Arizona Associates for Reproductive Health

We were very optimistic when we first starting seeing Dr. Patel. We had been trying to conceive for just over a year when my OBGYN referred me to his care. We were all in and ready to get whatever testing was recommended so we could evaluate our options and get to work as quickly as possible. We spent a lot of time and effort on testing of which I ultimately did not feel resulted in much learning. Looking back, we were never given a diagnosis and were not given clear expectations of our chances of a positive outcome. Strangely enough, we were first presented with the cost of IVF. This was surprising to us in that there didn't appear to be anything "wrong." We asked to take a more conservative approach and try IUI first. We got pregnant with IUI on our first try and were overjoyed. Unfortunately, we went on to learn that the pregnancy was not viable at 5.5 weeks and I miscarried at 9 weeks - this was after many unnecessary scares and talk of my pregnancy being ectopic even though there was a visual gestational sac in my uterus. Dr. Patel had me come back every few days for repeat scans (even after I was sent externally for a more in depth ultrasound where it was confirmed that the pregnancy was not ectopic) which, looking back, caused a lot of unnecessary anxiety and confusion. There was clearly not much that was going to change over 48-72 hours and if anything it made the experience that much more painful and emotionally taxing. While I don't blame Dr. Patel for the result of the pregnancy, I do find the way in which my miscarriage to have been handled to be concerning. After my body recovered from the miscarriage, we returned to Dr. Patel for another round of IUI. In that first round back the timing of my cycle wasn't managed close enough and I missed my opportunity to trigger using Ovidrel. It was a huge let down to spent our money and not feel that things were as controlled as they could have been to ensure a positive outcome. If I were to summarize my biggest frustration, it would be that my care felt disorganized. I felt like I was the project manager and that I had to advocate and remind often. There seemed to be a lack of framework and structure in the approach to my care.

Dr. Patel's pricing is competitive, it was a huge reason why we chose to proceed with his clinic, however, having been to another clinic now, I can more clearly see what extra dollars can get you. If price is important to you, Dr. Patel can be a great fit, however, my advice is that you make sure you know your stuff and plan to take an active role in advocating and managing your care.

We did 3 rounds of IUI with Dr. Patel. I took 2.5mgs of Femara each round. Two of the rounds we were able to trigger with Ovidrel, 1 of the rounds, we missed our opportunity. Following IUI I started 200mg progesterone suppositories daily until the start of my period and/or a negative pregnancy test.

Each round of IUI cost $950.00. I also purchased medications (Ovidrel / Femara / Progesterone) for each cycle which cost about $250.00. In total each round cost us approximately $1,200.00.

Dr Patel is highly experienced, dedicated to his job, and has an incredibly strong work ethic. Sometimes he can be a little too blunt, but personally I like to know the truth and prefer honesty so I have realistic expectations and do not mind this. Sometimes he can be very busy as the office can be hectic, but, he does always find time to meet with me at every visit and thoroughly explains everything.

Have patience as the process will be a long Journey. I had good luck booking appointments at the end of the day, when it is less hectic in the office and the doctor and nurses are not pressured by additional appointments like they are in the middle of the day.

Dr Patel recommended genetic testing on my husband and I to rule out the possibility of us both being a carrier of a genetic disease. Neither of us were carriers for the same genetic diseases so it did not matter in our case in the end, but provided additional peace of mind. We also did a freeze all on the embryo’s and chose genetic testing of the embryo’s per Dr Patel’s recommendation. This did prove to be very helpful and we were shocked how many embryo’s had potential chromosomal problems. Highly recommend the genetic testing.

All monitoring appointments went as planned, got in quickly and no issues

Currently at $83,000 which is a negotiated rate. We have had some help with insurance.

Dr Patel is not willing to do multiple embryo transfers and explains the added risks of that thoroughly. He strongly recommends and is only comfortable doing single embryo transfers.

Dr. Patel is personable and kind. He is thorough but also doesn’t waste your time. He always asks if I have any questions and if I’m having any side effects or trouble with the treatment, injections, etc. i always feel like we have the same goal.

