Shady Grove Fertility

Shady Grove is the best. Everyone is kind that I have interacted with from the front desk to phlebotomists. The ultra sound technicians are kind and upbeat as well. The entire staff at any Shady Grove office I’ve been to has been professional and knowledgeable. They will always say good luck as you leave and even though it’s a small gesture it makes you feel like they are truly rooting for you.

We had a great experience with Shady Grove Fertility. We found that being a large practice meant it was easy to get appointments, schedule necessary surgeries, and get questions answered 24/7. We do feel like we lucked out on Dr Doyle, since we had such a great personal relationship with him, but don't doubt we would have gotten good care with another provider.

I had zero issues - everything had been straight forward so far. From the finance team to my primary clinic to the clinic I went to for transfer — no issues. I was able to speak the embryologist on transfer day and see a photo of our embryo which I appreciated.

Shady Grove Frederick is one of their smaller office in my opinion, so we always felt like we were getting individualized attention. We always saw the same friendly faces at each appointment which took a lot of the anxiety away. The clinic is well organized. From our first contact to set up a consultation, to financial counseling, to our final appointment before discharge, everything always ran smoothly and the staff had all bases covered. I really liked how patients get a patient portal online where you have direct access to your test results, monitoring and treatment schedule, and messaging for your doctor, nurse, front desk, or financial coordinator. If I had to name one weakness it would probably be that they are not open on weekends for monitoring or phone calls, so if one of your monitoring days falls on a weekend you have to travel to another office. For us, it was Rockville, MD which was an additional 30 minute drive.

Staff at the front desk wasn't extremely friendly. It didn't bother me too much, but it did bother my husband. I forgot my insurance card, but I had the app with all the important numbers. The clinic is not really digitalized, so couldn't just insert my patient numb, they had to make a paper copy of my card. In 2019 seemed weird. Financial person didn't contact us, but waited for us to contact him. I would have like to have somebody to talk to us right away. But it's all ok

Shady Grove is massive and I worried I'd be just a number with them. It's not the case. The entire staff is compassionate, helpful and caring. I also believe their size allows them to be cutting edge and have vast experience and expertise. Nothing seems to surprise them - probably because they see it all. I also love that they have a Wellness Center onsite with acupuncture! I participate in the Shared Risk program which gives me peace of mind. It's a wonderful option and is not something I've seen available at many other places. An exception to my high praise is the billing department. To be clear, I don't mean the financial counselors - April Jackson was wonderful. The billing department is unresponsive and challenging to work with. I had a really bad experience with them working with my insurance that caused me a lot of added heartache I didn't need. I mentioned this to my nurse, Shawn, and financial counselor, April, and they helped me escalate it to a senior person on the team to help get resolution.

Shady Grove is a large practice and it is a business. They do their best to provide the best care but by nature because it is such a enormous practice you are constantly dealing with different people for all parts of the process. It would be easy to feel like a number but I actually don't. I think it does force you to realize you and your partner are in charge, and you must consistently speak up for yourself at every step. They appear to follow science to the enth degree and for that I respect them.

Their front desk is sometimes clueless and it at times takes several times to get through. However, their after hours line is very responsive. I would keep on top of your financial responsibility because we had to advocate a lot for ourselves to be reimbursed and make sure we were really paying what we were supposed to. Otherwise the clinic is good. They do have a rule to not bring your kids in which we LOVESD because who wants to see a persons child that you can’t seem to have yourself in a place where your paying thousands to have a kid? Just loves that they were sensitive toward that. It’s also renovated and clean. I’m not sure if it’s up and functioning yet but when we left they were building a procedural suite next door for retrieval’s, transfers, etc. which was much more convenient than going to their facility in Rockville. It was working to get accredited by insurance companies first at the time so we couldn’t use it. But still pretty neat! Also parking is terrible. They have one parking garage that services 4 office buildings. So arrive early to make sure you get a spot on time.

Shady Grove Fertility - Chesterbrook is like a well-oiled machine. The waiting times are minimal (10-15 minutes max, although it was usually closer to 5). When you first walk in the receptionist always greets you with a smile. The medical assistant/phlebotomist is extremely skilled and makes you feel at ease when getting blood drawn. When getting ultrasounds done, they are gentle and explain everything that they're doing and what you're seeing on the screen. I've always been able to get an appointment when needed, even on a last minute or emergent basis.

Shady Grove is huge and therefore has the expected strengths and weaknesses. Strengths: multiple locations, very good hours for appointments, usually pretty efficient monitoring hours Weaknesses: takes some time before various personnel get to know you. your doctor is likely not going to do your procedures

It is a little slow and hard to get someone on the phone. However they do a great job managing all aspects of the process. I personally think their business office is amazing as they do all that they can to try and help you figure out the best way to pay for everything.

Shady Grove Fertility knows what it is doing. I am sure they churn out patient after patient every day. To some people this may make you feel like you’re just a number to them but for me it was a comfort because it meant they knew what they were doing. I never had anything but a kind interaction with everyone who worked there and the nurses there are above average. I had trouble getting blood drawn and they were so patient and kind to me every time I was there (which was sometimes almost every day for weeks at a time).

