How was your experience with Lisa Kolp at Johns Hopkins Medical Institute?
She was in touch with me by email when I was inquiring about egg freezing, and she answered all the emails herself, which was impressive given how busy her schedule must have been. The clinic operates as group model, with each doctor making decisions on the day they were on duty, and that model worked fine, so Dr Kolp did not make many decisions for me personally. I was happy with clinic and my treatment, however. I was paying out of pocket for drugs + retrieval, and she did make sure that each cycle, I got free Follistim or equivalent so that I did not have to buy all drugs out of pocket.
During treatment, were you treated like a number or a human with Lisa Kolp at Johns Hopkins Medical Institute?
Clinic was really easy to navigate. The clinic made it easy for patients to do morning monitoring, and the nurses gave helpful tips, so I got into a routine with morning monitoring, and it was easy to do, even on days that might have been stressful like after a snow storm when I had moved away to DC. Likewise, nurses gave useful tips for injection.
Describe the protocols Lisa Kolp used in your cycles at Johns Hopkins Medical Institute and their degree of success.
Follistim/Gonal + Menopur/Bravelle + agonist like Cetrotide/Ganirelix. I had good results. She was okay with substituting, and I could be flexible and order the cheaper alternative when ordering from abroad. I ordered the drugs from Israel and paid out of pocket.
Describe your experience with the nursing staff at Johns Hopkins Medical Institute.
Nurses were really the best. I was intimidated by the whole situation b/c I was single and not trying to conceive yet. The nurses made the whole procedure very doable, and I learned how to do the injections very well with tips that they gave, like to transfer Ganirelix from a pre-filled syringe to a regular syringe with small gauge needle because the Ganirelix needle is so dull. And indeed once I tried the Ganirelix needle, and it was terrible.
Describe your experience with Johns Hopkins Medical Institute.
Clinic when I used it (2010-11) was very easy to use, and its procedures were easy to follow for morning monitoring to go smoothly. I liked seeing different doctors each time, and I thought that they worked well together. It felt less authority-driven that the doctors cooperated.
Describe your experience with your monitoring appointments at Johns Hopkins Medical Institute.
Very easy to do morning monitoring --- they gave tips like sign in upstairs for u/s and then go downstairs for blood work, and by the time blood work finishes, it's your time for the u/s. And so it went smoothly with little waiting.
Describe the costs associated with your care under Lisa Kolp at Johns Hopkins Medical Institute.
My health insurance ended up covering all the imaging, blood work, and anaesthesia. I paid for egg retrievals and drugs, but under Maryland's laws, I was billed the same out of pocket as an insurance company would be billed. I do not remember exact costs, and it was years ago, but it was much less than they had quoted for me because insurance covered so much unexpectedly.
Describe Lisa Kolp's approach to eSET (elective single embryo transfer) vs. multiple embryo transfer at Johns Hopkins Medical Institute.
NA. Did not transfer embryos, just egg freezing.
What specific things went wrong at Johns Hopkins Medical Institute?
- Failed to send your chart to another clinic
Describe the specific things that went wrong at Johns Hopkins Medical Institute.
I think it took a little bit of time and a few calls to get my records from Johns Hopkins sent to Columbia when I started there. It's not a big deal, and it is the type of thing that happens in many health care settings, so almost expected.