Deborah Smith

Dr. Smith seems to be an extremely capable doctor in her ability to parse large amounts of medical history and come to a diagnosis. I felt in good hands as I underwent surgery for a tubal ligation. She was a godsend when I was in recovery after the surgery, and experiencing terrible bladder pain, begging for a catheter. Even though I did not meet the qualifications for a catheter, she understood that I was in extreme pain and allowed for a catheterization. I am grateful for that, as it was a traumatic situation. However, during my post-op appointment, her bedside manner was completely absent. She performed a pelvic exam so abruptly that I felt violated. Then she proceeded to tell me that I could never again undergo elective anesthesia (something that would be required for an egg retrieval) due to the fact that I'd had a panic attack during the anesthesia for my tubal ligation that she performed. She was unprepared for our meeting and seemed to have no idea how to proceed with me. I came up with some ideas on the spot, despite being in shock, and she seemed somewhat amenable, but ultimately did not lay out a course of action. Nor did she outright say "I won't treat you, better find another clinic". So I ended up just wasting six weeks trying to get her to lay out a course of treatment. I left the exam room in tears, and was comforted by one of the nurses while standing in the hallway. After a few minutes Dr. Smith interrupted the nurse because it was time for her next appointment. The nurse seemed scared of Dr. Smith, apologized to me, and scurried off. Dr. Smith would not make eye contact with me. I should have just left and never looked back at that point. Since then I have moved on to another clinic, CCRM, where they didn't bat an eye when I gave them details of my anesthesia PTSD reaction, and came up with a treatment plan immediately. I was not made to feel ashamed of my mental health condition, which is as it should be.

Dr. Smith could be a great match for someone who is totally unconcerned with bedside manner or a warm personality. She's all business and can be slightly condescending. But in the end, she is extremely intelligent and clearly good at the medical side of her job, if not the personal side. She clearly runs a tight ship. The nurses seemed a little intimidated by her.

I did not start an IVF cycle with Dr. Smith. She was not prepared to take on my case due to my PTSD triggered by operating rooms / anesthesia.

I believe the initial consult was $200 or $250? I don't remember how much the tubal ligation cost, but it was covered by my insurance. I did not go through an IVF cycle.

NA

Dr. Smith was very direct and blunt. She didn’t show much compassion and there just wasn’t a lot of explanation of what to expect or what the options were. We mostly dealt with the nurse than with her. We have only done IUI so far but because of the lack of communication we don’t feel confident in our care from her there.

Ask to speak with her and/or have her at each ultrasound and appointment. She wasn’t even the one who did the IUI.

We were diagnosed with unexplained infertility. We had tried clomid with timed intercourse, so she said it would be best to try a couple rounds of iui before seeking other options. We were going to go through insurance since they covered iui procedures. However because we had gone through clomid with timed intercourse 5 times previously, they would not cover the iui. The insurance told us that because their studies showed that it didn’t work they would not cover more. The billing staff told me that the insurance was right. This was after we already paid for the iui and was during the 2 week wait. We felt like there was no hope. We got no check in or follow up regarding our iui procedure and if it was successful.

Costs compared to some seem to be more “affordable”

Dr Smith is warm and approachable. She allows time for questions and answers honestly. She never pushes off questions or concerns as unimportant. She takes time to get to know you and care for you as a human. She also has a wealth of current scientific knowledge and uses the latest technologies to help produce pregnancies. Even though I have personally not become pregnant theough her YET, I trust her with my reproductive health.

Bring all your questions in to ask her. She will answer them. Prepare for the truth. Prepare for kindness and compassion.

We done countless blood tests. Checks uterus for polyps twice a year depending on where I am in the treatment cycle. She helped me through the embryo donation cycle (not my own embryos). Performed polyp removal surgery. I've been with her for 8 years on and off... So many procedures to really remember them all.

My insurance covered some of the procedures but the most expensive procedures such as IVF egg retrieval and embryo transfers we're not covered. She offered a discount for cash payment so we made that work for us by saving money over time. Ivf including transfer cost us around 16k. One transfer cost 4k. One IUI cost about 800. Associated costs like ultrasounds ran the gammet depending on our insurance. We paid $2500 for a surgery to remove polyps. We did this 2 times. My understanding is this is pretty competitive pricing in the Denver metro area.

