Besides personalizing care and being empathetic, she [Dr. Bove] is extremely detail-oriented and triple checks everything...was well prepared, had reviewed all our files, and tailored her recommendations to my unusual combination of medical issues...But my access to her has been extremely limited--an initial consult, a post-test-results consult, and no way to talk to her directly about issues that come up in between. And in between appointments, when I'm not talking to her, I have felt more like a number, even though this is a small clinic...
I have loved working with my doctor and nurse [at Boston IVF - The Syracuse Center], but have some major problems with the bureaucratic and patient-unfriendly manner in which the clinic is run. The clinic does not have portal messaging enabled and requires almost everything to be done over the phone, which makes things incredibly stressful for people who don't work from home/in a private area...
How was your experience with Erica Bove (Mahany) at Boston IVF - The Syracuse Center?
Besides personalizing care and being empathetic, she is extremely detail-oriented and triple checks everything--great qualities to have in a fertility doctor. She didn't dumb things down and was patient with all my questions. I have a really complex medical history and unlike most doctors I've seen, she didn't gloss over any of it and wanted to make sure she understood everything.
She also offers good advice without forcing you down one path. I was agonizing about whether to delay treatment while taking care of another medical issue, and she was able to give a good assessment of how waiting might affect things personalized to my age and AMH/follicle count, while also understanding the psychological toll that waiting was taking on me.
The flip side to her being so detail-oriented and rigorous was that I was a little overwhelmed by all the information she was throwing at me--being on Zoom may have made this more challenging. I ended up recording our second Zoom appointment on the phone--this is legal in NY state--just so I could refer back to any detailed information she provided.
The one thing I wasn't happy about was that she didn't go over the risks of fertility treatment at all. It may have been because I had clearly done my research and was informed and knew what I wanted to do, but I still expected this to be covered. The fact that we had to spend so much of the appointment time going over my medical issues may have also played a role--she may have been short on time. I had to sign a document saying my doctor had discussed the risks, and I did--but we actually hadn't.
What's one piece of advice would you give a prospective patient of Erica Bove (Mahany) at Boston IVF - The Syracuse Center?
She's helpful and will answer all your questions, but will not get to talk to her outside of limited appointments, so prepare and use the time wisely! Have a prioritized set of questions, and deprioritize anything you could call the nurses about. She can throw a lot of info at you fast, so either assign your partner to take notes or record the session.
During treatment, were you treated like a number or a human with Erica Bove (Mahany) at Boston IVF - The Syracuse Center?
During my actual appointments with Dr. Bove, the care felt extremely personalized. She was interested in getting to know us as people, was well prepared, had reviewed all our files, and tailored her recommendations to my unusual combination of medical issues. Whereas my previous doctor at another clinic had looked at my age and nothing else, Dr. Bove took my entire history and workup into account. She was also very empathetic and sensitive and could sense what a hard time I was having with how long it was taking me to get pregnant.
But my access to her has been extremely limited--an initial consult, a post-test-results consult, and no way to talk to her directly about issues that come up in between. And in between appointments, when I'm not talking to her, I have felt more like a number, even though this is a small clinic. I hope this changes when I finally start my treatment.
Describe the protocols Erica Bove (Mahany) used in your cycles at Boston IVF - The Syracuse Center and their degree of success.
Dr. Bove recommended I go straight to IVF based on both my age and my desire to have more than one child.
I haven't started my IVF cycle yet, but Dr. Bove said she would start with a higher dose of stims and then back off as needed.
She said she wouldn't try to retrieve more than 10-20 eggs from anyone, even if that meant they would require more cycles, because it would be unethical given the medical risks--I really appreciated her honesty about this.
She encourages PGT-A testing and single embryo transfer (in older patients like me, at least), if you can afford it.
Describe your experience with your nurse at Boston IVF - The Syracuse Center. (Assigned nurse: Erin)
I have only worked with Erin briefly as we prepare to start my IVF cycle, but she's always been very friendly and informative and called back promptly. She seems to anticipate a lot of questions I have and answers them from the start. She helped ensure we were able to start treatment as soon as possible.
