion and have been very happy there. Pregnant with #2 now, but used an out of town clinic for #1 (not one of the ones you hear about often..long story). I also saw Dr. Sacks while I was at CF and liked him a lot but felt like if the nurses couldn't handle simple things like calling me with the correct lab results, etc that I couldn't trust them with IVF. I also had terrible issues with their billing department, and with getting the nurses to call in my meds correctly, which ultimately led me to use a few days of their stock at the office and accusations from one of the nurses that I was trying to get drugs for free. Just stress that is so unnecessary on top of an already difficult situation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:2013 experience with CFA. Love them. No billing issues and I adore dr sacks

Where did you cycle? Could it be that the billing person assigned to Sacks isn't bad? If anyone can comment on this that would be helpful as there have been enough messages about the inadequacy of the finance team at CFA which one cannot discount. The whole IVF process is stressful and expensive enough - the last thing one needs is finance people messing things up. That is something that I am not willing to take a chance with at all.

[Anonymous]

I've been biting my tongue until now, but in reply to 11:39:

No, it cannot be that the billing person assigned to Sacks is not bad. She is incompetent, rude, abrasive, confrontational, and makes you feel like she is doing nothing to solve the problem. Instead, she becomes the problem and then looks at you like "Well, what am I supposed to do? We have a big problem here."

[Anonymous]

I am a Sacks patient and have not had issues with finance. (I really like him so probably would have muddled through some issues even if they were present to be completely honest.)

With my clomid/IUI cycles I wasn't pleased with the finance staff and did have one issue (which I think was probably an Aetna issue to be honest since they really do suck donkey butt). With my IVF cycles I haven't had an troubles (though my FET was out of pocket so the only thing there was to do was pay them the fee).

[Anonymous]

This is 9:54, and I was a patient of Dr. Sacks. Billing was awful. They essentially told me I hadn't been paying my co-pays, some almost a year later. Then after I spent a long time digging up receipts, writing a letter and sending everything to them, they said things like "oh, the payment you made on June 1st was applied to the missed payment on May 30, and thats why you still owe us money." It was a never ending cycle until I finally lost it on them and had DH call Dr. Sacks, which helped, but it took hours and hours of my time and LOTS of stress. Their finance dept. does not know what they are doing and do not care about the stress it causes.

[Anonymous]

I know you are looking at 2013- and my last visit was January 2013 (although my cycle was in 2012) - I graduated to an OB! Anyway- I went to Shady Grove in Rockville- VERY organized. Dr. Chang was my Doctor (he is very clinical) and Jessica was my nurse (she was very sweet- and very responsive). The financial person I dealt with handled everything beautifully and I had no issues. Appointments all went smoothly (I actually appreciate that it is run professionally). I never sat in the waiting room for more than 15 minutes. I did my monitoring at both Rockville and K Street (I loved that I could easily switch between locations to do my monitoring- made life so much easier when trying to juggle appointments and work). Good luck!

[Anonymous]

13:13: Congrats on your "graduation"! Whoo hoo!!!!