My understanding is that she suggests the number of embryo transfers based on the patient. I have had one transferred ans I have had 2 transferred. Depends on the treatment plan and the patients medical history.

In my first consultation, Dr. Smith could have gone a little slower explaining everything to me. It was all so new to me and I was completely lost. But I could tell she was smart and capable which was more important to me than someone coddling me. She has provided excellent care throughout my process so far. So while she may be a bit stiff and matter-of-fact, I've not struggled with being under her care.

Ask her to slow down if you're not understanding what she's saying. Take notes so you can remember everything.

I am still on DHEA and a cocktail of vitamins. She also prescribed acupuncture for me. I really like that Dr. Smith includes holistic methods in addition to the prescriptions.

Between the clinic bills, hospital bills from my tubal surgery, prescriptions, acupuncture, and vitamins, I've paid about $6000 out of pocket this year. That is with insurance helping to pay for diagnosis, but not treatment.

I have not gotten far enough into the process to answer this question.

Dr. Smith has been candid but compassionate. I feel comfortable in her care and trust that she has the expertise to help us achieve our baby dreams. She has spent hours with my husband and I explaining everything and answering out questions. She never pushes you towards a specific treatment plan and I think her costs are reasonable compared to other facilities.

Do your homework. Research the different options. Come prepared with questions.

With the IUI cycles we used Femera and an HCG trigger shot. In addition, I am routinely seeing fertility acupuncturist. IUI worked once. Now with IVF, we are starting the treatment plan so I do not yet know what medications I will be taking until March.

IUI rounds are &800 I believe but with medication and appointments probably about $1200 a round. IVF with medication will cost us between $19,000-$23,000.

It depends on the case. Dr. Smith would evaluate the embryos and the likelihood of implantation.

I would recommend Rocky Mountain Fertility Center to anyone going through infertility. Dr. Smith and her staff are professional, knowledgeable, and supportive throughout the entire IVF process. I did not do my full IVF treatment from Colorado, because I live in South Dakota, so I did not see Dr. Smith as much, but Angela, my coordinator was super helpful and supportive and if I ever needed to talk with Dr.Smith, I could call her on her personal phone and she would answer any questions I had. It is hard to do IVF from another state, but even though I still felt valued.

She is very blunt and straight to the point, but she truly does care about her patients and is there to be helpful and supportive.

I lost both of my fallopian tubes so IVF is my only option. I had a very easy IVF protocol compared to some. I did not have to take as many injections or pills, but they still had me doing acupuncture, along with all the testing to help them find the best time to transfer embryos. The team was very hopeful that I would get pregnant the first round, but unfortunately that did not happen for me.

After every treatment, test, and medication, I spent around $23,000. That was for a very simple protocol and treatment plan.

My doctor recommended transferring both, especially since I only had 2 viable embryos.

This Doctor doesn't hesitate to take your hundreds and thousands of dollars, all while refusing to even say hello to you when she walks into the exam room. She doesn't take the time to let you know what's going on, what to expect moving forward, or to really talk with you at all. One failed attempt at pregnancy after the next, and she never once said anything encouraging to me, or offered any support emotionally about what I was going through...

To run the other way and go somewhere else.

Clomid with insemination for two cycles. Then letrozol with insemination for one cycle.

$850 per IUI cycle plus whatever else they decided to throw in whenever they could.

I've read horror stories meeting with the fertility docs and so glad to have had such a great experience with her. I think there were some sperm lab results that were missed along the way that should have slightly shifted our direction of options from frozen sperm to fresh sperm usage. I'm not sure we would have known those things without going through the process. She had a great course of action and was diligent throughout. After our first chemical, she was very proactive in sorting through our options to look at all possibilities. That piece was nice to try and find the "answers."

You will definitely get great 1:1 attention throughout the process.

Long Lupron Protocol. This is a very common protocol used and we wanted to ensure decent egg collection. While our antral follicle count is high, the goal was to try and replicate getting close to that number. We didn't need to change much at all throughout that process from beginning to end. We weren't able to replicate my antral follicle count, but my numbers were still within her range of what's to be expected.

