Dr. Gordon or Dr. Greenhouse?

[Anonymous]

Hi everyone, I'm 40 TTC #2 for a year and a half. Had two failed IUIs and one failed IVF with Columbia Fertility. No problems identified with me or husband, just my age I guess. In another thread, I explained that I'm leaving CFA because they offer no financing options. And frankly, I feel like we need a fresh point of view. Now I've narrowed my choices down to either Dr Gordon or Dr. Greenhouse; both their clinics seem to offer some sort of financing. Now the dilemma is: who should I go to? Any experience/opinion is highly appreciated.

Many thanks!

[Anonymous]

i saw dimattina (gordon's partner) for a consult, and he was awful. there's a thread about him on this forum (so searches for his practice and both doctors).
i haven't been to see gordon, but judging on that 1 experience w/ his partner - i didn't want any chance of seeing dimattina if i would have went w/ gordon (in the event that gordon was out of office).
i'm checking out SG (greenhouse) in a few weeks...
good luck!

[Anonymous]

I've had experiences at both practices with both Drs.

Dominion/Gordon - I did NCIVF (2 failed cycles)
SG/Greenhouse - Going to do IVF

SG offers financing through Visa Health One which is simply a high interest credit card (I looked into it extensively) so in my opinion, if you can find a low interest credit card instead, I would use that if you can't pay in full right away...Dominion offers a program called ARC but I'm not familiar with it as we paid OOP - cash for both cycles. I was not happy with my experience with Dominions financial dept; I was often provided with the wrong information and when I asked questions about financing based on the info provided on their Web site, often the financial manager did now know the answer. SG seemed a lot more buttoned up in the financial department.

I like both Drs. and felt both were extremely nice (no ego), funny (when I needed them to be), easy to talk to and knew their stuff. I cannot complain about either. Both answered questions and numerous emails I sent. Dominion gives you the impression that they are providing you with individualized care but I felt I was also in good hands at SG even though it is a large practice...With me, Greenhouse seems to be a little more aggressive with his treatments while Dr. Gordon liked to exhaust all the natural, less aggressive options first (Gordon recommended my next step be a few rounds of unmedicated IUIs while Greenhouse said that we would have much better success doing IVF, and in the long run it would be kinder on our wallets and our emotions-- we are eager to get past this horrible point in our lives). While I certainly appreciate Gordon's desire to avoid pumping me up with tons of drugs if I don't need it, my husband and I decided at this point that we don't have the money, the energy or the time to play around with less aggressive options that may still end up costing us thousands, so that is why we are going with Greenhouse at SG and using their shared risk program. Our new outlook is that nothing good ever came easy so I'm prepared to do the injections. We gambled and lost by doing NCIVF twice (low success rates) but feel we are at least doing the most aggressive treament we possibly can...if it doesnt end up working, at least we'll get our money back.

I'm sorry I'm probably not helping you at all with your decision! But I really don't think you can go wrong with either Dr. Maybe check our their financial options first...money really helped us make the decision to go with SG. (And its unfortunate it had to be that way)

[Anonymous]

I've seen both. Both doctors are top notch. I do have to echo the previous posters negative comments about Dominion. I did not like Dr. Dimattina at all. You of course will see some other doctors at SG that you probably will not like, but with Dominion it is always either Dr. Gordon or Dr. Dimattina, so you know you are going to see the other doctor at least part of the time.

I also had problems with Dominion's billing office. This happened several years ago and I thought that perhaps they had cleaned up their act (but based upon the PP, I am not sure). Their billing office was the reason we left Dominion and went to SG. Basically, they were telling me that my insurance would not pay for things that I knew my insurance would cover. They pretty much held me over a barrel when I went in for monitoring the day that I was supposed to trigger and told me they wouldn't see me until I paid them up front. My husband then spent the next couple of months convincing them to actually bill my insurance and then repay us after our insurance did cover the monitoring. He actually had to sit in the lady's office and make her get on the phone with the insurance company in his presence. Now I can understand fertility clinics wanting to be paid up front and am totally on board with that, but refusing to even contact someone's insurance company to see what is covered or not is ridiculous.

[Anonymous]

I'm 38 years old and i was diagnosed with high FSH/premature ovarian failure, I went to SG, and was told that egg donation was my only option. They were nice, but would not consider giving me a chance. I went to Dr. DiMattina and he recommended natural cycle IVF, but he told me my chances were not great. Well I'm 14 weeks pregnant with a healthy baby, just got CVS test back from OB! I liked both Dominion Fertility doctors and I'm so happy I went to them.

[Anonymous]

Poster 11:05 here...one more thing to add about Dominion's financial department...just like poster 11:37, I also had problems with Dominion billing me for things I knew were covered by my insurance. Now that I remember it, I had to spend time arguing with receptionists and their financial manager to convince them to re-bill my insurance.

Additionally, during my second round of NCIVF, I literally had the bill thrown at my face by their receptionist. No exageration. When I stood in line in the morning to sign in for my first day of monitoring, she literally threw the bill at me before I could even sign in! No hello, no smile...just threw me the bill for $4000. I almost walked out at that point but was desperate to give it another shot so I just sucked up my anger and humiliation.

Again, SG's financial counselor (at least the one in Fair Oaks) seems a lot more professional.