As with any doctor, wrote down your questions. Dr. Patel is willing to answer, but he can’t read your mind. When I go in with all my questions written down, I always come out with them all answered.

IVF egg retrieval for embryo cryopreservation Menopur 150 IU Follistim 300 IU (I also used Gonal-F because I needed more quickly and used a local pharmacy) Ganrilex I can’t remember the name of my trigger shot My ovaries were slow to respond to stimulation medication. I stimulated for 13 days. Ultrasound showed I had 15 follicles, but only 5 were retrieved. Of the 5, 4 were mature, 2 fertilized (ICSI) but not made it to day 5. Dr. Patel said my results were unexpected, given my overall good health and my age (35) my slow reaction to stimulation medication and low number of follicles and eggs was unexpected. He said one cycle is not enough to make a diagnosis of egg quality. Every body reacts differently and I could also be that we “pushed my ovaries too far” in simulating for so long. We are taking a month off for my ovaries to recover. Next protocol Dr. Patel will replace Ganrilex (with Lupron, I think?) and also add a growth hormone to the protocol.

~$8k for IVF egg retrieval, PGT biopsy, ICSI, assisted hatch, including all monitoring (additional $500 for anesthesia)

Dr. Patel said he almost always only transfers a single embryo.

Dr. Patel is a very good doctor. He doesn't beat around the bush. Although he may not always have bed side manner, I've always appreciated the bluntness so that I know exactly what he means. He has always seen me on time and explains everything in detail.

If you are someone who is sensitive and is not 100% committed to hearing the facts as directly as possible, then he's probably not your doctor to see.

My 1st protocol was starting on birth control pills for 14 days prior to me starting my stimulation medication. Once i started, i was on 2 vials of Menupur daily for 8 days. 300 mg of gonal f for 8 days. The last 3 days we added cetritide. After that i did my trigger shot. My 2nd retrieval consisted of taking 2 mg estrace the month before along with 1 pump of testosterone gel. The last week before my cycle, i started on 200 mg capsules of progesterone. Once i began my cylce, i was take 2 vials of Menupur, 300 mg of gonal f, 10 mcg of omnitrope, and 1 pill of the dexamethasone. Last 3 days before retrieval I started cetritide. Then did my trigger shot and started my antibiotic.

My initial appointments and labs were covered. Once I began treatment I had to pay 7500 for all future appointments that included ultra sounds, labs, and visits till my retrieval. I also had to pay and additional 500 the day of my retrieval for the anesthesia. When i did my first transfer i paid 1700 for the labs. Appointments, and transfer.

I have only seen Dr. Patel 3 times. Each time, he has been rude and condescending with me. He does not give clear information or directions and insinuated that I was lying to him twice while relaying info to him from doctors he had referred me to. He gets visibly irritated when you ask any questions whatsoever and when I asked him to explain something, he said he had other patients to see and I needed to make another appointment if I wanted to ask him any questions. I would NOT go here again if I had it to do all over again.

Do your research. Check his reviews and read the negative ones. They are oftentimes more accurate, unfortunately.

I have not had my period in over 2 months. I told him my last office gave me a progesterone shot to induce my period. He refused to give it to me until he officially diagnosed me with PCOS, which he refused to do until he could do an ultrasound on me while I was on my period, which I was not having. He said we should ‘wait and see’ if it starts on it’s own. I told him I haven’t been having it for the entire year without being given some type of progesterone. Still, he refused to give me any medication or treat me at all until it had been another month. His NP assured me there was nothing wrong with not having periods, but also told me I can’t ovulate as long as I am not having periods. Dr. Patel told me, at the next appointment, that I can still ovulate even if I don’t have periods. When I tried to notify the NP of my concerns regarding not having a period for several months and the potential to cause cervical or uterine cancer, she said that’s not possible. Then Dr. Patel said going without a period for several months can cause uterine or cervical cancer! My husband was scheduled to do bloodwork prior to having his sperm sample frozen and the lab lost his bloodwork.

