Barbara Osborn

Dr. Osborne's bedside manner isn't great, but it's not the worst I've ever seen. Fertility clinics seem to be extremely nervous about getting a patient's hopes up, which means they are so neutral that they veer into actually withholding information, and being obtuse. I found Dr. Osborne to be this way. For example, I couldn't get a straight answer from her about nutrition/supplements to before/during egg freezing. Overall I sometimes felt like I was talking to a customer service or sales rep instead of a doctor - she just was unable to be personable.

Come prepared with all your questions, and don't be afraid to press further if you don't get a full answer to a question, or one that you understand.

Shady Grove as a whole is too large and the way they are set up means less personalized care. Communication should have been better, and errors on the part of the nursing staff would have been less likely with a smaller practice. The financial department has no idea what they are doing and I spend several thousand more than I needed to due to their lack of attention and individual care. SGF is a for-profit business and it shows.

Age: 38, AFC: 18, AMH: 1.58. Doctor expected ~13 eggs per cycle, of which ~9 would be mature. First cycle was way less successful than expected, so they used the same protocol but increased the dosage significantly. Then 3rd cycle they used a different protocol. First 2 cycles: birth control, then antagonist protocol (Gonal-F, Menopur, Cetrotide, Leuprolide trigger). 3rd cycle, no birth control, estrogen priming instead, then same antagonist protocol, except HCG instead of Leuprolide trigger. 1st cycle: 5 eggs retrieved, 3 mature 2nd cycle: 12 eggs retrieved, 8 mature 3rd cycle: 14 eggs retrieved, 9 mature

Overall my nurses were good. I was however disappointed when my primary nurse was promoted to another location and I was abruptly switched to a new nurse with no transition period or explanation beyond, "you're transitioning to a new nurse today." There were some issues with communication, and one very serious error where Rachel had a trainee nurse call me, and she gave me the wrong instructions for medication changes that night. Luckily I had to contact Rachel for something else that day and I was able to catch the error, but if I hadn't, I likely would have lost that entire cycle. I was shocked at how dismissive and non-apologetic Rachel was about the error.

The clinic is waaaaaay too big, and people are treated like a number. Read your contract VERY carefully and make sure you understand exactly what is and is not covered. If they ask you to do an additional test or appointment, make sure you check to see if it is included, otherwise you will be stuck with an extra bill. The financial department is also a complete mess. They couldn't have cared less about my questions and they were unresponsive, and sullen on the phone. They didn't do a good job of figuring out my insurance coverage, and I had to make a number of additional calls to my insurer to make sure everything was correct. They also advised me to not bother to check the prices of medications with other pharmacies, since they had a deal with a specific pharmacy. After I had already bought the drugs, I talked to other SGF women who had found drugs from lots of different pharmacies for cheaper. My nurse also did a terrible job of helping me to order the exact right amount of medications for my last cycle, which means I have unusable drugs in my fridge now. They let you donate them back to the clinic, but you can't return them, which is ridiculous. I felt really manipulated and take advantage of by the end of my care at SGF. The care I received from monitoring nurses and retrieval staff was excellent, however.

$12,500 for an egg freezing cycle: 20 mature eggs or 4 cycles, whichever came first. For 3 cycle, I paid the pharmacy ~$15K. SGF also tried to bill me for blood tests and a consultation with the doctor in between cycles. I was nickel and dimed.

Dr. Osborn was recommended to me from a friend doing IVF. I was not in the same situation as a patient, but I found her care and compassion to be top notch. This is such an emotional process and so expensive-- it is imperative to have a doctor who you can trust, who is there to answer all your questions, and who can provide the kind and supportive bedside manner one absolutely requires in the fertility treatment experience.

I would recommend going to Sibley for your screenings so you have a chance to interact with Dr. Osborn more frequently. I chose to go to a closer Shady Grove center, which I would have done differently in hindsight. I would also make sure you ask to have Dr. Osborn do your retrieval procedure if possible.

