Norbert Gleicher

After two failed IVF cycles elsewhere, we joined the second opinion program with Dr. Gleicher. He reviewed our records and sent us his opinion within a week. When we spoke with him, he was very warm and encouraging. He explained to us that he thought we were receiving "cookie cutter" treatment instead of treatment specific to my condition. Also, based on my lab work, he had a suspicion that I have autoimmune activity. He also diagnosed me with Hypoandrogenic PCOS, a diagnosis never given to me before. He ordered a THOROUGH workup and his suspicions of autoimmunity were confirmed. He also gave us advice on supplements based on my lab work. For example, my previous clinic told me my testosterone levels were normal. Dr. Gleicher, however, looked at my SHBG levels and DHEA-S levels to identify that my levels of testosterone were too low FOR MY BODY, and it was due to adrenal insufficiency (as evidenced by low DHEA-S). The one thing that I am nervous about is that he put me on daily baby aspirin for the rest of my life without re-testing for the presence of the antibodies that would require daily baby aspirin. When re-tested with another doctor, the antibodies were no longer present and, thus, I am not sure if I need daily baby aspirin after all. I will talk to Dr. Gleicher about this when I meet with him again. Overall, though, I believe Dr. Gleicher to be highly knowledgeable and an expert on diminished ovarian reserve. Based on the written second opinion, three Skype consultations, and thorough workup done with Dr. Gleicher, we are planning on pursuing IVF with him. We currently believe him to be our best shot at having a baby.

Every time we met with Dr. Gleicher, he took his time to review our records, ask up questions, answer our questions, and give us his opinion based on *our* situation. He made it clear that he knew who we are - even remembering information unrelated to fertility (e.g., our careers).

We haven't had a treatment cycle with him yet. However, when discussing future IVF with him, he told us that he would increase my dose of Follistim to 450 and my dose of Menopur to 150. He would not use an antagonist. He said an antagonist would suppress my ovaries and would interfere with the effects of DHEA. He also would not put me on birth control. Because of my low grade autoimmunity, he would add an extra layer of treatment that would likely include Prednisone and Lovenox.

Huina was very quick to answer my emails. She was honest with me with her assessments. When I had questions for Dr. Gleicher, she made sure to get his answers for me.

I haven't been to the clinic yet, as I am not local and I haven't gotten to treatment yet. However, the front desk is extremely helpful and kind whenever I call or email them. They are quick to answer my questions, and have been able to give me appointments that fit my schedule. They even gave me an appointment 2 days later when I was panicking about some of my lab work.

We spent about $1000 between the second opinion program and three Skype consultations with Dr. Glecher. We received pricing information for IVF. A single cycle of IVF costs about $16,000 not including medication. They have a program for four IVF cycles that's about $41,000, but it costs extra for things like anesthesia, ICSI, and medications.

We haven't gotten to this part of treatment with him yet. However, he told us that he would transfer 1-2 embryos if we don't want twins or 2-3 embryos if we are OK with twins.

Dr. Gleicher is blunt but he definitely knows what he is doing. He doesn't stop at the superficial assessment and autopilot treatment protocol and really tries to get to the bottom of our problems so we can address them proactively and individually. For example, he found out something that our previous two doctors didn't even test for (I apparently have a low-level inflammatory/immunological issue that might be affecting my ovaries), and added a couple of medications to address it. We don't know if it'll make the difference we want just yet, but we are hopeful.

Don't be put off by his bluntness. Be prepared to wait a bit for your appointment sometimes.

Dr. Gleicher is blunt and number-driven. When he reviewed our test results with us, he was very clear that the odds are against us. However, he was also very understanding of our desire to try with our own eggs, and assured us that he and the staff will do everything they can to give us the best shot at our dream as we'd ever get. After the first cycle didn't result in any transferrable embryo, he reiterated that donor eggs would give us a much better chance, but he also had concrete modifications to the protocol for the next cycle with my own eggs. They were based on what we learned from the first failed cycle, and he explained his rationale in detail. I felt like we were a part of a team rather than someone being "treated" passively.

