Jones Institute at West Penn Allegheny

If you're new to this, go in prepared with any questions you may have. From what meds will I be taking, to how many ultrasounds/blood tests/etc. If you've been through this before, go with expectations and have a plan in mind to discuss with him.

He read my chart prior to my follow up visit and was very familiar with my plans and my timeline. He laid out the treatment plan for the next 6 months (provided I do not become pregnant within the timeframe) just so I know what to expect each step of the way instead of waiting until that treatment to lay everything on me.

Debbie was very compassionate and encouraging. She has been professional and personable each time I've seen her.

I'm on a very strict timeline. I will be turning 40 this year and I had a miscarriage previously and a successful rainbow baby also. My pregnancy was incredibly difficult and I understood that should I become pregnant again, that it would likely be just as difficult. But Dr. Wakim took the time to listen to the concerns I had and helped me develop a plan for treatment going forward. With the understanding that we are on a strict timeline, we're taking an aggressive approach, but it just means more testing and exams for me. A small price to pay for such a large return, in my opinion.

Tell him exactly what you want and what your plans are.

I'm undergoing my first treatment right now, and I'm currently taking Letrozole (5mg) for days 3-5 of my cycle. That will be the treatment plan for the next 2 months should this one not work, but then we'll go with IUI.

So far, all of my treatments have been covered by my insurance. I have had to pay my usual co-pay and the prescriptions were also covered under my prescription plan.

The security guard at the desk every morning is super nice. She gets to know all the regulars and helps out anyway she can. The fertility clinic is open Saturdays and sometimes they forget to tell you to use the back door as the main doors are locked.

Dr.Balmir is very kind and all her consults she talks without using a lot of medical jargon. She fully explains all the steps and procedures and makes me feel comfortable with her choices and opinions for my health.

The nurses might be my one complaint at this office. I have all my appointments before work for ultrasounds and labs so I'm on a tight schedule. The ultrasounds I'm in and out but I end up waiting 15 sometimes 30mins for a nurse to come do my lab. I now try to schedule my appointments for 6 or 7am so I have more time so I'm not late to work.

Dr.Balmir is very upbeat. Every time I meet with her she says "we will get you pregnant"! She never gives up and I think she is very open minded about new treatments and procedures. If I say "hey I've read about this drug being helpful would this benefit me?" she answers by welcoming it. I find a lot of the newer things going on medication wise she is up-to-date on because she'll answer that she has read or heard the same things and then we discuss if its right for me.

Don't expect miricles and don't be afraid to ask questions. Dr.Balmir has heard it all and is super open about everything.

When Dr.Balmir came aboard I was midcycle from a doctor who has recently left the clinic. She looked at my chart and all my results and said these aren't working let's do something that will work. She took me off femara told me to throw away the ovulation kits and do a hybrid cycle. She then started me on gonal-f and clomid with frequent ultrasounds and then a trigger shot of ovidrel. I had not ovulated once on just famara, 3 hybrid cycles and I ovulated each time! I didn't get pregnant but I was actually making progress! I found out my insurance covers IVF when I suggested it after the 3rd hybrid cycle she jumped on board and helped me understand all the pros and cons.

My insurance covered all labs and ultrasounds once I paid my deductible. The only thing I paid for is medicine which was also partially covered by my insurance.

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Billing was unclear, i was told that we would talk about payment options the day of my iui, but the day of, it seemed like that was an unusual request. The staff was nice. Making appointments was easy.

I saw dr homa after 6 failed rounds of femara under my gynecologist care. I had two visits with dr homa, our first being my general consultation where she just went over all of the previous treatments and then suggested another round of femara, this time monitored and an iui. Our appointment was quick and impersonal. The rest of my experience was with her staff.

The staff was nice when i called with questions, and made me feel comfortable during my ultrasound. The nurse who preformed my iui was fast and answered the questions i had.

My experience as a patient with dr homa was okay. Just okay. I left her office feeling overwhelmed. My husband and i waited almost an hour to see her, and after she came in and talked with us, it was very fast and impersonal. There was no talk of a plan B, if the iui didn’t work out. This was my only experience with dr homa personally.