Dr. Osborn is painstaking with her patients. She answers every question, is thorough, patient and realistic in explaining all of the data. I also found her follow-up after retrieval to meet that same exceptional care. She stood out from other doctors I saw for my daily monitoring-- leagues above.

I was pretty run of the mill in terms of treatment course. The medicines and dosages were pretty par for the course of friends of mine who have gone through retrieval for IVF. I was happy to see i responded well to the medicines and would up using a sub-cutaneous trigger shot. I wound up having my retrieval a few days earlier than expected, too.

Vanessa was newer at the time, which I did not know. I had a very bad experience with a different doctor at the Arlington office, and had called to say I never wanted to be screened by her again. I asked at the time to be assured said doctor would not be doing my retrieval, which the nurse said wouldn't happen. Of course, come morning of my retrieval, the Arlington doctor was my surgeon. I later found out that my concerns and my notes on this other doctor were not expressed to Dr. Osborn. I needed to be more assertive and insistent with my nurse. Lesson learned for any future situations. But beyond that one hiccup, the nurse was responsive to my myriad questions and always kind and supportive.

Shady Grove runs a tight ship with some of the nicest nurses and physicians. The vast majority are thorough, kind and compassionate-- they know the specialty they are in, and take that very seriously and with care.

I chose to go to a clinic for monitoring closer to my house. Scheduling was easy and on the weekend, it was no problem getting into the K Street clinic.

The cost options and plans were clearly laid out and discussed with me anytime I had questions. I did not have insurance coverage so I paid directly and was able to handle payment in one installment.

Very good listener. Friendly and warm bedside manner. Super flexible in scheduling me around other constraints. Good communicator - provided easy to understand explanations and was super responsive. Following my miscarriage from a naturally conceived pregnancy, she was able to get on the phone with my ob and have the tissue tested the same day without much notice. She was super easy to work with and I'll go back to see her again when we're ready for baby #3.

With Shady Grove's system, you can go anywhere for monitoring (which is awesome in terms of the flexibility it enables). That said, I'd try to see Dr. Osborn as much as you can which will help you build a relationship with her and get instant answers to questions and next steps.

Very friendly bedside manner. Took account of my baseline knowledge and provided the right level of detail into all explanations. She listened to me and took into account my perspective which informed how we proceeded. She set reasonable expectations at the outset and met or exceeded all of them.

I responded very well to an antagonist protocol which is what we used for both of my retrieval cycles with good success.

Overall, I thought everyone I saw across multiple offices was very supportive and professional. They know how to recruit high quality nurses and staff.

While SG is a high volume practice, I never felt that compromised the care I received. I think their state of the art facilities, the quality of the staff they hire and their success rate are all reasons to use Shady Grove. They were preferred provider for 2 separate insurances I used for treatment given that they are 1 of only 2 local practices to have received a clinical standard of excellence designation.

I always scheduled for 1st thing in the morning and was almost always in and out for monitoring and other appointments in under 15 mins.

We did PGS so we knew what we were putting back. Given that, Dr. Osborn only recommended transferring a single embryo which is what we wanted. No difference there in opinions on best way to proceed.

Dr. Osborn is a very good doctor and one of the best in this field. I think that personality-wise, she might be a bit shy and is respectful of your privacy so she is not as nosy about your preferences as other REs might be. But you just need to be very well informed and go into your appointments with her with a lot of questions because she is patient and will answer every last one of them honestly and truthfully. She is forthcoming about why Shady Grove recommends some things (for business/cost reasons vs. strictly medical outcome reasons).

Make sure you are well informed, read the latest findings and studies (i.e., about Ubiquinol/CoQ10 studies) and ask about their applicability to your situation. Shady Grove is a busy practice and Dr. Osborn is not going to spend time with you providing endless amounts of information if she does not think you are interested. But if you ask her specific questions about the latest research, about your situation, etc., she will take the time to answer honestly and thoroughly.