First cycle: DHEA, CoQ10, stimulation with FSH and hMG, RAFS. I had the hCG shot at 18 mm lead follicle. Two eggs retrieved but we didn't have any embryos to transfer. Second cycle: Same medications, hCG was at 16 mm. We had 3 eggs, 1 embryo to transfer. Dr. Gleicher said the earlier retrieval was because my eggs were overly mature in the first cycle when they were retrieved. We were thrilled to have more eggs and an embryo transfer, but I didn't get pregnant. Third cycle: Same medications but with more FSH, hCG was at 16 mm. 5 eggs, 2 embryos to transfer. I'm currently pregnant!

I had a coordinator change in the middle of my treatment, but both of them were amazing. They were both compassionate, gave us clear instructions and one of them even hunted down a medication that the pharmacy failed to include in the shipment. I wish we had direct access to Dr. Gleicher sometimes, but our nurses were quick to get us answers from him whenever we had questions.

It's a small clinic in a chic area of Manhattan (Upper East Side), and it's literally full of artwork. (You should check out their stairwell.) This was a nice change of pace from the larger center we went to initially--calm and private-feeling. In terms of treatments, you get the sense that they aren't lying when they say their treatments are research-driven. Doctors and embryologists truly pick your unsuccessful cycles apart and pay attention to every little detail to do better in the next round. I feel like that's how we managed to finally get pregnant in our third cycle.

I do not necessarily agree with Dr. Gleicher's IVF protocol for egg retrieval and transfers (i.e. day three fresh transfers, no PGS etc.), which is why I stuck with NYU and I also prefer their lab. But I do find that Dr. Gleicher treats the WHOLE patient, he looks not only at your AMH and hormone levels but does a a deep dive into your partner's full health picture as well. He is extremely knowledgable in the autoimmune infertility areas and is one of the few doctors in NYC who supports IVIG when necessary. In addition to his willingness to work with NYU and oversee my case from an auto-immune standpoint, I found him extremely knowledgeable and supportive all around.

Ask all your questions! Don't be shy, don't be scared to call a million times-- he is super patient and will explain everything.

I was always able to reach Dr. Gleicher for a phone call same day when necessary. Even though I was not doing my retrievals or transfers with his office he was willing to work with my other doctor at NYU (despite their opposing ideologies) and agreed to treat my autoimmune issues separately from the actual IVF treatments I was undergoing at NYU. He spent an inordinate amount of time with me on my first consult, never ever made me feel rushed through the process and continues to be a source of information and support when I need it. He also did everything he could to help me get things covered by insurance even though I am self-pay for IVF.

Because I have auto-immune indicators he prescribed an immune protocol for my transfer cycles: IVIG Prednisone Plaquenil Lots of Supplements (DHEA and Conflam forte most importantly) Lovenox

Lorenis was amazing, she is always available by phone or email and can get you on the phone with Dr. Gleicher right away or ask your question for you and get an immediate response. She is super sweet and compassionate.

Cannot speak to anything other than the front desk and the blood-draw nurses. Both were great and its a very intimate environment, not 20 people in the waiting room. Maybe a handful of people waiting at most.

Covered by insurance.

He seems to have ideas that are different than most other IVF doctors. He is able to justify his rationale for doing things the way he does. He is a good communicator. He is very thorough in his explanations and approaches. He gave us hope with a different approach.

He seems compassionate. He is very knowledgeable. He has a scientist type of demeanor and actually doesn’t do retrievals or transfers. He never saw me for a monitoring appointment. But I felt like My treatment was based on his recommendations at all times.

Dr. Gleicher spent a good amount of time with us during each consultation. The office is small and there only a few doctors and nurses so you get to know most of the people at the office.