Ultrasounds $200-$300 each.

He is an amazing physician. He is very personable and takes the time to see me on each visit. He explains all risks and possibilities so that I am fully prepared for what is coming. I had an accident where I dropped my Lupron trigger vial and it shattered into a million pieces. I called him, ugly crying my eyes out. Dr.Patel reassured me we would do everything possible to ensure my cycle did not get interrupted. He stayed up late praying for me that my levels would be okay. You cannot ask that of a doctor, and will never find that with others. He has come in on Easter Sunday for me when I needed monitoring appointments. I cannot say enough about this man and how amazing he is.

He may seem a little cut and dry at first but do not let this scare you off. He means well and has the absolute best intentions for all his patients. He takes pride in what he does and ensures all his patients get the best care he can give them. You won't find a better doctor!

I am not sure of the protocol names, but he monitored me closely to avoid OHSS. I did menopur 75 iu per day, gonal started at 200 iu, but bumped up to 300 iu in my cycle to help my ovaries stimulate more, he prescrived dexomethazone and cetrotide as well. I did these during my stims.

It was cheap for my OOP costs. I worked a second job during this to qualify for Starbucks insurance to help with costs of some of the procedures. We did not have coverage the whole cycle and the clinic did everything possible to work with us on billing needs.

He is very conservative and does all his planning to give his patients the best results. I am in the middle of my first IVF cycle so am not sure how many I will transfer. I want 2, he recommends 1. We agreed it would depend on my egg quality after retrieval and how the embryos came back. He is very reasonable, but has my best interest at heart, so ultimately I will trust him.

I think Dr. Patel is very knowledgeable and a great resource for information. He is open to questions and makes you feel like there is hope for you no matter what your situation is. I enjoy seeing Dr. Patel and I would recommend him to anyone.

Make sure you ask questions and do your research. Come with suggestions and options that you would like to have on the table. Sometimes if you dont ask, they wont tell you.

I am going through a cycle now. Will be starting my injections soon. The only thing that bothered me is that Dr. Patel never sat down with me and went over my treatment plan in a sense that how aggressive my plan will be what I should expect the side effects of injections and all thing that I need to know going into IVF for the first time.

IVF retrieval with ICSI and PGS testing biopsy is $8000. FET is $2000

At 29 it is not easy to hear that menopause is happening within a few years. Not only that but both tubes were blocked, hormones are awful and at my young age my egg reserve was extremely low. My husband and I were treated with great respect and met with Dr. Patel himself at every appointment. He would spend as much time as he would need to go over the findings as well as the next steps. I would frequently met with his wonderful staff right after where they would go in depth about money and options available to me. His team would answer questions after hours and never made me feel like the questions I had were not appropriate. He took the time to make sure I knew that certain paths would not be worth it for me and our wallets which was a huge relief. We felt like he was human and not just a doctor out to make money. Dr. Patel is a miracle in our journey.

Ask as many questions that you would need. Be patient in the waiting room and know that he is behind because he cares about his patients.

We are just beginning our journey of IVF Egg Donor. My donor has just been approved and will be here in April for further testing.

I am going through a known donor and I was quoted 12,000

My doctor does one egg transfers at a time if they are good quality and multiple if the quality is low

Dr. Patel is very straight-forward and almost discouraging in setting expectations for success. He was set on not beginning the process for egg retrieval until my thyroid hit a certain number, but I read the studies he sent me and showed him that my thyroid level was good for egg retrieval and so he finally agreed to go forward after months of delay based on that. Since he agreed with me, he was very clear to warn that we may have no eggs much less embryos since we went forward without reaching his ideal thyroid number. I acknowledged his warning and we went forward and I now have 4 frozen embryos. He is a nice man and very knowledgeable but stubborn and very much "by the book" which is both good and bad. He is always very professional and courteous when I see him.

Be patient but also advocate for yourself.

I was on 150 menopur and 300 gonal-f for 10 days and then 10,000 hcg trigger. It effectively allowed us to successfully create 4 frozen embryos.

