I had been DF as well SG and in my experience DF has over performed shady grove in many aspects, now the botton line if you want to get pregnant, you will want to go to DF.

I have been seeing Dr. Widra at Shady Grove Fertility for a couple of months and he's been great. I also LOVE my nurse Heidi (she's apparently new to the practice). She quickly responds to my emails and has actually shown enthusiasm when we've had good test results. I really feel like they care about helping me to have a baby. The only negative experience I've had was when scheduling appointments early on, but that was only one time (one rude receptionist) and honestly it's no worse than any other doctor's office I'm probably just more sensitive. Other than that most of the front desk ladies have been really nice (at both DC and Rockville offices). I start my first round of IUI next week and, for the first time in a long time, feel confident that at the end of this process I will have a baby.

I went to the SG at Columbia. I am going to have my HSG on this Friday and I am on second day of my 2 X Clomid 50 mg. I would say people work there are not really care about you that much but it can be emotion that make me feel that way. My question to someone that went there before,
Does SG treat you with medicine first or they start to do IUI right away? I am really worry about IVF if I have to do people said it is painful so hope I do not need it.

I just started going to DF and came on here to see if I was the only having issues with their finance staff....guess not! i choose DF b/c my OB/GYN highly recommended them and it's very close to my house and work. The docs and nurses seem fine (only been here twice) but their billing department has left me in tears! They claim that insurance has not paid them though my carrier notes they paid them last month. Somehow it is up to me to figure this out. The woman in charge seems like she does not work at a doctor's office for as clueless as she is. I've decided to go elsewhere b/c the added stress is just not worth it for me.

Having cycled at both SG and DF, I would recommend DF, I didn't like some aspects of both places but DF got me results.

just because you see a different doctor, does not mean that they are a bad doctor, we are all numbers wherever we go, what's important is that the doctor we do see is good at what they do

I was a patient of DF many years ago. I do have children as a result, would not recommend this practice. Dr. D. would walk in the room and have his hand on the door knob to leave before my sonogram. No time to ask any questions, he came across very arrogant. Infertility is very emotional on so many levels . It wouild be nice if infertility nurses could be more compasionate and understanding of our pain and anguish during this time. This is not realistic. The best advice I can offer is to find a mental health care provider that has experience with infertility issues and take it upon yourself to get the emotional help that you need during this process. I friend or sister may be a good listener, but their advice is not always welcomed. Good luck, and most of all don't give up. Infertility doctors are brutily honest. If they don't think you will get pregnant, they will tell you.

PP mentions the issue of privacy which I believe is actually a serious problem at many facilities. Just to give an example, when I cycled at one local clinic, the nurses would often place the patient copies of the yellow bill forms on a counter just outside the monitoring rooms. When you were finished with monitoring, you were supposed to pick-up your form before heading back into the waiting area. A couple of times, they had 2-3 forms lined up on the counter and they weren't in order. One time I had to quickly scan the form to see if it was mine (it wasn't) but there was some info related to DE on the form that I read. The point is, there is a lot of sensitive information on those billing forms and they should be handed directly to the patient.

I dont really know much about the infertility process nor am I here to make a comparison about one clinic versus the other. In fact I can't because I have only had experience so far with Shady Grove.

I went here because this was the first clinic that was recommended by my Ob/Gyn.

My first impression of Shady Grove as I walked through the doors of the office was neutral.
This quickly went down hill as they screwed up my name with another patient. They speak about anonymity, but then dont bother to make sure they have the right patient before taking you to the back?

Then I was a little irritated that I got there 40 minutes before my appointment, there was no one else there, but they still took someone else first. These people arrived 20 minutes after me so I assume their apointment was the same time as mine. No matter.

The doctor was nice, she explained what we should do, regardless of the tests I had previously had done, she recommended I do them again through her doctors and attendants. Ok. I could see her point. Somewhere in this conversation my husband asks about complications because I'm diabetic. Somehow she totally missed the fact that I was diabetic. (I guess I dont LOOK diabetic???) Why else would most people be on Metformin?? She explains there are other uses for it. But wouldnt you LOOK and ASK what I'm taking Metformin for? Not to mention I put it in the file over and over that I'm diabetic ..... Ok.... moving on to 30 minutes later when I'm handed off to a nurse.

The nurse was very nice and polite. But her fist mistake was putting down the wrong doctor's name on the prescription and things that I provided. (I dont know about others, but I feel like I should consult and remain with the same doctor through something like this.) She makes a flip remark about how all the results, etc will come to their offices so they will know anyway. So I shrug and let it go.
After sitting through a quick talk about medical insurance, pricing, etc, we are turned over to the receptionist again in the front to make an appointment.

I'm waiting for her to talk to me - because she's on the phone, and not once does she confirm or acknowledge that I'm there. (A little brusque I thought.) At least I would signal that I see you...thats just me though...
My nurse explains to her the appointment that I need and I make my first appointment for the HSG - date determined by the approximate start date of my next menstral cycle.

