Verified
This patient has provided documentation of treatment at this clinic.
2020, Unsuccessful
5
6
Dr Sipe can be considered a nice, caring, friendly, knowledgeable fertility doctor. Many patients believe he's amazing and dedicated to helping them become pregnant. However, this doctor didn't show that same dedication, compassion, hope, and heart for wanting to help me become pregnant. It's hard to ever meet or have an appt with Dr Sipe unless you have surgery or a procedure scheduled, especially during the Covid years. Dr Sipe acted like it was an inconvenience to have a phone call. He doesn't accept email either from patients even though the company newsletter encouraged emailing your doctor. I did have a couple Zoom video calls that included nice conversations with the doctor, but I do not feel this platform is the same kind of connection
I didn't have the chance to meet the nurses that emailed or called about test / lab results [from Fertility Centers of Illinois]. They only communicated with me via the portal and phone calls. Usually, I was contacted by a nurse by late afternoon for certain results and then instructions provided if necessary. Other nurses / techs handled doing the ultrasounds and blood draws and were kind in person. There are not enough nursing staff to handle the number of patients under FCI care. Several nurses moved on during t
How was your experience with Christopher Sipe at Fertility Centers of Illinois?
Dr Sipe can be considered a nice, caring, friendly, knowledgeable fertility doctor. Many patients believe he's amazing and dedicated to helping them become pregnant. However, this doctor didn't show that same dedication, compassion, hope, and heart for wanting to help me become pregnant.
It's hard to ever meet or have an appt with Dr Sipe unless you have surgery or a procedure scheduled, especially during the Covid years. Dr Sipe acted like it was an inconvenience to have a phone call. He doesn't accept email either from patients even though the company newsletter encouraged emailing your doctor. I did have a couple Zoom video calls that included nice conversations with the doctor, but I do not feel this platform is the same kind of connection as an in-person or phone call consult.
I didn't feel as much compassion was given towards myself and my file in the same way as other content patients. Dr Sipe chose to not listen to comments about issues with how the office staff communicated and handled paperwork with some of the patients, which I believe he should have stepped up to assist his staff to manage.
One positive mention is that I felt cared for and safe having surgery done by Dr Sipe. The nurse anesthetist Dan did a great job administering anesthesia also.
One great day of care can't replace or make up for the many days of various communication and paperwork issues that occurred with some of his staff on my file. Dr Sipe should have some respect of his patients' honest truths, as several of my file's issues and the treatment of some staff towards me were presented to Dr Sipe and dismissed.
What's one piece of advice would you give a prospective patient of Christopher Sipe at Fertility Centers of Illinois?
My advice for prospective patients of Dr Sipe is to only have a consult if you have a healthy body in general. Write down all your questions in advance of your consult because he’s very hard to reach, as you’ll mostly be having communication with his nurses and office staff.
During the consult, make sure to find out exactly the type of other doctor appointments and prerequisites required (ex: a primary care physical, mammogram, or missing shots) from the doctor in order for him to allow you to do the fertility treatments and when appts need to be completed. Write this info down. Otherwise, his staff do not provide a worksheet of medical prereqs needed and this will take precious months of your time.
Advise the doctor the qualities you need as far as dedication and caring toward your goals, and not the goals that influence the office pregnancy stats. Encourage this doctor to not play the wait-and-see game when it comes to deciding on IUI or IVF protocols / plans.
Be prepared to do extra outside office work for his staff on your own time, especially if you're having records transfered there because the office staff misplaces records and signed docs often.
During treatment, were you treated like a number or a human with Christopher Sipe at Fertility Centers of Illinois?
Several issues with FCI keep continuing thru the years which make a patient feel like a number. Before Covid the waiting rooms did look like a baby making factory, as others have noted, because they were packed. With the Covid 2020 year, each patient does not see that many other patients due to social distancing while waiting for appts. There are not enough staff to handle the number of patients under FCI care. Several nurses moved on during the Covid 2020 year to work at other medical places, thus making some current nurses and techs overwhelmed.
It's hard to ever meet with your doctor or be allowed a phone call with them, unless you have surgery or a procedure. This means there isn't enough personal connection if phone calls and emails are not allowed with the doctors. Zoom video calls do not feel like the same kind of connection as an in-person or phone call consult. Patients who went to FCI a few years ago and came back for a second sibling cycle in 2020 stated in online groups they were upset that the personal connection was lost due to having to connect thru the portal and not via regular emails or phone calls.
There is also an outsourced third party billing team that can't handle mailing bills to all the patients' addresses. Some patients get called a liar when staff call just days before surgery or a procedure demanding payment even though bills were not received. They need to stop using their third party outsourced billing team because it's causing problems that FCI prefers to not address.
One positive mention of FCI is that I felt cared for and attended to by the doctor and O.R. staff on surgery day; plus the O.R. clinic appeared to run smoothly. Sadly, there are many other days of the year where I felt some of their staff didn't show compassion and kindness towards me. One great day of care can't replace the other hundred plus days with poor communication, blame to the patient, and needing to take care of paperwork issues that should fall under their staff responsibilities.