I was given DHEA prior to treatment. During my stimulation cycle, I was treated with 150 menopur and 450 of gonal f. I was given doxycycline, prednisone, baby aspirin and lovenox. I triggered with HCG. After transfer I was given intravaginal estrogen and progesterone as well as progesterone in oil.

Maria answered all my emails. She was there the day of my retrieval as well as the day of my transfer.

Because its a small clinic it feels more intimate than most places. The front desk is open and so there’s little privacy when discussing procedures and billing. There is very little wait time during monitoring appointments.

There was very little wait time. Labs were performed efficiently. On rare occasion it seemed understaffed and so there could be a wait slightly longer than usual.

It was about 15K for monitoring, retrieval and fresh transfer.

My husband and I decided on the day of the transfer along with the doctor (not Dr. Gleicher) to transfer all our 3 day fresh embryos. 3 out of the 6 were high grade.

I was grateful to Dr Gleicher and CHR for taking my case, as another clinic had rejected me after my DOR diagnostic. I gave me hope that someone was willing to take on a difficult case (so that is very positive and I am very thankful for that). It is important to note that Dr Gleicher does not perform any procedures. So while you have appointments with him to discuss protocol prior to starting a cycle and you meet with him in case of negative outcome, only Dr Barad and Kushnir do the ultrasounds/retrievals/transfers etc. So this already adds a challenge, as I sometimes had the impression that the communication between doctors was not up to par, and therefore I ended up falling through the cracks. Also, the communication after the first appointment is exclusively done through the coordinating nurse. So whatever question you may have about ANY thing goes through the nurse, except if you keep your list of questions for when you do the monitoring and then you get to ask Dr K or Dr B in person (but even that is not necessary great as I just feel more reassured knowing that there is ONE doctor who has the complete overview of my case). My first cycle went well (all the way to transfer but had a BFN) as I felt that, as a new patient, the Doctors were paying attention to each step of the cycle and were closely monitoring me. That feeling started to fade at the second cycle, where the decision to trigger was taken by the Dr on call for the weekend (and I think without consultation with Dr Gleicher) and ended up being too soon and with absolutely no egg retrieved. I was pretty distressed at that point but still felt new to this whole IVF thing and did not learn to advocate for myself yet. For the third cycle, Dr Gleicher proposed to put me under a new protocol. This gave me renewed hope. However, when I started the new cycle, I ended up ovulating spontaneously very quickly despite being on Lupron. The feedback I got was that maybe I had not taken the meds properly (I knew I had respected the protocol but was very willing to blame myself for this failure...). During the follow up appointment I was even more lost as it was clear that Dr Gleicher had not read my file and was just discovering some of my hormone levels as we were talking... He suggested doing another cycle back to back with the exact same protocol, which I did, paying even more religious attention to the time of my injections! We started the fourth cycle, and after about a week, I got the news that I had ovulated - again!! This time I was absolutely sure I had taken the meds perfectly. I was so distressed that I asked if there was any chance we could retrieve anything. The nurse told me that if I wanted I could convert this to an IUI (if I want it??). Which I did (only to discover during a second opinion appointment with another Dr that my hormone levels clearly showed that I had ovulated at least a couple of days before and therefore the IUI was just pointless). Overall, I have the impression that the level of attention paid to my case decreased tremendously after the first cycle, and I just became a number.

Of you are keen on trying CHR, I would recommend going with Dr Kushnir instead of Dr Gleicher. He is the one doing the monitoring during the week (and on rotation every other weekend) so at least there would more consistency and less risk of info falling through the cracks. They have weekly staff meetings so the 3 Dr talk and if there is a need to consult Dr Gleicher Dr K would surely do it. If you already are with Dr Gleicher, I would just recommend that you warn the nurse that you will have loads of questions when you meet Dr Gleicher at the beginning/end of your cycle so that he will be more prepared. For the follow up of my 4th cycle, I had told her that I was expecting a full review of my 4 cycles during that discussion and that led to a more substantive discussion...