I don't know because we have insurance coverage. This clinic is part of the centers of excellence. We have spent most of our deductible from our visits and fertility medication.

He is a one embryo only transfer doctor.

Dr. Patel seemed to not care about me or the situation I was in. He was very cold when telling my husband and I that we had a less than 5% chance of ever conceiving naturally. He had absolutely no opinion or suggestions as to what vitamins and supplements I should be taking to increase my chances and improve egg quality. When he spoke to us, he talked to and made eye contact with my husband but rarely with me, even though the treatment was centered around me! He didn't seem to care about the results of each treatment. There was no way I would have stayed and done ivf with him.

He is the typical cold, no bedside manner doctor. If you want a doctor that shows little compassion and just focuses on treating you, he's your guy. If you want anything more, go somewhere else.

I did three IUI's with Dr. Patel. The first round I took Clomid, had three follicles grow but my lining was thin. The next round I was switched to Femara, had two follicles grow, good lining but still negative result. The third IUI was canceled due to a cyst, so we tried again the next month and only had one follicle grow. Also a negative result.

The IUI's totaled to about $1200 for each one.

Dr. Johnson was so kind and caring, I would cry at every appointment and he took the time to listen. His approach was positive and warm, he didn't provide any false hope to us when things looked grim. He was accommodating with our schedules for monitoring and the IUIs we did with him.

He is very kind and compassionate, has a great bedside manner for such a difficult time.

We did one HSG to ensure my tubes were open due to the fact I have mild endometriosis, three IUI's with Dr. Johnson, and one timed intercourse, because I responded well to clomid and had plenty of follicles being produced. And my husbands semen analysis had good numbers too post wash. However we never got pregnant via IUI's/TI with Dr. Johnson.

Luckily all my IUI's were covered by my insurance all I had to pay for was meds think it was like $300 for Clomid and Ovidrel trigger.

Dr. Johnson is an excellent doctor. He is very warm and compassionate. However, I would be reluctant to refer friends to him for two reasons. 1) He neglected important blood work for me. He did not test my AMH level, which indicates ovarian reserve. I spent several months in his care never knowing that my ovarian reserve was low. I didn't find out until I moved states and switched doctors. 2) He seemed to understate our fertility diagnosis. On our first visit he told us "I see no reason why you won't walk out of here pregnant." Well, it's been two years of constant treatments, two different procedures for my husband, and we still aren't pregnant. I think if he's initial work-up had been more thorough we would have had a better understanding of our fertility situation.

Sometimes you may need to steer the conversation to the answers you need. I noticed that he dodges difficult questions with humor at times. For example I asked him why our IUI cycle had failed and he said "well it's dark in there and sperm can't see." This would have been a great opportunity to dig deeper into our sperm quality. He does seem willing to answer questions though, so I would simply recommend being very direct if you are looking for concrete answers.

We used clomid at half the standard starting dose for two of my cycles. (I believe it was 25 mg rather than 50mg, but I'm not certain) His rationale was that he wanted to be sure I didn't over stimulate, causing the cycle to be cancelled since he wouldn't perform the IUI if there were more than 2-3 mature follicles. The second round of clomid I only had 1 mature follicle and had cyst during my next baseline after that cycle failed. He switched me to femara and I had a better response and less side effects on that medication.

$500 for IUI procedure, $200-300 per ultrasound (two per cycle)

I genuinely got to know and admire Dr. Patel. He was extremely caring and very good at what he did. He adjusted his treatment in response to my body's reaction to previous cycles. He was very abreast of the latest in fertility treatments and actually the cycle I got pregnant he was trying a different approach because of things he had just read about in the medical journals. I do and have recommended Dr. Patel to friends.

Listen to him. He knows his stuff. He was fairly straight forward with me, because I was older my changes were less, but he was still hopeful and aggressive with his treatment. And he did things because of medical knowledge and experience. I was very pleased with his overall approach and his results.

