Shady Grove Fertility

Strength was the amount of success stories and their reputation. I never had to wait too long for an appointment and they were very responsive to emails and calls. A weakness was that it did, at times, feel like a factory.

Shady Grove is a big clinic, so yes you sometimes feel a bit like a number, but if you find the right Doctor and Nurse, the long road of infertility suddenly doesnt seem so dark and lonely

This clinic has a wide network across my larger geographical area. My normal clinic was 45 minutes from my house. It was closed on the weekends, so I had to drive 90 minutes on the weekends for monitoring. Perhaps due to its size, I often felt like a number rather than a patient. Billing can be frustrating to work with, as it is in a separate office and my clinic's staff would simply tell me to call them. It was very difficult to understand billing statements and procedure codes. Since I had to pay a significant amount out of pocket, this was very frustrating.

When there were administrative mistakes, they made excuses instead of apologizing for their errors. Sometimes you had to wait too long in the waiting room, there were times it seemed like they forget about me. This is for blood work and ultra sound work there. This was distressing as I had a full-time job I needed to be at.

They are very organized and have a strong routine. For example, bloodwork and ultrasound monitoring is always done first thing in the morning. They do seems quite busy. I had to schedule my 3rd IUI with the Fair Oaks center because they were completely booked up. I have yet to be able to go in and out with a monitoring appointment. Instead I usually have to wait 20-30 minutes before they see me. I find it beneficial going in as early as possible when monitoring.

I usually had to have procedures on the weekends and it was a nightmare scheduling those because the after-hours call people would not forward my calls. This happened at least 4 times where I had to make frantic calls to get next day procedure appointments.

They are compassionate, but I still don't feel like I get all the answers I want. I'd like more explanation as to why they did things and how to strategize a new protocol for better results. Perhaps more testing, etc.

Shady Grove: They always knew my name when I walked in. They were as prompt as they could be with the many appts they had. By the time I got to DE, I felt pretty special--maybe bc they knew I had coughed up $30k! I love the blood draw ladies. Johns Hopkins: So impersonal, not nice office, never saw the same doc twice. Much more cold hospital setting. JH is great if you have a rare illness (which I had and my care was great), but for fertility stuff, a specialized clinic is better.

I think the strength is in the solid lab, significant experience and range of doctors to choose from. They do seem to use standard protocols, but that was fine. I'm not crazy about the BCP use, but it's a must - there's not a lot of flexibility in that area. I was able to get some concessions on some policies by getting Dr. Moon on board, and it was frustrating to have to do so. The standard weekend hours and multiple locations was good - no worrying about timing there. They generally had a range of appointments available, though weekends could be hit or miss. Some things were very standardized which generally helped it run smoothly. But there were times things backed up, with waits of 45+ minutes. The financial people may have changed in the past 2 years, but that was the worst/most maddening part. It may be less so if you're not using insurance, but I had to do a significant amount of leg work on running down pre-authorizations and getting statuses and poking and prodding. It was incredibly frustrating, and I would say that's the part that is most off putting about the clinic.

Shady Grove has multiple clinics in the DC metro area. Testing is very process driven, which I appreciated. I knew exactly what and when things were going to happen and I simply followed that process. Some folks might not appreciate being another cog in the fertility factory but I found it comforting; this is all very normal, well managed, and well understood.

I rate the Nursing staff low. I rate dr Osborn high because of her bedside manner and interest in answering questions. I rate the administrative staff very low. Some are nasty. Most are unfriendly. You have to advocate for what you want/need and sometimes demand it from the administrative staff. In my case, I had to hold Shady Grove accountable for their responsibility in a contract and they were trying not to do it.

They have a lot of people coming in and out of there. They make things as quick and painless as possible. It is great to be able to do all of the procedures in the same building with the same people. I think they could make you feel like less of a dollar sign, if anything.

Very busy office. But it’s most convenient for me. It’s the closest location to where I live. Sometimes I feel like it’s jist all business, but ultimately I got what I wanted from them and that’s all that mattered. The office staff, nursing staff and medical staff made me feel that way. But never Dr. Chang.

While they see a lot of patients, I found them still attentive to me needs. I had a pretty straightforward case however, so that might have helped.

Shady Grove is a very large clinic. That comes with positives and negatives. They have lots of knowledge behind them. They also can make you feel like one in about 1000. Although this can be daunting, I feel the overall success of the clinic far outweighs the negativity of it being such a large facility.

I wish they would have taken into account that I had crohns disease and the possibility that it could impact implantation. Also I feel that their prices are high and if it wasn't for my dad we would have never been able to do IVF.

Shady Grove Fertility is a wonderful clinic. They do everything there so it means that you don’t have to drive all over the place for testing, monitoring, and procedure. I highly recommend this clinic.

Shady Grove has very convenient offices and flexible hours, which makes it convenient for pursuing fertility. However I think they could do more to customize for patients over 35 by having protocols set up for these patients.

SG is a very organized clinic, compared to the other one I went to. It's pretty, clean, relaxing, maybe because it is a for-profit organization. I felt known and the people were very friendly.

I thought they were good with providing cheap option for the prescription drugs. I thought even, though you had to pay out of pocket for the whole cycle (in uninsured, they could have offered to break that up into 2-4 payments).

A clinic was always available and worked with your schedule. Unfortunately, there were some very long wait times on some days - particularly weekends.

The staff of Annandale office were so nice and very knowledge. Easy to make an appointment. They made my first appointment with dr Levens, I think it was the most available at that time. They always call me to reminder my doctor’s appointment. They always welcome to the office and make you feel comfortable. The only problem was the waiting room was a little small (I was there more than 7 years ago) and the area were they taken the blood sample was really small too.