Dr homa kept me on the same protocol as my gynecologist. She didn’t change anything, and kept me at the highest dosage of femara, but added in a trigger shot, an ultrasound and an iui. I assume her rationale was because the femara was making me ovulate in my previous cycles, it would be good to try again with the added trigger and iui. The result was not pregnancy. We never discussed a plan B, so after the failed round my husband and i decided on taking a break from treatment.

The trigger shot for IUI was a bit expensive, but i was able to get it for less. I was unsure of the cost of the iui until the day of, and was a bit overwhelmed having to pay all upfront.

The clinic is very clean and easy to find. It's very close and convenient for me.

Dr. Homa is not a stranger to the situation. She's very compassionate and treated me with the utmost respect. I felt like she truly cared for me as a person and our journey.

The nurses of The Center for Reproductive Medicine were absolutely amazing. Everyone is super friendly and on top of everything. Specifically, Jenn, who I felt kind of took me under her wing and really showed compassion toward me. Most of these women if not all have experienced some type of issue in having children. Which I would wish upon no one, but it is reassuring they're not just giving you a textbook answer.

During miscarriage we had seen the other doctor in the practice. His bedside manner was awful and was not caring in the matter. Our next appointment was an ultrasound with Dr. Homa to further check the progress. We walked into the room and didn't say a thing she just hugged me. Infertility is already hard as it is, but to become pregnant and have it swept out from underneath is an unfathomable experience. Dr. Homa made our experience a little less heart wrenching in walking us through what was to come. I appreciate her and thank God very day we have her to guide us!

Be patient. She is a very knowledgeable person and is great at what she does; keep in mind though that there may be other factors that contribute to her not helping you reach your goals. Just keep the faith!

I honestly don't remember exactly amounts but we upped my dosages with some of my medications during my second cycle.

The IVF cycle itself was $9,500 to be paid at once. I had to write two checks: one check for $450 which went towards my anesthesia and another check for $1250 in the event that we had embyros to freeze. Depending on the protocol will determine the amount you pay for medications. Ours were around $3,400. Insurance covered nothing. Our ultrasounds had a $30 co-pay EVERY visit.

Dr. Homa had a strong preference for a two embryo transfer the first time due to the quality of my embryos. Because only one took during that cycle we opted ourselves, without question, to do two for our second cycle.

This clinic is very big on IUIs. They seem to recommend that to everyone no matter what the issue is. If you have an ovulation issue or hormonal problem, you may get lucky and this will be successful. However, they really don't like discussing sperm issues. They don't want to do further testing on sperm and they never ever bring up the term "sperm donor." I believe a lot of my precious time was wasted not to mention thousands of dollars on IUIs that really had no shot of every working. Also, the IUIs aren't timed well. Everyone's is timed the same and if it is a weekend, they'll just do it early and waste your money and time. Washed sperm only lives a few hours so timing is critical especially when there is a male issue to begin with.

She was friendly and answered all the questions.

Very nice and friendly. They made me feel comfortable. Most were skilled at the IUI, however, one was not. I do feel they had a bit of a "cover up" about the sperm quality.

Saw her at initial appointment then dealt with nurses. I had no negative issues with her at the appointment personally. I do think that she prescribes the treatments the clinic recommends for all patients.

Go into the appointment informed. Stress you want your specific problem dealt with and not the standard course of treatment the clinic does for almost everyone no matter the issue is.

Dr. Homa acknowledge the male factor was causing our problems. Her predecessor at Jones insisted everything was fine. She claimed IUIs would solve the inadequate sperm quality issue. However, I believe the problem was far worse than anyone at the clinic would admit.

I believe including drugs for each IUI, we spent $1,000 each time. The total we spent at Jones was around $7,000.

My husband and I had a very unique/challenging male infertility situation, and the Jones Institute bent over backwards for us to do whatever they could to help achieve our goal of starting a family. We had such personal treatment at their office from EVERYONE… literally from the receptionist, to the nurses, to the financial coordinator to the embryologist. The entire staff was always so hopeful and positive, even during the most difficult times. And when we FINALLY had success, I cannot tell you how excited they were for us! We received three personal phone calls from different staff members congratulating us the day our pregnancy test came back positive! Although our journey was much longer than we originally anticipated, I am so happy that we went through it at the Jones Institute. I cannot stress the level of personalized care we received there and how invested the staff is in their patients. I still think about them all the time and will be forever grateful for the gift they have given us! Something unique about the clinic is the office is located in McCandless, but egg retrievals and embryo transfers are done at the surgery center in Allegheny General Hospital on the Northside (IUIs are performed in the McCandless office). Also the frozen embryos are stored at the hospital. They do bloodwork and will perform IUIs on Saturdays, but the office is closed on Sundays. They will do egg retrievals and transfers any day of the week, including holidays. My first retrieval was on Memorial Day and had an IUI done on Labor Day. They do batch scheduling for IVF. So they perform all IVF patient's retrievals and transfers during the same week in each month. I had to take birth control pills to delay my cycle to get onto their schedule.