Roll forward to today-

I call the main Shady Grove number from work and say that I just started my period and I need to schedule the Day 3 baseline test. The women makes the appointment with me, then asks who my nurse is, which I couldnt quite remember. I guess and it turns out to be the right nurse. Appointment taker suggests that I now call the nurse so that she can make the preliminary set ups needed for the appointment. I call and leave a message to that effect. I explain I already made the appointment and they said I should call her to do the rest of the set up.

I missed the nurse's call. But she must of never heard a word. Instead she tells me to call either the Annandale or Rockville offices to set up an appointment on either day 2, 3 or 4. And she gives me their phone number. Then she left a second number and told me to also schedule my HSG appointment.

REALLY? Did you even look my information up? Do you know who called you? Would you NOT look at a patient's file before looking to see what was and wasn't done??? IF these offices are all supposed to be connected, couldnt you see that I already HAD an appointment made based off their FIRST recommendation on the first day of my consultation???

I called the Fairfax office back livid. I understand there are tons of patients, but I JUST called you and explained why I was calling. LISTEN to me at least and pretend like you read my file. I am keeping the appointment for now. I dont want my husband saying that I'm overreacting, but all these little details... which to me keep adding up breaks down my faith about Shady Grove all together.

Maybe I'm nothing but another number to them, but I thought that given the sensitive and touchy nature in which they have to deal, they would be a little more compassionate, a little more detail oriented with their clients and definitely a lot more organized.
Thats all I have to share. This is just my experience.

not familiar with DF but am a DE patient at SG. My sister had a good experience at SG. So far my husband and I have not. It is a warehouse, there is very poor communication from one nurse to another to another - we couldn't even start choosing a donor cause some girl w/a High School degree wouldn't let us insisting we needed a letter from a Perinatologist - despite that I have never been pregnant, let alone high risk and that Dr Chang said I just needed the note from my primary doctor. Then they sold us on their huge donor data base (which is the only reason we drive 3 hours to get there) and they assured us they always have lots of blond, blue eyed donors (that match me) - we did match once, they did a 5 day transfer so only 2 of our embryo's survived - nothing left to freeze, no pregnancy. BTW they told us they automatically do ICSI on every IVF. So now we have to choose another donor and SURPRISE there are zero blond or blue eyed donors available and now they tell us "oh they get snapped up right away" where as when they wanted us to sign up we were told they had a huge date base and lots of blond and blue eyed donors. If we get pregnant and its successful we won't care how badly the staff mistreated us and I hope that is the case and that I'll have to say 'Go to SG'. But honestly, they are not patient oriented, the doctor's may be good but the staff is terrible. My husband had to be referred to a urologist and they sent us to the wrong office - we had just driven 3 hours and drove like heck to the correct office and BEGGED the office staff to let us keep our appointment. While there another couple from SG came in - same story , they were late, missed their appt cause SG nurse sent them to the wrong office. And with both of us the SG nurse never sent any of the med paper work they were supposed to. The urologists staff told us this is typical of SG and asked us to please complain cause the SG folks are always this bad. But who would we complain to? We've only spoken to our doctor 3 times and the 3 time was when we were 20 minutes away from the office for our transfer - he wanted to tell us that he thought we should wait a day and do a day 6 transfer, and oh by the way you only have 3 embryo's left. we asked what the chances were of the 3 surviving another day and he told us they may, or they may not. We insisted on continueing on with the day 5 transfer. Of course it was a different doctor who we had never met before. And they told me I could lay there in the procedure room for 5 minutes after the transfer and then leave - no recovery room time at all. btw I do my monitoring at Main Line Fertility in Pa and the nurse there is really nice and has been very helpful. If only they didn't have an 8 month long wait on their donor list.....but then again that is a big positive for SG and as I said, that is the reason my husband and I drive 3 hours each way. (now hopefully that donor list becomes as wonderful again as we were sold it would be)


Here's a good reason as posted earlier on this thread

Anonymous wrote:Shady Grove Fertility is very BAD. Don't use them.

Very insightful post on why people shouldn't use them - NOT!

Shady Grove Fertility is very BAD. Don't use them.

I'm seeing Dr. Reh, and I also have seen Dr. Gordon on a weekend, both are very nice and the staff is so much better than the staff at my ob's office. The nurses have explained the process well, and I feel they didn't rush me. I guess it may depend on which ones you deal with, but the ones I've seen are great.

I went through one cycle so far at Dominion. I thought Dr D, the nurses and staff all were very nice and professional, but yes, I also had to double check my prescription order, keep track of my own appointments, ask "pesky" questions to get details, etc. But in my view it was no worse than any other doctor, dentist, therapist, etc that I have been to. the US healthcare system in general sucks but as an adult I am used to staying in top of my own treatments so I did not feel unusually deprived of handholding.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just posted above..also wanted to add that DF staff was friendly

I did NOT find 2/3 of the staff at DF to be friendly. They rush you through explanations and seem almost irritated by questions. At 20 - 25 thousand for services, you would think they would be much more courteous and helpful. The nurses seem more concerned about being right than about the concerns or feelings of their patients. As far as I'm concerned, I had a bad experience and I wouldn't recommend that anyone go here unless you're thick skinned.

I totally agree with this. I don't know where all of the hand-holding is going on (as another PP stated) but it sure as hell is not at DF.