The costs were a lot higher then expected! We thought the cash pay all in IVF ICSI price package would include everything until the positive beta. We still receive blood work bills to this day that we thought were covered. It added up to be a lot more then we originally budgeted for. I think the payment covered just the lead up appointments/ultrasounds and not even sure if it covered much blood work. When doing a cost analysis of options...it made sense to get more elsewhere.

We did not CCS test our embryos and she was more then fine with transferring 2 embryos the first transfer. If we had CCS testing them, maybe her recommendation would have been different.

Dr Smith is a wonderful mix of telling you the truth - good and bad - giving it to you straight with all the facts, AND showing compassion and reminding you to keep hope and how important that is to the process as well. She was incredibly knowledgeable, and took as much time as we needed in each appointment to answer every single question we could think of. Just because she set course a particular treatment, didn't mean she was sitting back and waiting for the next step on the calendar. As the process/cycle progressed she was constantly re-evaluating to ensure that we were giving our embryos the best chance at success! She showed compassion and sorrow when things didn't go as planned and she celebrated with us when we got our positive test.

Do research to have questions ready for Dr. Smith. She will absolutely take the time to make sure you are as informed as possible.

antagonist protocol with estrogen priming. 300 IU Gonal-F, 300 IU Menopur, .6 Saizen, 100 mg Clomid and Ganirelix. I have DOR so it was an aggressive plan from the start to ensure we could get some of my eggs before discussing the need for donor eggs. Dr. Smith was pleasantly surprised with how well my body reacted to the meds. There were no changes to the protocol throughout monitoring as my body was (for once!) doing what it needed to be doing. IVF cycle 1: 8 eggs retrieved 7 mature 5 fertilized (ICSI) Only 1 made it to day 5 - Froze IVF Cycle 2: 6 eggs retrieved 6 mature 3 fertilized (ICSI) 2 made it to day 5 - Transferred both Result - chemical pregnancy IVF Cycle 3: 5 eggs retrieved 4 mature 4 fertilized (ICSI) 3 made it to day 5 Transferred all 3 PLUS the frozen from round 1 Result: currently 35 weeks pregnant! Protocol listed above was the same for all 3 cycles.

All monitoring appointments were done with Dr Smith and no one else. I loved that she was involved in every step of the process. It made me feel like we were important and that Dr Smith always knew what was going on with us in that very moment to make the best call on next steps. Monitoring appointments were done in the morning, which worked perfectly with our work schedules. There was time after every monitoring appointment for us to sit down with our nurse and go over the information/results of the monitoring and ask any questions needed.

$9,500 for each IVF cycle - Meds were $7-$8k. We were on the highest protocol so meds were on the higher side.

I feel like Dr. Smith could have explained things a little more clearly on my level for me to understand. I am new to all this and had no idea what questions to ask or have anything to expect. I really didn't know what to expect.

Don't go see Dr. Smith if you expect any type of empathy or compassion. I didn't know what to expect but what i do expect is a little more emotion from my dr than what i received.

no treatment had been given before i switched doctors.

they were somewhat affordable but we only got through the test that my insurance covered and since I wan't too fond of Dr. Smith, I switched Doctors before going to much further into treatment.

n/a

She is a very blunt doctor, but I prefer a doctor that's going to tell me how it is rather than try to cover something up. She is very knowledgeable in the field of infertility and could explain the procedures we were going through so that we understood everything.

Be ready for her to tell you exactly what the problem is.

I don't remember the dosage used but for egg retrieval we used Follistim, menopur and ganirelix. Pregnyl to trigger. We did the egg retrieval and retrieved 33 eggs. From those 33 only 11 were injected with sperm, the only viable sperm they could find from my husband. No embryos were created from this cycle. Next cycle my period never came. Third cycle we added leuprolide to ensure I got my period. We also used donor sperm this cycle to ensure we got an embryo. After embryo transfer we used progesterone.

In total approximately $20,000

One day 5 we had morulas, not blastocysts, so we transferred 2. She did warn that we may end up with twins but we only ended up with a singleton.

