Daniel Levine

Dr. Levine explained everything to me and answered any questions I had. He never rushed me out of his office. He had a good sense of humor which helped ease the anxiety and concerns I may have had at the time. He was very polite, professional and made sure I understood everything that was going on. He didn't give up on me like my previous doctor.

If you have any questions, or concerns, don't be afraid to bring them all up because Dr. Levine will answer them and put you at ease. He doesn't rush you out of his office. He genuinely cares.

Dr. Levine was kind, professional, upfront and also added some humor to our conversations. He answered all of my questions and remained respectful and informative during times I had challenged him on some issues that came up which helped put me at ease. As one of many who are going through this journey, it can be very difficult and very emotional and Dr. Levine was delicate in his treatment of me. Courtney was also very kind to me and if I e-mailed her a question or concern, she answered it in a timely manner.

I've had issues with estrogen pills in the past which caused my triglycerides to go up and that resulted in pancreatitis. One was with birth control and another was with preparing for a transfer. Dr. Levine assured me that he wouldn't let that happen as he would change the way I receive estrogen. The plan was to do the egg retrieval first and then remove some polyps so that my uterus would be clean of anything that could cause an issue for the embryo and then do the transfer.

Courtney was very kind to me and always answered my questions or concerns. She has great bedside manners and always had a smile on her face.

What I love about the clinic is that it's intimate and not a huge place. It's in a good location upstate and has plenty of parking. Every time I walked in, I was greeted with a smile and polite manners. What I think they could do better on is reminding patients of their upcoming appointments. My previous clinic would call me to remind me what medicine to take, when to come in for blood test, and also e-mail/call me if there was a change in medication, etc. Initially, I didn't know we had to make an appointment to come in for blood work and U/S as I never had to make an appointment at my last clinic since it was first come, first serve. Because of this and not getting a reminder to come in for blood and U/S before starting a cycle, I missed the first day and didn't start my meds until three days late. I also felt that it was sometimes difficult to get in touch with clinical when I had a question so my main contact was Courtney and I would always e-mail her for everything. At my last clinic, I could e-mail the doctor and he would answer me almost immediately. He allowed his patients to contact him with any questions or concerns which I liked. I just felt it was somewhat of a challenge when I needed to call and ask a question, especially when they're busy. All in all, I did get my questions answered.

There was always a copay of $20 and we had to pay out of pocket for the transfer of $3500 since our insurance money ran out. We also paid for the PGD which wasn't covered.

No complaints. We will see him again in the future when it's time for baby #2. He always made us feel comfortable. He went out of his way to visit me in the hospital after my myomectomy when he needed to get to the clinic. After a certain number of failed IUIs he made the point of calling us instead of the nurses. He was beyond kind and professional.

Do your research first so you understand better what he's saying and can be ready to ask questions. Join a support group too- you will need it.

He was always open, kind, and humorous whenever he could. He was serious when necessary. He always listened to us, answered all questions, and let us scream/cry when we needed to.

IUI- sometimes clomid and trigger shot- sometimes gonal f, trigger shot, progesterone suppositories. Started with clomid as standard protocol to investigate my body's reaction; moved on to gonal after 2 tries. Never did timed intercourse because we knew we had male factor issues. After 3 failed IUIs conducted myomectomy to see if removal of fibroid would help. It did not, but was still important for IVF later anyway. IVF- menopur, cetrotide, gonal, trigger shot, progesterone suppositories, progesterone oil, estrogen. Frozen cycle because I am younger and didn't need to rush; let the body heal after retrieval.

The nurses were amazing, open, and patient. They held my hand when my husband wasn't present and helped me when I was scared.

It was nice to be at a small clinic where everyone knew our names and faces. Everyone was kind, professional, and informative. Only weakness was the surgical scheduler Melissa- she was rude, never called us back , and made excuses for her behavior.

My insurance covered my surgeries, IUI, and medicine. It covered 75% of IVF. We paid about 2500 for IVF.

We only had one viable embryo so it didn't matter. But we did discuss before retrieval, and we agreed on transferring 1 because of my age (younger, higher success rate) and multiples can be high risk.