While the relation with the coordinating nurse was good (although far from perfect), I have had meetings with Dr Gleicher where it was absolutely OBVIOUS that he had not even read my file prior to the meeting and he was just making comments on the spot (flipping the pages on my file while talking, making mistakes on test results, not remembering the outcome of previous cycles...). This really gave me the impression that he was not paying attention to each case. This was particularly shocking when I met him for a follow up appointment after a failed cycle where I was really hoping to use that time with him to have a substantive talk about what happened and what the next steps would be.

- priming with estradial patches or pills - lurpon - follistim 450/day - two vials of menopur/day - estrace 3x/day orally and vaginally to support lining growth (I was on vaginal viagra for one cycle but the combo of that and loads of estrace led to my lining crashing before the retrieval) - prednisone and baby aspirin (he said that some of my test indicated a hint of auto-immune problem) - lovenox and PIO after transfer

Dorota is very kind and warm. You truly feel that she knows you well and is with you in this. The only challenge they have a small team of very busy nurses who are the only point of contact between you and the doctor. Therefore when I sent her questions by email 1) I sometimes did not get an answer or very late, 2) sometime I would get ye/no answers without much explanation, 3) I was not always sure that the questions were communicated to the Dr.

It is good clinic that does quite a bit of research so you know that they will consider "difficult" cases. They also do clinical trials and take out of State Patients. The main challenge is that it is a small team with one Dr that does not perform any medical action (so only two Dr on that front) and a small team of coordinating nurses. I think my feeling of them dropping the ball and treating me as a number might be due to the fact that they have more patients that what they can really handle. So you need to advocate for yourself all the time and be on top of everything (which ends up being a bit exhausting during a process that is already not very easy...).

It was a relatively well oiled machine that was convenient for my schedule.

First cycle was out of pocket and cost about 13K (without meds) and another 10K of med from their recommended pharmacy (as I was on very high doses of stimulation for about two weeks and I did not know I would shop around...). After that I changed insurance and the cycle and some of the meds were covered.

in my case I only had two embryos and he indicated that for my age bracket it was better to transfer both to increase my chances.

Dr. Gleicher has one way of treating patients. He throws the kitchen sink at them for immune problems and scoffs at day 5 transfers or pgs testing. I understood where he was coming from and agreed initially until it didn't work several times and he admitted he didn't know why. Because I am a physician, I karyotyped myself and my husband and found he had a balanced translocation which greatly reduced our odds of pregnancy. I was upset, because I feel he was just continuing to take our money without being honest about what was going on. He blustered that he wouldn't do anything differently, but the standard for our problem is ivf with pgs which he refused to do with us. I felt he owed us some money back for not being thorough and leading us down a path without all the info we needed to make informed decisions about what we would need to do. They kept saying we were doing do well and very much expected us to get pregnant. Meanwhile, I spent $45,000 with nothing.

Don't go there. Go to Cornell. They are much better, more professional and more thorough with better results.

He was alway late to appointments. When he would get to you, he would say he had been dealing with a patient with difficult problems which was why he was late. Then he would rush me i.e. I was not important or difficult in spite of our repeated failures. My third appointment he took a call on his cell phone and talked the whole time in front of me about meeting up with his colleague for about 15 minutes then tried to limit me to the same amount of time because he was behind due to his phone call.

I had recurrent pregnancy loss which he attributed to immune issues although all my tests were normal. He used the micro dose lupron protocol both times with good results at retrieval. Their lab got good fertilization results and embryos looked good. He put me on aspirin, prednisone, lovenox and ivig for immune issues without result. I eventually discovered my husband had a chromosomal issue which needed genetic testing to find normals. We lost a lot of embryos with the freeze thaw process as I don't think they do that much. I think we lost all our normals.

Huina was a good communicator, she just was more of a coordinator not a real nurse, so couldn't answer most of my questions.

