Eric Chang

CNY is a clinic that was referred to us through my OBGYN. It was a "just in case" option should the need arise. After a few months, I heard about the same clinic from a friend who sought treatment resulting in a pregnancy, so my husband and I decided to try them out. The initial call was just to set up the intake, which was offered either over the phone or in person. The phone interview was a longer wait, so we chose to schedule an in-person intake and take a 4 hour trip to the clinic. Upon arrival, we were greeted with a warm and friendly environment, plushy furniture, fireplace and refreshments. One thing that took us by surprise was they asked us politely to remove our shoes and wear either disposable booties or their "complimentary" slippers. The rationale for this was not clear, however we complied out of politeness. Once we were called back for our consultation, the rooms were beautifully decorated with modern barn-style doors and comfy chairs. The downside was that the rooms were not soundproof, which made us feel a little self-conscious in talking about our sensitive issues. When Dr. Chang arrived, he set our mind at ease by asking pinpointed questions about our situation and gave us sound information and statistics, which helped us make an educated decision about treatment. The clinic offered same day testing for semen analysis and transvaginal ultrasound, which was helpful. Once the testing was complete, the nursing staff took over and assisted us in completing the necessary paperwork. The main form of communication once established as a patient is through the patient portal messaging system, which can be good or bad. A good point is that you can be thorough in providing them as much information in your message so that they have all of your concerns in one place. A bad point might be that if you do not have the patience necessary to wait on their response, you may find yourself becoming frustrated with the system. Also, their messaging system does not have the "reply" feature as in traditional email, and you are forced to create a new message every time you communicate with a member of their staff, even if it is in response to the same original message. All in all, this experience has been a positive one. As of right now, COVID-19 has halted our treatment, including that of our egg donor. We are waiting for the restrictions to be lifted for elective surgeries to continue so that we can move forward with our plans for IVF.

Strengths - the atmosphere is beautiful and calming, you don’t feel like a number, the staff is amazing, it’s so easy to get seen right away if you need blood work or an ultrasound. They are also really fast to respond in the patient portal! Weaknesses - there’s no way to contact the clinic by phone sadly, which would be very helpful!

The Buffalo clinic is wonderul. CNY overall as a company is a bit scattered and can be quite frustrating to work with, especially until you start your cycle with a local office. Its almost impossible to connect to a local facility and the general nursing clinical line is not great..some friendly, but most always sound annoyed when you are calling and can't get you off the phone soon enough. There is not great communication after the initial consult - you're left having to research and find out a lot of information for yourself. You definitely need to be your own advocate with CNY. For me its worth it though as they are trying to help women by the masses even though it feels like a puppy mill sometimes. The only other thing that i have found frustrating is that there is zero consistency across the practice. You could talk to 5 different dr's, nurses and get 5 different opinions or recommendations on protocols, etc. Everything from their facebook lives, instagram, kiltz, to the local practice. It can definitely be frustrating!

CNY is huge and handles an extremely high volume of patients. Nurses and doctors are often juggling hundreds upon hundreds of inquiries, portal messages, phone calls, office appointments, etc. Balls inevitably get dropped, information inevitably gets lost in translation, and that can be frustrating. You really have to stay on top of your own treatment plan. I think having a good working knowledge of at least the basics of IVF would be extremely beneficial.

Strengths: they’ve got a system in place, and that makes it easy to work with your planning and keeping stress low. Also, this is not a one-size-fits-all clinic. Personalized approach to every situation. Weaknesses: no electronic patient portal/profiles, so you won’t have access to your own file/info at your fingertips.

The founding doctor is the clinic's greatest strength. The other doctors are it's strength. However, the operations of the clinic is it's weakness. The clinic's back office staff are not organized, communicative, honest, caring, or assigned to a particular patient and they do not follow up or through on any form of communication. It seems that patient files are not electronic and no one ever has your file in front of them when they speak to you so they don't/can't answer questions and get you to the next step. Technology and training are needed and maybe some people who treat customers with disrespect hanging up on them should look for another line of work.

Strengths - The lead doctor is backed by knowledge and proof. He has been researching and writing white pages on fertility treatments for decades. The practice is a boutique firm handling the most unique cases. My Primary Care Physician speaks highly of the practices. The Younger doctors in the practice have good bedside manner. Weaknesses - Staff is sometimes not the most polite.

Beautiful clinic. Clean. Pharmacists are very helpful. Everyone is polite. Nurses organizing your protocol for travel patients aren't always on the same page. Follow up phone call with provider was not helpful: limited to 30 minutes, provider wasn't familiar with my case, had no real suggestions or changes

Being a travel patient is hard. Being charged extra to have the monumental task of coordinating your Bloodwork and ultrasounds on top of it isn't right. Asking for help finding a monitoring clinic and being referred to the locator on CNYs website that has nothing in your area and figuring it out on your own isn't a mark of good care. The strengths are their patient portal and competitive prices.

I don’t have anything negative to say. The clinic is beautiful, the staff is responsive and friendly. I had to drive 4 hours each way for appointments. They made sure we were comfortable since they knew we had a long drive both ways.

I think a major strength of CNY fertility clinic is that they offer their services at such an affordable cost. It is so amazing the work that they do. I am so grateful that they have helped so many women like me who have struggled with becoming pregnant. I think a weakness is that they probably have so much business that they can't really individualize the patient experience like other local fertility clinics.