Dr. Hecht made such an effort to get to know my husband and I. He knew what we both did for our jobs and asked about them at every appointment. He always used our first names to say hello if we saw him in the waiting room. He was easy to talk to and used humor to make us feel comfortable. If something was urgent, he would call me on his personal cell phone to let me know what was going on.

The nursing staff is wonderful. They also make great efforts to know you personally and show great care and compassion. I have shed many tears with them during the tough times, and when we finally had success, I could just tell they were as excited as my husband and I were! My only critical comments... 95% of the time, if you call and leave a message, they do return your phone call the same day, but there were a few times they did not call me back, which for a fertility patient, was very stressful to have to wait until the following day to try and call again. Additionally, I personally did not like it when the nurses performed the IUIs. There was one nurse that did them well, but when one of the other nurses performed one on me, it really hurt! After that, I always requested that the doctor performed my IUIs (which he did without hesitation). Otherwise, they were always helpful when explaining the process, medications and answering all of my crazy questions!

My husband and I will be forever grateful Dr. Hecht. I was a patient at the Jones Institute prior to his arrival and we had little to no progress in our treatment until he arrived. He provided us with ideas and options to try and conceive in the simplest and least expensive way possible. Once we exhausted all of those options, unfortunately we did need to move onto IVF, but trust me, he worked with us to try EVERYTHING we could to avoid this. We had quite a long journey with Dr.Hecht, and I am so happy to say that after about a year of medicated cycles, we finally had our success. He was with us every step of the way…. he was our physician first, but also showed us so much empathy and compassion during the difficult times. My husband and I appreciated his ‘hugs, high fives and humor’. Additionally, he was always open to the suggestions we brought to the table to enhance and personalize our treatment. And I will just say, his clinical skills when doing a pelvic exam or an IUI are excellent. I have had other OBGYNs who were HORRIBLE in this area, but there were times when I didn’t even feel him insert the speculum. This is truly a skill! Overall, we loved Dr. Hecht and are so sad that he moved back to Ohio. In full transparency though, I have had friends that have seen Dr.Hecht and were turned off by his sense of humor and candidness. While I can understand their feelings, for my husband and I, this is exactly what we needed. We have always been an open book about our situation and truly valued having a doctor who could be just as open with us. Infertility is a personal struggle. Find a doctor that fits your personality and lifestyle. We saw 3 different REs before Dr.Hecht and we knew with certainty that he was the best fit for us. Who knows, maybe for baby #2, we’ll make the two hour journey down the turnpike so we can work with him again :)

Don't be turned off by his sense of humor. He truly has your best interest at heart and wants you to succeed. Also, don't be afraid to be your own advocate. He is open to your suggestions. For my second egg retrieval, he wanted to keep my stim protocol the same as for the first, but I wanted to be more aggressive to possibly retrieve more eggs. We worked together to come up with a treatment plan which increased my meds slightly, but still protected me from developing OHSS, and for the second retrieval, we got TWICE as many eggs as the first! I really nice that we had an open patient/doctor relationship, and I felt comfortable approaching him with my ideas.