Dr. Osborn has a calm bedside manner and is not particularly chatty. But she was empathetic, listened carefully, and took time to answer all of my questions. She was also available for phone discussions outside of scheduled appointments. Shady Grove has many locations and a lot of staff but I always felt it was key to have a very good nurse coordinator and to schedule as many appointments in the Sibley office as possible so that you build rapport with the staff in that office. The Sibley office is smaller but it is more boutique like than the other locations so the staff does get to know you.

4 fresh IVF cycles with own oocytes, ICSI and assisted hatching. After a failed cycle, Dr. Osborn adjusted the medications and protocol to encourage more eggs to be developed for retrieval. Adjustment in medications led to successful outcome.

My nurse coordinator was essential to the success of my treatments. She was organized and communicated with me via phone or email daily or multiple times a day during a cycle. Without her organization and attention to detail, I would have messed things up for myself.

Shady Grove is like Starbucks. But the multiple locations, range of hours for monitoring, and fact that they provided dedicated financial advisors, and on site acupuncture made the process much better than most medical experiences. We also considered going with GW, and the doctors are great there and always gave great insight into our issues, but the staffing and locations were just more limited than what is available thru Shady Grove.

With insurance, IVF with ICSI and assisted hatching was $3500 out of pocket. Medications were approx. $500. After employer dropped IVF coverage from health insurance, IVF with ICSI and assisted hatching was $10,500 and medications were approx. $4,000.

Dr. Osborn actually recommended multiple embryo transfer because of my age but I requested eSET twice because that was what I wanted. On one cycle, where the embryo transfer was not a 5-day blastocyst but 5-day morulas, I agreed with multiple embryo transfer recommendation.

She is a very knowledgeable doctor. I would describe her as clinical; meaning that she knows a lot but is always thinking about the medical side of things. I did not really feel like I could talk with her about the emotional part of the IVF process. I also didn't feel like I could ask questions about my treatment outside of any appointments we had. She did a good job and was cautious about treatment - she encouraged us to only implant a single perfect embryo on our first round, instead of automatically going for multiples. I would recommend her to someone who is knowledgeable about the process and doesn't need a lot of hand-holding.

Be assertive during your appointments with her and ask a lot of questions then, because I felt she was hard to talk with otherwise.

She was a good but impersonal doctor. She definitely explained the process fully, but I didn't see her except when there was something major to discuss (like a negative pregnancy test.)

Heidi was a great nurse - she was extremely attentive and communicative during the process. She was very responsive to any emails I sent and answered all questions quickly.

Shady Grove is very well-run. It's very organized. It is convenient - there are multiple locations, and I could go to different locations for blood draws or ultrasounds if a certain one was closer (i.e., if I was doing errands on a Saturday in Baltimore, I could go to a MD location and they'd do the work and have the results.) The waiting room is very crowded and that can get a little awkward. But they were always prompt with all of the appointments. They were great about squeezing me in the time I thought I was having a miscarriage. Ultimately I am glad that we made the choice to go here. I liked the injection class they taught - very useful and helpful.

It was crowded but organized. There was a sign in sheet and then you were called from it. The waits were not too bad considering the number of people being treated. Everybody was very efficient. They were also nice but not overly chatty or personal. I could get some quick questions answered, but mostly they referred me to my nurse, who was excellent about answering anything, and doing it quickly.

Our insurance covered half of the care. We were told that our negotiated rate with our carrier (Kaiser) was the lowest of the insurance providers who covered fertility treatments. I think our costs were about $10k for the IVF with egg retrieval and about $5k for the second cycle of just the embryo transfer. This included all of my medication (purchase separately) and frozen embryo storage.

As a single woman I was nervous about judgment from the doctor and there was none of that. She takes the individual circumstance and recommends treatment based on that, without judgement. I only see or talk to Dr. Osborn periodically and most communication is with the nurses.

Have a lot of questions prepared in advance. She is very patient about answering them but might not provide all the information YOU want unless you ask.

She is empathetic and gives the information I need to make decisions.

As I am a single woman, without any known fertility issues, she started me with two unmedicated IUI cycles. These were unsuccessful so then we talked and I said I wanted to be more aggressive so the next cycle I went did Clomid, Follistim, trigger, and Progesterone. This was also unsuccessful but will try another cycle with the same protocol.