Describe the protocols Christopher Sipe used in your cycles at Fertility Centers of Illinois and their degree of success.
I had the hysteroscopy surgery in summer to remove uterus polyps. Then we moved towards an IUI due to low egg reserve. It wasn't until the winter months when my body was ready for the IUI due to a few setbacks, so the initial protocol was changed. The IUI protocol changed into doing Follistim injections for several nights plus oral Letrizole for five days instead of doing Estrogen priming first. This plan didn't work and the cycle was canceled, so now I am focused on Estrogen priming first.
Describe your experience with your nurse at Fertility Centers of Illinois. (Assigned nurse: Abby, Ashlie, and Christina)
I didn't have the chance to meet the nurses that emailed or called about test / lab results. They only communicated with me via the portal and phone calls. Usually, I was contacted by a nurse by late afternoon for certain results and then instructions provided if necessary. Other nurses / techs handled doing the ultrasounds and blood draws and were kind in person.
There are not enough nursing staff to handle the number of patients under FCI care. Several nurses moved on during the Covid 2020 year to work at other medical places and the remaining nurses seem overwhelmed.
There are also communication and kindness issues with some nurses plus staff delaying responses and providing some unkind, dishonest comments they made to the doctor on myself and other patients. Patients should be allowed to voice an opinion to staff without being blamed for providing the truth on issues and then have unpleasant attitudes directed at them.
As other patients have mentioned, I too can confirm that patients need to micromanage staff as paperwork is constantly getting misplaced. The nurses and office staff choose to place blame on many patients several times, and even claimed my signed docs went missing when I emailed them to a nurse who requested them. The nursing staff and director also can't keep up with scripts and do not focus on details when contacting the Walgreens pharmacists, which then results in meds not getting shipped during a cycle.
Describe your experience with Fertility Centers of Illinois.
Some strengths include many knowledgeable doctors to choose from, several locations, fairly easy to schedule monitoring appts, and the O.R. ran smoothly the day of my surgery.
Zoom video calls are the norm for consults since Covid. Emails are frowned upon and communication is mostly done thru the portal. Though, nurses do sometimes call for certain ultrasound and lab results.
Weaknesses include waiting several weeks or months for a doctor consult, doctors not accepting email from patients, documentation issues, billing issues, and staff causing unnecessary issues by not providing detailed info when calling Walgreens Alliance which leads to meds not shipping to patients’ homes in time for their cycle.
Documentation issues and misplaced paperwork happen with many patients. There are transferred records and other signed document forms that get misplaced even when they are emailed and/or sent on disk.
There were times I didn't feel as much caring given towards myself and my file in the same way other patients described their caring, involved doctor who worked diligently to help them get pregnant. Not all patients receive equal care, kindness, and compassion from staff.
The in-house billing team is slow with insurance approvals and answering cost questions when they should be known. Therefore, I would encourage new patients to seek out all possible treatment, labs, analysis, and ultrasound cost options upfront. Patients should be provided the self-pay costs upfront without having to request or beg for this info, no matter if they have diagnostic and/or fertility insurance coverage.
Describe the costs associated with your care under Christopher Sipe at Fertility Centers of Illinois.
I had to pay approx. $2400 total to FCI over the course of the year for blood labs and ultrasounds, using insurance.
I paid Labcorp, which bills separately for genetics testing, the cost of $331 for the blood draw done at FCI.
Then I paid $1700 to FCI plus $546 anesthesia costs to Lakeshore Anesthesia for my hysteroscopy, with my PPO plan.
Since I met my deductible by the time of the IUI cycle, I didn’t have to pay for the Follistim injectable meds. However, if I had attempted the IUI four months earlier Walgreens Alliance were going to charge $2600 for the first two Follistim vials shipped and then remainder vials shipping would be free since the deductible would have then been met. My cycle was canceled halfway thru, but my insurance would have paid for IUI costs since I met the deductible.
What specific things went wrong at Fertility Centers of Illinois?
- Failed to call in prescriptions to pharmacy
- Lost paperwork
- Provided conflicting information
Describe the specific things that went wrong at Fertility Centers of Illinois.
Plenty of issues, of which many were preventable, occurred at FCI.
***Staff misplaced the records transferred into FCI several times; Poor communication between nurses / director when they were looking for signed docs another nurse received in her files, yet I was blamed; Staff blaming patients for billing and/or paperwork issues when it's clearly related to office run issues; Billing / Finance team didn't provide self pay costs upfront; 3rd party billing team didn’t mail bills for months yet it somehow was my fault; Office didn't provide a written list of prerequisite other medical appts along with timeline; Staff didn’t want to contact Walgreens pharmacy for vaccine proof; Fertility med script issues with Walgreens Alliance being able to handle scripts and shipping on time due to FCI med staff not paying attention to details thus resulting in delayed shipping; doctors / staff don't show compassion and helpfulness to all patients equally
Patients should be able to voice honest opinions and truths without being silenced and disrespected. Patients do speak to one another online and know these mentioned issues.