May 2015 - IVF #1 - Follistim 200, Menopur 50, Ganirelix and Ovidril trigger. I stimmed for 12 days, had 9 eggs retrieved, 5 were fertilized and we transferred 2 day-3 embryos. No embryos made it to freeze. This cycle ended in a chemical pregnancy. July - November 2015 - 5 IUI's - each month, did 5 days of Letrozol, tracked ovulation with OPKs, and triggered with Ovidril. All 5 IUIs ended in negative pregnancy tests. December 2015 - IVF #2 - Follistim 200, Menopur 75, Ganirelix and Ovidril trigger. I stimmed for 9 days, had 19 eggs retrieved, 10 were fertilized and we transferred 2 day-3 embryos. 5 day-3 embryos made it to freeze. This cycle ended in a negative pregnancy test. March 2016 - FET #1 - vaginal estrace and prometrium for uterine priming, plus baby aspirin. Thawed and transferred 2 day-3 embryos. This cycle ended in a negative pregnancy test. May 2016 - FET #2 - vaginal estrace and prometrium for uterine priming, plus baby aspirin. Thawed 3 day-3 embryos, and allowed them to develop to day-5. One embryo did not survive the thaw, one embryo developed to 8-cell stage, and one embryo became a blastocyst. Transferred the 8-cell and the blast. This cycle ended in a POSITIVE pregnancy test.

The monitoring appointments were always in the morning, which was great for me. I always liked to try and get the first appointment at 6:45 or 7:00am so I could go straight to work afterwards. The ultrasound technicians do not work in the afternoon, so there are no afternoon appointments.

My treatment was mostly covered by insurance, so there may be other fees that I'm not aware of, but for me, these were the costs: - IVF egg retrieval & fresh embryo transfer - $9500 (including assisted hatching and ICSI) - Frozen embryo transfer - $3750 - Embryo freezing - $1200 - Annual embryo storage - $400 - Annual sperm storage - $400 - IUI - $950 - Medications - we were blessed to have all meds covered by insurance, so I don't know what these costs were.

He was open to whatever decision we wanted to make, but, especially for the day-3 embryos he encouraged transferring two.

I think the lack of an online portal to communicate with the nursing staff is something definitely missing here.

The nurses did all the work in this office. They did follow up with you. However, I do not think they remembered my name every appointment. Just my face.

Overall, the nursing staff was okay. Jen was great. The other ones I didn't really think they communicated well to me. The one nurse made me feel rather depressed when she said something to the effect of "despite your low amh, you have responded well..."

Dr. Homa diagnosed me with Diminished Ovarian Reserve based on low AMH (.73) I had normal AFC and FSH. I was not happy with my experience at this clinic. I complained about having pain with sex and that I think I might have endometriosis. She said to talk to my gyno about the pain, but she would not perform surgery for endometriosis for infertility. The reason I left this clinic was that I had a huge cyst at my baseline cycle and she still let me proceed with Femara. On CD 14, the cyst doubled in size and I had 1 17mm follicle. She told me to trigger the next morning and do the IUI on Friday. I didn't feel comfortable wasting a $100 trigger or spending $375 on the IUI on a cycle with the cyst so I canceled. The next day on CD 15, I got AF estrogen break through bleeding. I went back in on CD 3 and she said it wasn't my period and I had ovulated since I had a high progesterone. This was wrong. My progesterone was pre ovulation and my other numbers indicated that I was in a new cycle. IN fact, my u/s from 3 days before showed that uterine lining was already in the process of shedding. Something that I was not informed with. After this incident, I made an appointment at another clinic and didn't look back. My gyno ended up doing a lap surgery on me and diagnosed me with endometriosis. After my surgery, my AMH was 1.73 indicating my reserve for my age was not LOW.

Please do your own research. Do not just follow the doctor's orders.

At our first consultation, Dr. Homa suggested hybrid cycles for me (femara plus gonal F). She suggested this protocol because I had a short luteal phase. She said that since I was DOR I had poor quality eggs and she wanted to fix the eggs at the beginning of the cycle so my luteal phase would extend. I wasn't comfortable jumping into injectables, so we stuck with femara and trigger for 3 cycles. Didn't get pregnant. Then we moved on to femara plus gonal f for one cycle. I responded well to all cycles but never got pregnant. We added an IUI for the hybrid cycle.

Most of my costs were covered under insurance. My IUI itself was not covered and was reasonably priced. The ultrasounds and bloodwork associated with the IUI were covered.

Does not apply to me.

The strengths - super friendly staff and they do whatever they can to squeeze you in when you need to be there since timing is everything! They also do not overbook. The only time I had to wait was when I showed up 30 minutes early (left extra time due to weather) for my appointment, but they even ended up taking me early since the person that was in the next slot cancelled. The weaknesses - their office is in McCandless, which is not very convenient. I ended up taking half days off of work when I had an appointment because it took me an hour to get there, an hour to get back, and usually 15-30 minutes during my appointment.

