Alan Berkeley

NYU has a great team of doctors and nurses. I felt like I was in good hands and when going through IVF, you have to be able to trust the fertility clinic you have chosen. I never doubted my decision to go with NYU and I'm happy with the outcome I had with them.

NYU is a large place, and there are always many people in the waiting room. Suffice to say, I have never once felt like a number at this clinic. I am always greeted with a smile by my caregivers, who call me by name, and am treated with respect. The billing process at NYU is always scary as you have to check out with full payment before you leave. Some of those bills will bill enough to give you a coronary. But hey let's face it - infertility treatment is prohibitively expensive no matter the clinic. With this in mind, I am more interested in the type of quality healthcare I get for my money. NYU has been a solid choice for us.

Different parts of the clinic could get on the same page about protocols. Seems like the patient coordinator and nursing staff weren't always communicating the same things - for example, when I can start my FET cycle while waiting my PGS results - patient coordinator said no, nurses said yes - that caused confusion. Some of the preliminary lab test (infectious disease panel bloodwork) fell through the cracks so I had to re-do them. Embryology lab messed up by telling the nurse 26 eggs were retrieved when in fact only 14 eggs were retrieved (26 was the incubator number). And finance and billing weren't always the most responsive. Anesthesiology messed up one of our bills. One thing I wished NYU Fertility could have provided is some type of counseling prior to the process and during the process. I'm not talking about psychological support - because they had that, and frankly, we found unhelpful. What I'm talking about is someone who was willing to walk us through what to expect in terms of the various decisions we would have to make, how to think through how many rounds, whether and how to make the tough decision on transferring mosaic embryos, how to manage pregnancy loss, when to call it quits, and someone we can provide feedback to directly (and not just some on-line survey after every procedure), etc. Not just what to expect from a medical perspective, but the impact IvF, FET and mosaic transfers may have emotionally, financially, etc. Someone who acts as an advocate for the patient. At this time, the nurse, patient coordinator, genetic counselor combined fill that role in limited capacities. But as patient, we had to seek that out and connect the dots ourselves. Perhaps this is a resource beyond the clinic's capacity, but that would have been helpful.

The clinic is well organized however, because it is big, there are sometimes miscommunications especially between the medical team and accountability. I would advise to take the time to sit down with one of the accountants to discuss with them the financial side of the treatment and have them fully inquire about your medical coverage. I wish I had a better understanding of my coverage when I started. I think I would have made slightly different medical decisions.

The location is a bit of a pain - all the way on 1st Ave - but otherwise great. A large waiting room that is usually pretty empty. The staff is lovely and it's all well organized. Because it is part of NYU all the outside testing and procedures are done within a few blocks and there is no added time to schedule things, get test back, etc.

There is no question that NYU is a busy practice, but their focus is on billing patients (you check into billing before you are seen every single time you go to the office), not on patient care. The nurse didn't call in my prescriptions before my cycle. I had one physician whose name I can't remember who was counting my follicles during my first and only stim cycle. It was a disaster. While she read my ultrasound results, I asked innocently, "Is that bad?" and she answered flippantly, "Well, it's not good." As well, it took over 1 year and 4 months to hear back from the donor egg program. Although I really liked my physician, you rarely see or speak to your main physician. This is common with most fertility practices. What is not common? NYU's lack of basic patient care.

strengths: cutting edge medicine, staff that could never be outdone, environment that is comforting weaknesses: unfortunately they are located on a busy side of Manhattan so the outside atmosphere is hustle and bustle, and the total opposite of the inside... this is in no way a reflection on the clinic/staff.... just a reality to the future patients that go there that you need a plan for parking for monitoring and other time consuming visits.

NYU is affiliated with a teaching hospital and presumably has a commensurate lab, so that provides comfort. But it is impersonal. Impersonal is ok for the dentist's office, but not a fertility clinic. I wound up leaving to go to a smaller, more personalized clinic where my treatment felt more tailored and where I had a name.

Strengths: their medicine is top notch. It's NYU they have laboratory resources that is bar none. They have experience with so many various cases so they are extremely knowledgeable and have top of the line recourses. Weskness: they are not personable. In order to speak to someone you have to leave a message with a call center and they will call you back. The lines for monitoring are long and the IVF coordinators and billing have attitudes.

Strength in numbers- very busy clinic means they have the experience and resources. All staff were very knowledgable, everything was very well organized. Two weaknesses were one incident of poor communication regarding shipment of medication and their billing department- unorganized and difficult to reach by phone.

Overall good, just conservative in their approach to using IVF. If you are older and have financial flexibility, get a 2nd opinion from RMA asap. They refused to do an IVF cycle based on low FSH. However, we feel, that at age 42, we likely wasted 4 months waiting for a lower FSH level. I would suggest going to get a 2nd opinion asap in the process if you don't progress asap.

Office was never crowded or overbooked and we were always given plenty of time with the doctor. The main weakness for us as a queer couple was a mandatory counselling session that for how far we already were in our process and knowledge was unneeded and a waste of time and money, but for those earlier in the process I could understand how it could be helpful. I think any queer couples that have a donor agreement through lawyers and have been trying on their own should have the process waived.

Good space. In my option a bit bad located. Check in is easy. I wish they had mychart active or a patience portal.

The clinic was too big, it was like a baby factory. You had to wait in a big waiting room with no privacy for up to an hour sometimes. It was an embarrassing and difficult environment.

Clean, not crowded, comfortable. Felt expensive yet professional

even with the high volume of patients, I always felt supported and that I could get my questions answered. I would recommend getting there by 6:45. I was out by 7:30 the latest with bloodeork and ultrasound.

Dr Berkeley is never there. The nurses are very nice, but they make the decisions on how to proceed. The nurses are not doctors. I just wish Berkeley paid attention to his patients charts weekly. Some clients need prior surgeries and it’s not good at all if the DOCTOR doesn’t keep up on her. unnecessary tests because they ( forgot or aren’t reading her chart ) or missing pieces in the med package that wasn’t addressed on their end. For the price that they charge , it should be an immaculate service provider.

The overall team of NYU fertility center and Dr. Berkeley's team is knowledgable and efficient. I can easily reach out to them whenever I have need. But I don't like the email system. the old emails expires in months and it's hard to track earlier conversations.