The appointment system is pointless for walk in blood work and ultrasound, it didn't matter if you had an appointment or not, it was only dependent on how many people were there. Also, I needed to call the clinic at least twice for my nightly dosage because I didn't receive a note through the portal or a call. The emergency hotline is good and I used it a few times.

The clinic environment is pleasant and clean. They have a Keurig in the waiting room, and an encouragement board where you can write notes to others on the same journey. The lab is located on the floor below so it is easy to schedule the semen analysis. The only weakness is the hours of operation. There are no extended hours, and most of the procedure appointments are available before noon only. Scheduling was hard. It was difficult for us to navigate our work schedules to complete these appointments. It would have been so much easier even if they had some availability until 5 PM or 6.

From the moment we started going to the Fredericksburg SGF location, we felt welcomed and cared for. We are usually seen right at our scheduled appointment time, which I can’t say for most doctor’s offices. The entire staff - from the PAs/Administrative to the nursing staff to Dr.Durso - are the perfect fit for us. Since our first consultation in December 2018, there has been only 1 appointment I can recall where there was a hiccup. There was a scheduling error and our appointment that we scheduled by phone didn’t make it into the system. It was a very busy time and we fault no one for this...especially with how it was handled. When we showed up, the person who we scheduled with said she didn’t see it in the system but she remembered talking with me about it and immediately apologized and asked me to wait a moment. She went to the back to let them know what happened and Dr. Durso herself came out and said she had back to back appointments but she’d still meet with us if we didn’t mind waiting. We waited and she saw us and answered all questions even past closing. TWO THUMBS UP for service!

Shady Grove’s many positives include efficiency, a proven track record, multiple locations and ease of access, and great historical data on outcomes. Despite this “Big Center” status (for lack of a better term), I have never felt like “just” a number or “just” a source of revenue.

The clinic overall is doing a great job however we noticed a lack of consistency in result reporting in dealing with the nursing staff. My nurse would call and not give the details of my monitoring appt or test results unless I asked specifics while others nurses would give me the results without prompting. After talking with my doc the day I was scheduled to trigger another nurse was trying to get us to buy more meds! She had not looked at my chart really and we could tell she had no idea but it did cause some confusion that day.

The NYC office is brand new, state of the art, and beautiful. For those who do not live in the city, like myself, parking is expensive and generally in a garage because of the area of the city it is located in. The office staff is friendly and very helpful.

SGF is a great, professional clinic. That said, it can feel very impersonal at times. I would insist on one nurse contact and to have your doctor perform procedures. I'm not sure that the doctors fully understood my unique situation. I can't fully answer since I'm still undergoing treatment. You must ask questions, do TONS of research early on, even if some of these treatments won't apply to you, it's important to know and ask about them.

Shady Grove's (SG) strength is in its reputation and size as apparently the biggest fertility clinic in the nation. With experienced REs across multiple centers, the within network expertise is available to guide treatment plans in difficult cases. I liked the flexibility of being able to go to any of its numerous locations (even in several states) as medical records are linked. Overall, getting an appointment is easy especially for monitoring, which can be done in different centers across town rather than needing to be at one's primary clinic every time. Having said this, I found it necessary to book a post-treatment follow-up appointments with my RE weeks out (typically at the start of a cycle) if my goal was to not miss any time due to scheduling availability. While getting a phone consult to regroup was an option, in-person consults had to be scheduled further out. Even though one has to medically qualify, SG's programs such as Shared Risk allow for a certain sense of security to the stress of many unknowns associated with IVF cycles. While I haven't used SG's Shared Risk program, either party (clinic or patient) can choose to withdraw at any time in which case the patient receives a full refund. Although I learned of this too late to fully benefit when first seeking care, SG provides a free consultation for would-be patients who attend a free seminar. This is a terrific idea since some insurance companies make women jump through multiple hoops before being allowed to see a specialist yet timing of early diagnosis is so critical to improved outcomes. SG's major weakness is that patients do not see an RE at every appointment (far from it) and unless one really tries, it's possible--likely even--to have very little interaction with the clinician overseeing your medical care. I had to specifically work on getting attention from my RE between consults since SG is nurse-centric-in patient care, which is admittedly to a detriment relative to competing clinics. For instance, I had to actually ask to receive attention from my RE between consults via call-backs by request through my nurse or run-by Q&A during monitoring if we happened to intersect (his idea & willingness, by the way, for mid-hallway dialogue). Admittedly, my RE was quite open to grant the extra time and even came in purposefully early on numerous occasions to do my egg retrievals himself. Were it not for my RE taking an interest in seeing me succeed in having a baby, I would have left SG for one of the several competing clinics offering more ready access to its REs. I further think that much can be missed by having REs only analyze images rather than being there to see results firsthand and would urge SG to restructure its practice towards a greater fraction of direct patient care.

They have a brand new facility, which is always nice. I wish they offered more adjunctive treatments like acupuncture her in their Richmond office. Appointments usually start within 15 minutes, so wait times are generally short.