Duke Fertility Center

When I first started IUI the nurse sent me the wrong treatment calendar. They did promptly fix this when I told them.

I wish nursing staff was more helpful with regard to the cheapest options for ordering very expensive medications. And it would be helpful for them to be more organized about how to prepare for cycles and when to check things off the list for IVF.

As previously stated, when I first went back to the clinic in February 2018, I did not have a good experience. One time, I showed up for an appointment and it had not been scheduled and I received conflicting information between cycles 1 and 2.

My blood was taken for genetic testing, and I never got the results in my online chart. When I asked about it, I was told I needed to come back in to give more blood for it, but everyone was scared to tell me what happened (did they forget to order it? Did they drop it?) And even though at this point my doctor gave me a specific result, it is not noted anywhere in my chart. Very weird.

Did not get a call regarding baseline ultrasound after I had called to schedule the appointment and left a message for a return call. Did not get pre op instructions night before egg retrieval. Had to call on-call physician both times.

1. Incorrect medication was ordered, and the doctor's office delayed my medications from being sent because they were not following up with the pharmacy's questions. I started trying to get my medications on January 2, 2018 and did not receive them all until January 26, 2018 and my first baseline appointment was on January 29, 2018. 2. They do not give great medication instructions. When you are sent 3 different needles, it would be great to know which one goes with which medication. They also told me to watch the Freedom Fertility videos, but some of those differ from the amounts they wanted me to use. 3. Staff do not look at charts/records when prior to seeing a patient. At my baseline ultrasound I was asked multiple times what day of my cycle I was on, when I explained that I wasn't because I had been on birth control. Both my husband and I were so confused/concerned after that appointment, thinking we had been instructed wrong. 4. Some staff are not sure of themselves, I even overheard some in the hallway while waiting in the ultrasound room about how follicles were written and recorded on one side, but the actual photos showed it was the other side. Really concerned hearing this, when I was waiting for an ultrasound. 5. During my transfer, the Doctor asked if the Fellow could do my transfer. I agreed, and the Fellow was asking for something, but the embryologist came over the speaker saying she didn’t need that, and she said Oh I mean this instead. At that point, I felt the Fellow didn’t know what she was doing. 6. Incorrect Information Provided - Shortly after my baseline ultrasound, when I was instructed to stop birth control, I felt I was getting my cycle. When I called the nurse to ask if this was normal, she told me I should not have a period, and that if I had heavy bleeding to call back. The next day I got my period and called back and that time I was told that she checked with the doctor and it was normal. 7. Financial staff were often not in the office during our visits, and when they were we were only able to talk to one staff member who was brand new and not able to answer our questions. This led to a surprise on our Day 3 visit when we were told we would owe $450 more if we waited until Day 5, which was never told to us in the beginning. 8. Told 3 different things by Dr. Hurd, and I mainly believe this was due to him not looking at my husband's records to be able to make the right decisions. We were told there was no need to do ICSI, and then recommended we do half, and then full. And during all of that we were told by the doctor in a MyChart email that half ICSI would cost the same as regular...but after we looked into this further, he said that was not the case, and he meant that if we did half ICSI it was the same as full ICSI. 9. During my first follicle ultrasound, I had to wait 45 minutes for blood work, after asking the front desk multiple times. When I finally got my blood drawn, the phlebotomist told me that she had tried to go look for me in the back because she thought I was at my nurse's appointment...when I wasn't even there for a nurse appointment I was there for an ultrasound. 10. I had an allergic reaction to my shots, and when I called the REI Fellow on call, she called me back and told me she would check with the doctor and call back in the afternoon. I never received a call, so I called the on call line back, she called me back and said she had totally forgot to call me back. 11. During my first blood test to see if the transfer had worked, I was told I'd received a call between 12-3 p.m. At 3:30 p.m., still no call. I called the office, and they had the nurse call me. The nurse rudely told me she had left a message on my phone at 1:40 p.m. I had been anxiously waiting near my phone all afternoon, and did not have any missed calls or messages, so I'm not sure who got that message.

The most upsetting thing with the clinic is the way they delivered our news of being pregnant and then not. The first day after bloodwork they should have known that a low HCG value may not have really been a real pregnancy. They should have warned us versus telling us over the phone, “You’re pregnant!”. We were thrilled to hear the news only for me to go in again the next day to have blood work completed and them to tell us it was negative. Their delivery was not acceptable and at no time did my actual Doctor give me a call.

Didn't have medication dosage adjusted until I asked them to adjust it. Had doctor tell me one thing (natural conception success rate is 30% and husband's SA result is fine) but write a completely different thing in her notes (natural conception success rate would be 10% and husband's SA shows problems, but never ordered more testing for him or referral to urology)

I had medications that were called in twice and the pharmacy said I couldn't get them filled. Just confusing and a little frustrating.

A doctor, not my specific RE, failed to call in a prescription. I had to call the on call RE and have it done, with multiple trips to the pharmacy.

The clinic repeated told me that I would be scheduled for IVF in October 2016 until the week before I was scheduled to start the cycle (meds already ordered) when I was informed that the doctors were all going to a conference and 3 weeks were blacked out for IVF. Subsequently I also learned that all of December 2016 was blocked out. This was very frustrating because I had rescheduled all of my life to do IVF in October and had to then rearrange everything to do so in November (and it was totally avoidable if they'd simply told me in advance that this was a possibility). I also had done a IUI in August because they told me they couldn't order meds in time for IVF (which actually was probably not true, since the med company can do 24 hour turnaround). So I felt like I wasted an IUI cycle, assuming I would do IVF in October, and had I know, I would have chosen IVF in September instead, saving money and time. The other issue I've had is that the clinic regularly fails to tell me if I need to re-sign paperwork, unless I ask. Once, donor sperm was shipped to the clinic for the second time, and I was not informed that I needed to sign a new donor sperm receipt form before shipping, resulting in a 24 hour crisis where I didn't know if they would accept it or ship it back.

We had multiple experiences when we missed cycles during holiday hours. Despite spending all the high cost medications b/c the clinic was not open so they could do the blood work we had to skip the IUI cycle and were told to try naturally. My husband was very discouraged by this and since my insurance only would cover services with Duke doctors we could not leave and go to another clinic. We feel that the opportunity was lost for us to get pregnant in this clinic due to mismanage work that was done.

This place just wasn't for me. I changed back to my original clinic (only went to Duke because of ins instruction) because the personal report with whole staff

There is not anything that went specifically wrong, it's just having concern for people's needs because we as a couple are already stressed since were being told that we cannot be fruitful.

We had our embryos transferred to another clinic. Phone calls to coordinate this were not returned to they point we considered contacting a lawyer. When we did successfully have them moved, they arrived with no paperwork. Thankfully my med rec number was inscribed on the straws and I had it memorized. There was a huge turn over before my second transfer. A new doc did my transfer and he didn't seem to know where the buttons were on the ultrasound, fumbling around while a loaded catheter was in place. Even the fellow looked horrified. I remember much if both of my retrievals, including pain. My concerns when bringing this up before my second retrieval were dismissed.