I believe that Dr. Levine is genuine but I do think it's difficult as a patient to understand him. It's the way he delivers information that is hard to understand. I think he needs to slow down and speak in more generic terms that people hearing not so great news would better be able to understand.

To make sure you have him slow down and write everything down. He doesn't explain things the way someone without a medical degree would understand. He also speaks very quickly.

Hudson Valley Fertility is such a small clinic that the entire staff knows your name the second you walk in the door. They talk to you and hear you and it's appreciated.

We froze my eggs in January. Put me on prenatals and BC in August and started my fertility meds for a transfer in early September. They did rapid PGS testing the night before my retrieval and when I got to the office for my retrieval they told me all my embryos were abnormal and we couldn't proceed.

The nursing staff when is wonderful. They know your name the second you walk in the door and make you feel at home by engaging in conversation. Its really nice to feel so comfortable.

The strengths of the clinic are the ease of getting an appointment, how quickly they take you in, I never waited more than 10 minutes for any appointment. The staff is so friendly. The weaknesses are the lack of understanding Dr. Levine's process of how he wants to handle the cycle in detail. The inability to get someone on the phone in the clinical department if you really needed to talk to someone. And billing can of course be a bit sporadic. They do give you a really thorough breakdown of your entire cycle and print it for you which is great.

13,500 for one full IVF cycle. $50 monthly for sperm storage. PGS testing $350 an embryo.

Dr. Levine is very compassionate, explanatory, friendly, and has a great great bedside manner. He makes himself available for many of the appointments personally. He doesn't sugar coat the odds. He does ample testing to cover all bases. He, personally, has performed most of my IUI's (a few were done by his P.A.), all of my saline sonograms, hysteroscopies/D&C's, ERA, and my IVF retrieval/transfer. If you don't want to be passed between many different doctors, this is the place. He adjusts treatments frequently based on lab work and ultrasounds. His lab had phenomenal results for us using ICSI and growing out my poor aging eggs to blastocyst stage for PGS testing. If I had to pick a few downsides, I'd say it's that they barely have a donor egg/embryo program and the little that is available seems much more expensive than other places.

Ask lots of questions. Take notes after each appointment. Speak up if you're uncomfortable or don't understand any procedure.

Most of the staff were extremely friendly and knew us by name. Very supportive during breaking bad news.

I have PCOS so I always had a decent amount of follicles/eggs during IUI cycles and IVF. I am also AMA. Dr Levine was always careful to balance meds and not overstimulate. Our very first IUI cycle (many years ago) was cancelled due to fast response to meds and far too many follicles to procede with IUI. All of my meds for IUI were either Follistim alone (150-225iu per day), or a combination of either Letrozole 5mg (or Clomid 100mg) and Follistim together. For IUI we occasionally used 250mcg Ganarellix for a few days to hold off ovulation and let follicles catch up with others. For every IUI we used 250mg Ovidrel as the trigger. Every cycle we used progesterone suppositories during the luteal phase. For our one IVF cycle, we used 225iu of monopur for 11 days and 225iu of Follistim/Gonal F concurrently for 11 days. For 5 of the 11 days, we also used Ganarellix 250iu. We used a half dose trigger of 5,000iu of Pregnyl to lessen the risk of OHSS since my estrogen was high (over 5,000) and I had approx 27 follicles. We used cabergoline after retrieval to avoid OHSS also. On day 14 we had 22 eggs retrieved. 15 were mature and 2 more were able to be matured in the lab for a total of 17. All 17 fertilized with ICSI. At day 3 we still had 17 embryos. (9 grade 1; 5 grade 2; and 3 grade 3). By day 5 we had 3 AA blastocysts that were biopsied for PGS and then frozen. At day 6 we had 3 more blastocysts (grade BB) that were biopsied for PGS and then frozen. The other 11 embryos were either low quality C blasts or deteriorated and stop growing. We had 1 PGS normal blast and 1 inconclusive blast from the testing. The other 4 had monosomies, trisomies, or multiple chromosomal errors. 7 months later we transferred both blastocysts. The 7 month delay was from me needing a few procedures on my uterus and also having 2 transfers cancelled due to lining issues and unexpected bleeding. For lining prep and during and after transfer we ultimately used BCP, Lupron, Estrace orally, Estrace vaginally, estrogen patches, delestrogen injections, progesterone vaginally, progesterone in oil injections, Lovenox, Medrol, and doxycycline. We also used Valium the day of transfer. 1 of our 2 embryos stuck but stopped growing near 5 to 6 weeks. A heavy bleed following shortly after, but I ultimately ended up needing a hysteroscopy/D&C near 10 weeks for a retained gestational sack.

