You need to protect yourself from badly run IVF clinics . This guide can help you identify a bad IVF Clinic so you do not get taken for a ride ! Here is a guide for patients going through IVF treatment

IVF is Big Business 

IVF has become a big business today. How can you protect yourself from poorly equipped inexperienced doctors, who set up IVF clinics just to make money ?

• It can be very hard for patients to differentiate between a good IVF clinic and a bad IVF clinic because they all seem to be the same - and patients are not sophisticated enough to be able to make out which offers a better service
• For example, many IVF clinics will tom-tom they have bought the newest machine and have the latest technology. However, these are often marketing gimmicks to get media publicity - they do not really help the patient or improve success rates in any way

Unfortunately, there is no simple answer to this question. Just going by a clinic's reputation does not help ( some big name clinics are just money making mills) - and neither does checking its "success rates", because it's so easy to game these.

I feel the only effective solution is to be well-informed about what an IVF treatment cycle involves. The things you should be checking are:

• Does the clinic you select provides state-of-the-art technology?
• Do they cryopreserve embryos?
• Do they offer vitrification?
• Do they offer blastocyst transfer?
• Do they provide photographic documentation of your embryos?
• Do they offer PGD ( preimplantation genetic diagnosis)

The Danger Signs 

Here are some of the red flags which should warn you the clinic may not be very good.

• Dependent upon a doctor who travels to the clinic for a few days every month to do the clinical procedures
• Perform less than 100 IVF cycles every year
• No full-time embryologist
• The clinic "Batches patients" because they don't have the required expertise in-house and need to "import" qualified people for the treatment
• No dosumentation of medical treatment protocols
• Dont  provide you with a medical treatment summary
• Don't answer your questions
• Don't provide you with photographs of your embryos

The Important Aspect 

I feel the last is critically important. While the clinical outcome of an IVF cycle is always uncertain, since doctors cannot control embryo implantation, producing good quality embryos is a function of the IVF clinic, and correlates directly with the skill and expertise of the IVF lab. Good IVF clinics take pride in their skills - and by documenting the embryos they produce in their lab, they can show their patients that they are transparent and skilled !

Summary

You need to protect yourself from badly run IVF clinics . Learn how to identify a bad IVF Clinic so you do not get taken for a ride !