[Anonymous]

I am a current patient and previous patient of Dr. Gordon's. I have only positive things to say about him and the practice.
I felt he was very caring and sensitive to my needs and his nursing staff is top notch. I didn't have a problem with the finance office in his location
but maybe that was because my coverage is completely paid for through Aetna PPO insurance through my employer and the only thing
I have to pay are $20 co pay and $7 drug meds.

I did 1 failed IUI with Gordon and he recommended that I move right to IVF after that. Which I did. I had success on my first IVF. And I have since had another
baby via FET cycle with Gordon again. They are open 365 a days a week, on call and you can page a nurse that returns your calls within an hour.
I think that is exceptional. I had an incident where I shattered a lupron medicine bottle on my kitchen tile floor one night as I was trying to take the medication.
Paged the nurses line and they called in a prescription within minutes---you can't beat that kind of service and level of detail.

I found the entire practice to be knowledgable. A lot of people have bad things to say about his partner Dr. Dimattina. I personally think the man gets a bad rap.
He is a highly successful doctor which may come with an attitude. But hey you don't have to like his attitude and become best friends with these doctors, you're just there to get results and get pregnant and this practice has great success at doing that.

Good luck to you.

[Anonymous]

def. dr. greenhouse!

[Anonymous]

PP, I'm the OP, why Dr. Greenhouse? Can you please elaborate a bit more?

I did some more research and the financing at SG is indeed through Visa Health One and it caps at 25K; while Dominion offers the ARC program where you can finance up to 3 cycles (which can total to much more than 25K) and pay a fixed monthly amount spread over 5 years. So, it seems that Dr. Gordon might be the better choice for us financially.

I'm curious, though, other than for financing/billing reasons, for folks who don't recommend Dominion, is it just becasue of Dr. Dimattina's rudeness and arrogance? Because that wouldn't really bother me much if I only see him rarely when Dr. Gordon is not around and especially if they achieve results.

Thanks!

[Anonymous]

I'm a patient of Dr. DiMattina and I haven't encountered any rudeness just an occasional brusqueness. For me having the same two doctors was important, I had done a cycle at SG and when I woke up from the egg retrieval I heard the nurses talking about the "physician du jour" who did my retrieval and they seem to think he wasn't the best. They were complaining that it would take all day to do retrievals. I'm sure they did not intend for me to hear this, but given the results of my cycle it seemed to make sense that not all of my follicles were retrieved. during the monitoring I consistently had 8-10 follicles, but I only got 4 on the day of retrieval and out of that 4 only 2 were mature. What happened to the others? No one seemed to be able to answer that question.
I'm currently in my 2ww after my cycle at Dominion and the retrieval and transfer went much better, even have some frosties.

[Anonymous]

i had a lousy unsuccessful experience at GIVF and then interviewed a lot of the top RE's- Dr Gordon and Dr Greenhouse included (I went to 6- brought my records of what occurred at GIVF etc.). Both Dr's are nice and easy to talk to. I saw Dr Gordon first and he recommended to "blast" my medication- I had already 4 unsuccessful IUIs and a history of 5 IUIS total (one child- not through GIVF's efforts). Anyway, this all seemed great to me since I wanted aggressive and 4 IUIs in a row is nerve wrecking on top of natural 2nd IF. But then I saw Dr Greenhouse- also very methodical- easy to talk to- but he told me he would stick to and not exceed my fertility medicine since my records showed I had *always* (from 2005 to 2007- again - one pregnancy my first IUI but many mc's when natural) been a low responder- I had a max of 3 follicles mature.. He also said it'd be a waste of $ for me to pay for all that exra IF medicine when I'd yield the same result. It clicked that his approach made sense. I tried1 more IUI and then we went to IVF- Even at IVF- and my advanced age, Dr Greenhouse and I agreed that based on my history we'd go for it and not cancel since I would produce few eggs. We are so proud that we overcame secondary infertility thanks to SG!

[Anonymous]

PP here- forgot to add that for my IVF- 3 follicles matured- 2 became viable embryos that were implanted - one was a blighted ovum and one is our super adorable son who is almost 2 years old. very grateful.. I'm sure other re's would have dumped me since i was looking like i'd hurt their clinic results b being 40 and so many unsuccessful iuis, etc.- so thank you again and again dr greenhouse!

[Anonymous]

I have been a patient of Dr. Gordon's for 3 years and I absolutely adore him! We have two children, the first from an unmedicated IUI and the second from IVF. We plan to return soon for a natural cycle FET, and I'm so glad I don't need to take lupron. It was the one IF medication that really made me crazy, and now that I have toddlers, I can't afford to have any hormonal rages.

[Anonymous]

Definately Dr. Gordon, we went to Dominion after many failed cycles and surgery due to endometriosis, their approach with woman who do not respond well to infertility drugs is completely different, they simply don't use any. I did one natural cycle with Dr. Gordon, produced one egg, one embryo, and one baby! It was so much simpler and easier on my body. The fertility drugs just made my endo worse and did not help me produce healthy eggs.

[Anonymous]

This isn't what you asked, but have you thought about going to a clinic in a different city? if you can swing it, Cornell in NYC or CCRM in Colorado get much better results in older women and they simply use techniques that aren't available at any of the local clinics. If you only have money for one more round, it might be worth considering going to one of those clinics to maximize your chances. On CCRM's website they say they do phone consults, so at least you could find out what their plan would be.