The nursing staff were all extremely friendly and compassionate. Their phlebotomist was excellent and gets blood on the first poke 99% of the time.

I think I've gone thru the strengths already fairly well. One more huge strength is their working with many insurance companies. In addition, they often were able to get many things covered that my insurance claimed were not covered. Also, if they happen to have any sample meds or donated meds around, they'll give you what they can. So I believe some of the weaknesses would be the phone system and return phone calls. I believe a human answering the phone initially for every call would be better than an answering machine routing calls. I also believe there should be an option to speak to a nurse or be put on hold for a nurse (instead of message and call backs eventually). I also think they could use improvement for medication instructions for injections, med storage, and instructions for time of day for meds. Being sent to a generic web site for instructions that aren't the exact meds or exact needle delivery system wasn't very helpful. A good printed instruction sheet and FAQ for meds frequently used would have been better. I googled things far too often to figure out what I was doing. Even with these few negatives, the positives of Dr Levine's office FAR outweigh the negatives.

Costs were broken up into a million different costs also billed thru insurance. So it's difficult to say what total costs would have been for cash pay. Many options were ala cart and could have been chosen or not depending on your preferences and needs.

Dr Levine runs a very tight ethical ship however he uses common sense and weighs the odds and uses his experience to make sounds decisions with number of embryos transferred. Before we knew how many embryos I would get (remember I'm advanced maternal age) he was leaning towards transferring a couple (2-4) day 3 embryos. When we had 17 day 3 embryos we decided to grow out to day 5 and go along with my husband and my desire to PGS test. When we had 1 PGS normal and 1 inconclusive blastocyst, Dr Levine was supportive of our choice to transfer 2 back in.

I saw dr Levine during the very first part of our 5.5 year journey with infertility and then we moved out of state. I saw Dr. Levine over the course of about 2 years (maybe 1.5) and we were just in the beginning stages of figuring things out. My husband and I weren’t ready to try IUI (we were still in disbelieve that WE couldn’t get pregnant) and so Dr Levine ordered/ performed some of the basic diagnostic tests. Through him, we had bloodwork done, I had a hysterosalpingogram, and I had a saline infused sonogram. Everything came back normal and our next step was going to be to try Clomid on it’s own for a few months. However, we moved to Seattle and didn’t even get that far with Dr Levine. The basic work up with Dr Levine was fine. Nothing stellar or exceptional - but I felt fine and taken care of to a comfortable level.

Ask questions about everything? Why this drug and not that one? Why do I need this? How will it help with conceiving a baby or figuring out the problem.

I only did the beginning work with him. He suspected endometriosis and I had a hysterosalpingogram and a saline infused sonogram. However, I was never diagnosed with endo with him and he never performed or suggested a laparoscopy. His next step with me was going to be Clomid.

Kind. Helpful. Compassionate.

HVF worked with us only at the beginning stages of our infertility, but I saw Dr Levine more than I saw my doctor here in Seattle at the clinic that I had 4 IUIs. He was kind, knowledgeable, to the point.

The state of NY had good coverage for teachers and infertility. Most of my expenses were paid for as long as they were pre approved. This was a hassle, but now that I live in a state with zero coverage, I realize i should have been more thankful!!! As a teacher in NY, I was allotted $25,000.00 for fertility treatments. We just weren’t ready to do IUI or ivf then. Kicking myself now ...3.5 years later living in Seattle with $0 coverage!!!!

During our consultation Dr Levine was honest but positive based off our situation. Despite having PCOS and male factor infertility Dr. Helped us to understand how possibilities. He helped us to be confident and positive going into our treatment.

