Friday, June 24, 2016

Why do patients continue going to the same IVF doctor even after getting poor care ?


An infertile  patient just sent me this email.

Hello doctor,
This is my 3rd ivf cycle with donor egg  .. And my doctor does not provide any information about anything. My last 2 cycles failed ..in first cycle I bled on same day after ET . And in 2nd ET 1 frozen egg was transferred , which is also fail.. Now my doctor suggest me for 3rd cycle .. Today is my 13th day of period doctor tested my blood today  FSH and LH .. Which is very high Fsh is 86.4 and LH is 36.

Please advise me should i go for it ?
        Thank you

It can be very hard to advice such a patient.

She knows she is getting very poor quality care, but inspite of this, she continues her treatment with the same doctor !

Is it because this doctor provides cheap medical care ?  While it is true that patients do have financial constraints, and that IVF can be expensive, she is just throwing away her money by going to a bad clinic. Now I can understand that it's hard for a patient to differentiate between a good clinic and a bad clinic before they do their first IVF cycle. But when they have experienced poor quality treatment when doing th first cycle, then why do they persist in wasting time with the same doctor ?

Some clinics lock patients in by taking their fees in advance for a 3-cycle package. While this can seem to be an attractive option, because it reduces costs and offers the patient more hope, if the clinic is a bad clinic, she will just continue wasting precious time. What's worse is that this will deprive her of the chance to find a good clinic - and this is an opportunity cost she really cannot afford to fritter away ! Because she has burned her fingers with one IVF clinic, she will now distrust all IVF clinics, and will not have the confidence to try afresh with a better IVF clinic.

It's obvious that the doctor is taking advantage of her ignorance, and taking her for a ride - but why is she allowing the doctor to do this ? Shouldn't patients take responsibility for their decisions, rather than passively leave everything upto their doctor ?

Need help in getting pregnant ? Please send me your medical details by filling in the form at www.drmalpani.com/free-second-opinion so that I can guide you !







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