Interest in 'baby or your money back' plan

A fertility treatment programme that promises a baby or your money back has been taken up by 11 couples since its launch in April and is attracting interest from Australian clinics.

The Fertility Associates option was launched in Wellington and has been rolled out in Auckland and Hamilton. It was designed to insure eligible patients against the soaring costs of in-vitro fertilisation (IVF).

Fertility Cover offers three cycles of IVF for a fixed price and, if the treatment is unsuccessful, patients receive a 70 percent refund. A single cycle of private IVF can cost $10,000 to $15,000 and about half the patients conceive. About 80 percent of Fertility Associates patients succeed after three cycles.

Fertility Cover offers a three- cycle package for eligible women under 39 at $24,000 or $30,000, depending on age.

That means if you still don't have a baby after three courses - which could have cost up to $45,000 - under the new scheme you would instead be out of pocket by only $7200-$9000. The upfront cost of Fertility Cover includes an unlimited number of implantations of thawed embryos so patients can attempt to have more than one baby.

Clinical medical director Andrew Murray told the Sunday Star-Times about one in five applicants is not accepted because their chance of success is assessed as being poor.

But he said of the 11 couples who have taken up Fertility Cover, three pregnancies have resulted. The first baby is due in January.

Chief executive of Fertility Associates Alex Price said couples successful on their first round are effectively subsidising those who take longer or are not successful. For example, the third pregnancy under the scheme resulted in a miscarriage within the first eight weeks.

"And they said to us they felt a lot more relaxed about it because they could focus more on their own needs at that time instead of saying, 'Oh my God, we've got to think about how we can afford the next cycle'."

Price said some patients borrow money from family to pay for their treatment and the scheme offered them added reassurance that they could pay money back if it wasn't successful. In New Zealand only 60 percent of IVF cycles are publicly funded.

Price said he had been approached by Australian clinics wanting to learn more about the scheme because plans for federal government cuts to their IVF funding could see a significant drop in custom.

"We've fielded a couple of calls from people in Australia saying, 'By the way, this Fertility Cover, how does it work? ... Certainly, the patient feedback has been quite good."

- © Fairfax NZ News