Dr. Smith was recommended to me by a friend of mine with successful results. I am so glad I found Dr. Smith!! After numerous attempts at Conceptions clinic with no results we were losing hope.. Dr. Smith knew is extremely knowledgeable and straight to the point. She knows exactly what to test for and the path to recommend. After only a month of seeing Dr. Smith and Emily we were blessed with a baby boy!! Born on 07/30/18!! I would recommend Dr. Smith and Emily to anyone having a hard time conceiving and need some help! You will be in great hands!! I am soo glad we did!! Thank you Dr. Smith and Emily for our little bundle of joy!!!

Go to see Dr. Smith sooner!!

Checked to make sure all vitals looked good such as vitamins levels, egg quality, sperm quality. I was extremely low in vitamins D. Started taking 50,000 IU dosage to get my levels back in order. Also took femara at 5 mg with Ovidrel shot with IUI and received positive pregnancy test!

Very affordable clinic!

She knows what she’s doing and has a lot going on like I imagine most other fertility docs do. She does rush through visits it seems to get on to her next patient. I will say that she is readily available to answer the questions we have for the nurses.

Ask lots of questions directly to her so she knows you want answers often

Initially my wife’s clomismd dose was to low so that took two cycles to be adjusted . We were doing timed intercourse with meds. Then we were pregnant and had a miscarriage and she was very blunt and rough even though we were devastated. Then we started iui using pregnyl instead of ovidrel we used before. Two iui later no results. We’re trying a third iui then probably have to go to ivf.

About 1000 for iui 600 for timed intercourse.

Haven’t gotten to this point yet

Deborah Smith showed a lot of knowledge. She gave us the facts, percentages, and explanations in a professional warm manner. She seemed to be a positive, caring person who always addressed our concerns. She’s helped my wife and I conceive our first child, and we couldn’t have done it without her. While our fertility has gotten worse since the our first child, we still have faith and trust that Debra will help us conceive second child.

Have faith and try to be patient.

4 rounds of IUI with femera and hcg shot. We are moving onto IVF.

3 round of IUI were around $3000. IVF costs around $20000-$25000

Dr Smith has been wonderful. I would definitely recommend her.

She was wonderful. Always willing to take the time to answer my questions fully. She is extremely knowledgeable and helped to deal with other issues that even my general practice Dr didn't take the time to fix. She also suggested that my husband go see a urologist that specialized in male factor infertility. Although we have always know we both had issues to overcome, noone ever suggested that before. It was one of the best suggestions we'd had. We didn't find affix for his problems, but at least now we understand the issue better.

Be open. If you tell her everything, she will come up with a way to handle /fix it. She's a brilliant Dr who looks outside the box to fix the issues that are inside the box!

Approximately $11,000 for the cycle plus the cost of meds

She was very good at making sure we had all the information needed in order to make the transfer sucessful. Because she recommended an ERA we were able to get pregnant on our first transfer and not lose our only 2 embryos

Be upfront and honest about your expectations

We did a ERA trial transfer and my progesterone was at 6pm. Test showed that the transfer would need to be at a different time so we moved my progesterone to 6a and our transfer was successful.

Insurance and prepay cash or financial assistance

Dr. Smith let us decide on the number of embryos to transfer and educated us the pros and cons

Let's put it this way, if I still lived in CO I'd be going to her for this cycle. She's amazing. Professional and awesome at what she does, of course but also very positive, reassuring and upbeat. I never doubted that my cycle would work. I never worried. There's a lot to be said for that kind of peace of mind!

Relax and trust

Menopur, bravelle gonal f

I believe it was around $14k back in 2010.

We transferred two embryos and we now have 6 year old twins

I liked her but felt like she didn't have any alternative options to treatment when the cycle we were on didn't work

Good for women that don't have poor egg quality? Or for someone who wants a lot of contact w/the doctor

Estrace priming with menopur, follostim, growth hormone

Dr Smith is very smart. She bases decisions off data and adjusts treatment as needed for best chances. She has been honest with us. We enjoy seeing her as she is very personable as well. I feel like we are working with the best.

The most important thing the doctor can do is know what they are doing. Hang in there this is not going to be easy emotionally or financially.

1st 2 cycles cloned with iui. 1 miscarriage 1 negative. Next 3 cycles a different hormone drug and iui. All negative. Last cycle injectable follitism with iui. Also negative.

We have spent about 20k on medication and treatment through 6 cycles

We will be doing this on our next cycle. It is based on the genetic testing.