I've had more difficulty when I end up communicating with multiple nurses--perhaps because my primary nurse is off that day. I once received the wrong information from a different nurse about when I should receive an answer from my doctor about something. This made me anxious when I hadn't received the answer, and wasted both my and the clinic's time as I kept calling every day trying to find out why I hadn't received the answer.
I also didn't receive a call about an abnormal test result and recommended medication for a few weeks after the result came in--I hesitate to blame the nurses, since I don't know if this is due to the nurses forgetting to call or the doctor taking a long time to review my results.
Describe your experience with Boston IVF - The Syracuse Center.
I have loved working with my doctor and nurse, but have some major problems with the bureaucratic and patient-unfriendly manner in which the clinic is run.
The clinic does not have portal messaging enabled and requires almost everything to be done over the phone, which makes things incredibly stressful for people who don't work from home/in a private area.
Every time I call the clinic with a question or an update, I get a live front-desk person who needs my name and DOB--but then she can help with very few things and almost always routes me to someone else's voicemail, so it's really no different than calling a phone tree that routes to voicemail. I can almost never get a live human to answer my question.
I've also had different staff members tell me different things about when I'd get results or start treatment, and I've felt forgotten about--like when a follow-up appointment was never scheduled, and the doctors' requested follow-up actions not performed, after we did our initial round of testing. The nurses' line promises a call back the same day, and while most of the time this has happened, it hasn't always.
The office, though small, is a complex bureaucracy to navigate. They have divided tasks narrowly between different staffers, which means you get a lot of "that's not my job" and have to hop from person to person and often land in voicemail/phone-tag hell. For example, when it was time to schedule our initial tests, I scheduled mine and then asked to schedule my husband's, and the nurse curtly said she didn't do that, but she could have someone call us about that. No one ever did. It seemed there was only one person who could schedule semen analysis, and my husband got transferred to her voicemail and waited days for her to call back, playing phone tag. Limiting such a simple task to one person really made our lives difficult. Another example is billing--the billing person does not order the medications, which makes sense, but as a result she cannot answer general questions about medication prices and insurance, and I don't see why she can't learn the basics so that we can talk to one person about the initial financial aspects--or it would have been helpful if she could have at least transferred us to someone else to talk to, so we could actually get an answer to our question. Even the first time I called to set up an initial appointment, I got transferred to the "initial appointments" line and had to leave a voicemail and wait by my phone.
The physical atmosphere could be more relaxing. I really wish that for the early-morning appointments, they'd put the TV on mute with closed captions, rather than blaring it--I'm trying to relax before my appointment/procedure--and having a loud TV screaming into my ear at 7:30 AM is not great for that. And I do wish they'd ask their staffers to put pictures of their children in areas where patients--who don't need to be reminded about other people's children--cannot see them.
Describe the costs associated with your care under Erica Bove (Mahany) at Boston IVF - The Syracuse Center.
A single round of IVF without ICSI was $8400. PGT-A testing for 5-8 embryos was $3600, with the cost adjusted up or down if more or fewer embryos needed to be tested. A frozen transfer cycle is $3000. Average estimated cost of medications for an egg retrieval cycle is $6000-$9000.
Describe Erica Bove (Mahany)'s approach to eSET (elective single embryo transfer) vs. multiple embryo transfer at Boston IVF - The Syracuse Center.
She was very encouraging of single-embryo transfer with PGT-A testing, if we could afford it. We decided to do this. I am unsure what her approach is for patients who cannot afford/do not want to pay for PGT-A.
What specific things went wrong at Boston IVF - The Syracuse Center?
- Failed to call with results
- Provided conflicting information
Describe the specific things that went wrong at Boston IVF - The Syracuse Center.
It took weeks to hear back about an abnormal value from my initial tests, which resulted in me losing time to treat it with medication.
During my first round of tests on day 3, the ultrasound tech told me I'd get a call with results that afternoon and the blood tech told me I wouldn't get a call for diagnostic tests. The blood tech turned out to be right.
When I asked for a doctor to review an outside test result that was crucial to my upcoming treatment, the first nurse I talked to said she'd call me with an answer the next day. No one called, and eventually I talked to another nurse who said the review would take a few days. The second nurse ended up being right.
10
Doctor
Erica Bove (Mahany)
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Clinic
Boston IVF - The Syracuse Center
Syracuse