Dr. Hecht is very personal with his patients. Every time I'm in the office, when he walks through the waiting room, he addresses everyone in there by name. My husband went with me a few times and the times he did not accompany me, Dr. Hecht asked about him. I felt very comfortable with Dr. Hecht. He makes a very difficult situation bearable.

He has the best nurses. They all love their jobs and you can tell that it's a great place to work. There are a few nurses that drive several hours to work - that is a surefire sign to me that they love their jobs! Judy and Sharon were the two that I dealt with the most. No matter what small and "stupid" question I had, they never judged me and called me back immediately with answers. They could tell that I was paranoid about everything I did, everything I took, and they were extremely helpful. I had some dental issues when I first got pregnant and I called about everything. Am I allowed to have Novocaine? Am I allowed to get my teeth cleaned? Should I tell them that I'm pregnant or refuse x-rays? They were the best! And the ultrasound techs were fantastic too. They were very friendly and did everything they could to make you feel comfortable while you were incredibly vulnerable. Laying there on the table, naked from the waist down, with the ultrasound wand inside of you, you were able to have a regular conversation like two friends sitting across from one another at lunch. It was a great experience and I'm glad that I had/have such a wonderful team to work with.

Dr. Hecht has an odd sense of humor. At my first appointment, he could tell that I was nervous and uneasy. He cracked a few jokes and I immediately began to calm down and relax. I had gone in with a notebook of questions - I think there were two full pages - and he spent the time with us to go over every one and made sure that I was comfortable with his answer and understood what his answer meant. After I had a miscarriage, I called the office and Dr. Hecht called me back personally. He made me and my husband feel like we were the only patients he had during that horrific time in our lives. He assured us that he was there to help us again and when we were ready, we could make an appointment and go back in to begin treatments. Upon our return, he sat down with us for over an hour and talked to us about the miscarriage and how we were feeling to make sure that we were emotionally ready to begin this process over again. It was great to have a doctor that was so invested in helping us begin a family.

Go in with an open mind. His humor does not make everyone laugh, but if you have an open mind about it and don't take things too seriously, he's great!

My very first treatment in October was to initiate a period, take Letrozol for days 3-7, go back for several ultrasounds to track the uterus lining and ovulation. Once he deemed that I was ovulating, I had specific instructions on intercourse. When my next period was due, I was instructed to either take a pregnancy test if no signs of a period or call them when my period started. I was fortunate to become pregnant on the first treatment. But as I mentioned earlier, I had a miscarriage at 7 weeks. We started treatments again in January. Since the Letrozol worked for me before, he saw no reason to change the treatment. We continued that treatment for 4 more months and on April 30th, I took another pregnancy test and it was positive. I'm currently 7 weeks along in this pregnancy and I have another appointment to see him in two weeks before he releases me to my OBGYN. He wants to stay with us through the rough spot - getting over that hump we were at last time catastrophe struck.

Everyone at the clinic is very nice. They do sometimes seem a little disorganized but nothing that's ever caused any issues. The offices themselves are a little dated but they seem to have up to date equipment so that is all that matters.

Dr. Balmir took the time to talk with my husband and I to discuss treatment and expectations and also to answer my questions.

All of the nurses are extremely nice. They will answer your questions to the best of their ability and seem to have already discussed the answer with the doctor.

Dr. Balmir is very warm and compassionate. She sat down and answered all of our questions and set expectations of success. As someone who is obsessive researcher on Google, she answered each of my questions with an answer complete with research backing it. We never felt rushed out of the room with Dr. Balmir.

While Dr. Balmir is warm and compassionate, she is not going to beat around the bush with your chances of success.

I was first put on 5mg femara and Gonal F injectables (75iu) for two IUI's. We are now going to try and increase the dose of Gonal to 100 for the next IUI which should give us more information on my response to fertility medications so that we can hopefully move forward to IVF.

Both IUI cycles cost around $200. We had already met our insurance deductible for this year so that did help costs.

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Parking is easy, staff is friendly and welcoming, clinic is inviting and very easy to find. We really liked the fact that they make you meet with a financial advisor on your first visit to make sure you’re aware of all of the costs associated with EVERYTHING. They really go above and beyond.