I had failed to conceive several times, IUI and IVF, because I was older and was using donor sperm. My eggs appeared good, though, so he was willing to help me. I was very lucky when two of my embryos took.

Is straight to the point when giving information but sometimes does not clearly answer questions or answers snidely. This was the reason I never left the office feeling like I was clear on the procedures to come

Ask more and more questions and do not stop asking questions. Your comfort level is important for the process and the price your are paying for each cycle. I feel like my money is more wasted than used efficiently.

Unfortunately, due to the level of communication I did not know what strategies were being used.

My IUI without medication was 800 I believe. With medication it was 1050 plus cost of medication

Dr. Patel was honest and straight to the point. I didn’t always understand what we were doing or why we were doing it - which wasn’t my preferred way to handle it- but they always answered my questions when I asked them directly.

Make sure you advocate for yourself. Understand what your options are and don’t be afraid to ask questions.

We used an antagonist protocol with extended birth control pill use beforehand. We tried this method first I believe because it is the standard approach at this clinic for good results with minimal risk of OHSS.

Base treatment for IVF $6500 Anaesthesiologist $500 Biopsy fee for testing $1300 FET $3500

I felt that this doctor took a personal interest in my case, calling me personally and addressing issues. However this doctor did not display a sense of urgency or timeliness about my treatments, so I eventually left this clinic.

Ask for a clear timeline and follow up if they are not making timely progress on your insurance or treatments.

The treatment strategies used were appropriate but they did not take a proactive role in managing our care.

The costs of care were approx said to be $17k for IVF.

Dr. Patel is an incredible doctor. I trust him tremendously. At first I struggled with him because he is not very emotional, however once I realized how knowledgeable he was, that no longer mattered to me. We had several setbacks due to my bodies response to the medicines, and i appareciated his honesty and the way he led us thru that time.

If you need an emotional doctor, he may not be the right fit.

Dr. Patel prefers to transfer one embryo I believe.

Dr. Patel is honest but doesn't really offer additional information. I always felt that I needed write down my questions so that I could get them in as quickly as possible. I don't feel like I have a good understanding of my fertility diagnosis (still) and don't feel as though my treatment was tailored to my personal needs.

I had two IVF protocols (both 7 days of stims) with daily 75 IU Menopur, between 200 - 300 units Gonal-F, Cetrotide on the first cycle and Ganirelix on the second starting day 5, Lupron trigger and Pregnyl for first cycle, just Lupron trigger for the second. Dexamethasone during stim meds and doxycycline after the retrieval.

I asked about doing two and he told you don't get a BOGO. He explained that doing just one has better odds.

Dr. Patel is a wonderful doctor. He is straight forward, but not harsh. He is not a hand holder, but always made me feel comfortable. He is brilliant and I trust him implicitly. He had a game plan from our first meeting, which made me feel confident we were right to change doctors.

This is an extremely emotional time. Dr. Patel is not your shoulder to cry on. He is going to be straight forward and serious about your treatment. Trust him.

I can't remember anything out of the norm for an IVF cycle (I did Google the drugs I was ion and nothing came up as abnormal).

Dr. Johnson experienced infertility personally, so he gets it. He was thorough and compassionate, but also realistic. We felt informed and safe. We also liked that Dr. Johnson had us do genetic screening which was useful.

Be prepared to do the genetic screening- this is important to Dr. Johnson. He really wants a clear picture of your situation before proceeding.

We did a monitored cycle with femara, then a trigger shot for ovulation followed by IUI. We also discussed moving on to IVF next.

I think the total cost for one IUI cycle was about $1100

He is an extraordinary physician. I trusted him entirely. I like that he was brutally honest with me that my chances of conceiving were small but also gave me enough hope to keep trying. He told me "I've seen miracles happen" - and my son was our miracle.

Ask questions if you don't understand. The medical terminology and his explanations were sometimes hard to follow, but I followed up with questions to my satisfaction.

Excellent. Needs better understanding of bIlling issues but great overall.

Check your insurance coverage

Testing was covered. Any treatments were out of pocket.