Trust him and follow his directions for the outcome you want. Takes the vitamins he recommends, exercise, etc. Aks questions he and his team will always give you the best advice.

Dr Levine and Courtney took the time to get to know my husband and I and made each visit as upbeat as possible during a very difficult time.

Courtney had me on ovidrel and gonal F then endometrin. They were to help me ovulate, help the egg drop, keep my progesterone level up after IUI and positive pregnancy test.

I dealt with Jaime a lot and she was incredible. Every time I came in she greeted me with a smile and tried to help make the best of a hard situation. At my last IUI my Aunt had past away the Friday before and I was a mess. Jamie came out to the waiting room and was hugging me telling me everything will be ok and they were there for me. When we found out we were pregnant she was so happy for us and didn't act as if "oh just another pregnancy".

The clinical phone personnel weren't always the nicest and usually had an attitude. When I called it was as if I was bothering them. The office personnel was fantastic. Lisa at the front desk always tried to help giving me appointments I needed and worked around my schedule.

He is very confident in his skills and very honest which for some may be a problem. For me, I wanted someone who was going to be honest with me and let me know what was going on. I can’t say enough good things about him. He has a great sense of humor which I find to be important when going through fertility treatments.

Write your questions down, he is great about answering as many questions as you have.

Dr. Levine and Courtney made my husband and I feel very comfortable. After struggling for almost 2 years we decided along with our OB to go see them. They were always very caring, answered all of our questions and never rushed through our appointments. During our first visit when we discussed our plan we were given a diagnosis of PCOS, something that no OB every mentioned in the years prior. Overall we were very happy with the treatment they provided and currently expecting our first baby in August. Oh and also we were pregnant within 6 months of seeing them. I highly recommend!

The whole team is great and they make an effort to get o know you which makes things a lot more personable. You feel supported.

The clinical is nice from the women at the front desk to all the nurses and clinical staff. Everyone takes time to get to know you and your journey. I love that the office is small and you don’t get lost in the shuffle. After a few visits they know you on a first name basis and really work with you on scheduling appointments around you work schedule if needed.

I felt as though it was more about money than the treatment. I wish he did the iui's, not the assistant. Dr Levine seemed like he understood my situation but, I had to ask for some of the testing to be done. I wish I had more of an explanation for my conditions also.

Ask questions. Ask for him to perform the procedures.

Dr Levine was never present for the iui's. He was the "talker" that would try to sell IVF (in my opinion).

I think it was very busy but, I would've liked them to answer in a reasonable amount of time.

Ask all questions when you're there. It's hard to get answers otherwise. I wish I was told that I had to lay down after inserting the progesterone

Most were covered under insurance but, I was charged incorrectly twice

Dr. Levine was always honest and provided all the information we needed. He cares and takes the time to know the couple. Dr Levine made the changes necessary to assist us in getting pregnant. Dr. Levine also makes you feel very comfortable in all stages of IVF

IVF is out of your control; have faith in your Dr. they know best

Dr Levine and staff were great. They cared, happy to see me when I arrived at the office and were extremely genuine in all interactions.

Loved everyone at the office. Everyone cared and created a bond. It was sad to leave once we were pregnant. These people were part of our lives for 2 years

Office was great- communication was good. Everyone was positive and supportive. They become a group of friends because you are at the office so often. Great experience and nothing negative to say. Hard to say goodbye and leave once pregenent

Dr Levine provided all the information on risks to transferring multiples, he let us decided at the end of the day

I felt dr. Levine sugar coated our treatment and wasnt always honest about his expectations. He was pretty rough with his exams. He always seemed wishy washy and indecisive.................................

Make sure you ask questions and make sure hes answering them throughly.

He did take the time to discuss and explain things but i did feel like he sugar coated things and was indecisive about our treatment

They used letrazole with ovidrel trigger and timed intercourse because they were trying to get insurance approval.

The nursing staff was excellent always answered questions

Their strenghths is the staff always answered their calls, messages etc. Weakness is i think they should have been more aggressive with insurance company. .......................................................................................

I have insurance so not sure on cost

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