You always get a call back. Staff is kind and understanding. They answer questions without making you feel like you’re annoying them. They explain everything. They have you meet with a financial advisor before anything.

They are very kind, help you to feel less stressed, treat you like a human being.

She is blunt and to the point but you can tell and feel she knows what she is doing and that she wants to help. She does her job well, researches you and your past, answers questions fully and makes sure you understand the next steps, risks, etc.

You won’t always see her, but don’t be alarmed at that.

She suggested that due to our diagnosis that we try IUI along with Clomid for a few cycles. We had the option to do IUIs without medication, but with medication slightly increased our chances. She explained that if after a few rounds nothing works, we will discuss other options and next steps.

So far we have had two IUIs, in the process of our third. Each IUI is $369; $299 for the ultrasound and bloodwork.

Dr. Hecht never has to look at my file to remember who I am. Whenever I am in the office, he's sure to stop and talk.

Dr. Hecht treats me like a person, not a case. I was at the clinic frequently, having initiated 4 cycles, and I saw Dr. Hecht every single visit. If they had bad news for me, he personally phoned me right away and we talked things over. You truly can't ask for more in a physician. He's not conservative in his treatments but there are other clinics that are on the cutting edge and experimental. This isn't one of those clinics and that's okay. You know what you're getting here. His hands were a little bit tied when it came to getting creative with protocols because the clinic is small and they batch retrievals each month. But that's not his fault. That's just the nature of a small clinic. In the end, after having left and gone to two other clinics, I've returned to Dr. Hecht. I trust him. I trust that he has our best interests at heart.

We initiated 4 IVF cycles with Dr. Hecht. I have DOR and I'm a poor responder. My first cycle was an antagonist cycle with high dose FSH. My second and third cycles were long Lupron cycles worh high dose FSH (to quell spontaneous ovulation) and my fourth cycle was long Lupron with high dose FSH, plus a clomid flare.

The clinic is in an outpatient setting instead of attached to a hospital so if you have a late appointment and need bloodwork done you will have to go elsewhere or wait until the next day because the outpatient lab closes at 3:00pm

Dr. Hecht explained everything we needed and took the time to make us feel comfortable with diagnostic procedures and treatment. He never acted like he was too busy to talk with us.

Super knowledgeable and compassionate. Always able to answer our questions and didn’t feel annoyed by phone calls.

Dr. Hecht is extremely processional, but he does use humor at times to lighten the mood. This might entirely not be for everyone, but for mine and my husbands personalities and treatment it was fantastic. He is extremely knowledgeable and you feel like a person not just a number.

Be open to the humor, he’s not trying to poke fun or downplay the circumstances of why you’re there but rather make infertility a little less doom and gloom.

Costs would’ve been approximately $8000 but with insurance we paid $150.

The only thing I would change about the clinic is their availability. It took me a few months to get in for my fist appointment.

A huge group of smart cheerleaders. They were able to answer all of our questions and a huge support system.

Lori homa was very positive from our first visit and helped us beat our secondary infertility on the first cycle! She was very thorough and upbeat the entire process. She also was very knowledgeable and answered every question we had.

Trust. Trust what she says and take a deep breath. Infertility is the hardest thing I have ever dealt with, but know you are in good hands.

I'm not sure if the rationale for any of our treatments but what worked for us was: Letrozole cycle days 3-7 Trigger shot- day 13

Our insurance has a pretty high deductible. Because of our high deductible one month of blood work, meds, and ultrasound was around 700$.

None

Dr. Hecht is retiring and another dr is taking over the practice.

I felt he listened to me and really let me lead how aggressive, or not aggressive, I was comfortable with in tackling our problems. This did mean he didn't push me at all and missed diagnosing me with diminished ovarian reserve. As a result I lost a year of treatment.

When I was seeing Dr. Hecht I didn't know what questions to even ask. I wish I would have asked more questions about everything. I never felt rushed or hurried during my appointments and he always included my husband in the conversation.

He's retiring.

We did one IUI and Dr. Hecht was out that day. The dr. who filled in for him told me during the procedure that it likely wouldn't work. I wanted to cancel everything, demand a refund, and walk out.

Payment was due upfront. No price lists were given. It was very much a whirlwind.