Vanessa is very responsive via both phone and email. I always get a response within a few hours (in business hours).

It is a business and run like a business but I trust their success rates. There is not a lot of personalization but I have not pushed too much for that either. There are a lot of locations so my main office is near my home for the monitoring and blood work appointments but I go to a further office for the IUI's as that is where they store the donor sperm.

Unmedicated/unmonitored IUI was $295 Medicated IUI with monitoring, blood work, IUI is $1800 - not including medications

She is compassionate. She was also direct in providing answers to my questions. I never felt rushed with her like I did for the other 3 doctors I had worked with. I felt like she made time for me and didn't treat me like a number like other doctors have done.

Ask whatever questions you have. It's difficult to get a hold of her and most other doctors at most clinics by phone. When they do call back, it could be when you're in a meeting or otherwise unavailable. Not many doctors will give out their direct phone number.

She has a good bedside manner.

I was on heavy doses to build up my uterine lining. I was on injectible lovenox as a blood thinner.

In general, most nurses at shady grove were pressed for time, didn't like to answer questions, were not authorized to answer certain questions and weren't compassionate in my opinion.

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.

About $50,000

One problem I had with shady grove is that they would only do eSet and frowned upon double embryo transfers. I'm not sure if I would have been successful by doing double transfers.

I found her to be very warm and caring. We wanted a lot of detail and she was happy to provide it. She had an analysis of our results and expected outcome using different treatments. We were going to go forward with IVF with her but ended up with a spontaneous pregnancy before we shifted to IVF.

She's very warm in individual meetings.

3 rounds of IUI with no success, spontaneous twin pregnancy ending in miscarriage. Decision to move on to IVF but had another spontaneous pregnancy prior to starting.

Myasia is very friendly and makes you very comfortable

Very research / evidence based. Some people don't like that they won't deviate from protocols but from my perspective there's a reason those protocols exists and I appreciate their adherence to evidence based medicine.

My insurance covered everything so no comments other than having several billing errors that were cleared up with a phone call.

I had only a couple short meetings with her throughout the process. She was my first doctor so I did not know all the questions to ask, I found out most information online..

Ask lots of questions. Ask her to tell you the numbers. I had to ask a few times to get to the bottom of it - I asked "Based on my numbers, what is the estimated number of cycles it will take to get to a live birth?" Then her answer was 2.6

Shady Grove is a factory. Good results, but I only saw Dr. Osborn 3 times the whole time I was there

300 Gonal-f, 225 Menopur

I needed to get 1 extra vial for an extra day of meds but could not get it from the pharmacy downstairs and Linda was able to call the office and get me one

Multiple locations, convenient, runs like a well oiled machine, but also feels like an assembly line

I actually signed up for shared risk program where you pay 2.5 times the cost of one cycle, with money returned if there was no live birth after 6 cycles.

Dr. Osborn met with us to understand who we are, our background, etc. She met with us again to review genetics study tesults and explain everthing. She came in to see me during most of my visits, and she followed up after my daughter was born.

Use her!!! She is terrific!

She took time to get to know my husband and me.

I followed a traditional course of treatment with clomid, IUI, then IVF.

Shady Grove is THE place to go! They know exactly what they are doing and have all the facilities with the most recent technology. I went to clinics in DC, VA, MD and PA depending on my travel schedule.

Wish she had looked at why I couldn't do this on my own but on the whole she is a kind and caring doctor. In the end I did get the one thing I wanted... and then some. My twins are here because of her.

Ask why you can't get pregnant on your own... there are other medical issues from infertility

always felt like to goal was to just have a baby .. not to find out why I couldn't get pregnant on my own

We planned an IUI. She watched and my eggs took a long time to grow so lots of extra FSH shots. We had success on our first try

They did a nice job dealing with the insurance and let us know what we might have to pay for and how to get our drugs from insurance.Very helpful with scheduling appointments..............................

this was back in the day when insurance plans covered things.... I paid almost nothing