I think they do ok with women that are younger with severe DOR and no other problem as they throw the book at it and will retrieve with low numbers. Their main embryologist is quite good and they seem to do well with 3 day transfers. Dr Barad does most of the retrieval/transfers and he has good hands/bedside manner. They do not do well with the work up and treatment of other problems as Dr. Gleicher is very stubborn about his opinions.

10,000 for ivf without monitoring (I did that at home). $3800 for ICSI and assisted hatching. $1200 for freezing embryos and $250 every 3 months to store frozen embryos.

Dr. Gleicher was professionally appropriate for the Skype session however not open about any additional fees or charges after that appointment. He had appropriate questions for us at the time and obviously was well-spoken about fertility in older women.

Ask a lot of questions

We only had 1 Skype meeting as the start of an out-of-state consultation in which he was appropriately warm and professional. My issues are with the business practices and customer service afterwards.

After my Skype consultation and blood work and testing in 9/2018, I still have yet to receive any recommendations or treatment strategies to date (1/2019).

My initial interactions via their web-based communication portal, were great, quick, and efficient. However after a while, she just disappeared and I was unable to get in touch with her via phone or the email portal. Knowing that the Fall season is full of holidays, I gave at least 3-4 weeks of time before reaching out again, but to no avail, until I filed a BBB compliant about not getting our final recommendation/results.

Strengths are their initial set-up of appointments and email communication. Weakness lie within customer service for out of state clients and truth in advertising regarding fees for initial (video) consultations. They want to charge us additional fees to get fertility recommendations, which is what we already paid for ($450).

Only a initial consultation: $450 as listed on the website

Dr. Gleicher was the first doctor to look deeply into my medical history to find potential causes and possible remedies for my infertility...when my previous doctor had just immediately recommended I use donor eggs after my first failed IVF attempt.

Take notes, Write down all questions and be prepared for your consultation, don't be afraid to ask for clarification on everything. All the information is overwhelming, at a very emotional time and it's easy to miss things...each consultation is very expensive so be sure to do your best to cover everything in one session.

He looked deeply into the possible causes of my individual infertility...instead of just lumping me into a big group of infertile women

The nursing staff was generally accomodating, knowledgeable and friendly

Office staff slightly disorganized but does do their best to help in a timely fashion

There was a window set for monitoring. The earlier you got there the better.

Around 17k or 18k

Blunt. Will persist and get you pregnant if u want to be pregnant. He is a research doctor who travels a lot to share gains at the clinic. Very straightforward. Not a doctor that will give you a hug.

Know his personality is by the books.

Busy clinic often full waiting room.

Tubal blockage so went right to IVF and their standard treatment.

Small team of nurses. Each played a role. Boos tests conducted on site. Nurses rotated being assigned to doctors.

Small busy lots of foreign clients. Usually running special trial (older women). In an old townhouse so does not feel like a hospital. All procedures completed onsite.

Monitoring hours were organized. Often busy but varied from just one other person to a full waiting room.

Most all covered by insurance

Not a good communicator, not compassionate, cold personality.

don't expect a warm welcome

He seems to care more about making money off of me rather than trying to treat me.

Very knowledgable and responsive.

This clinic was very anxious to have me start my IVF cycle. My insurance did not cover the IVF cycle at all. The clinic also failed to provide the pre-authorization needed for my insurance to cover some of the costs of the medications. I ended up spending thousands of dollars more because of the clinic not providing me with specific prep information for my IVF cycle.

over $10,000

He was too busy to call me once so i had to speak to another doctor. I paid 750 for only 2 consult appts with him. He was late for appts and then it was so rushed and i paid alot of money for them.

Don't go there!

He was too busy to call me once so i had to speak to another doctor. I had to pay each time i had an online appt

Hjgh dose of gonal and menopur with microdose lupron

I emailed her and never heard back.

They nickel and dime you to death. Its too expensive for the care you get. dr was too busy to call me once so i had to speak to another doctor. He won't give out his personal email to you, i asked for it. The other doc Barad does give his email. I would recommend Dr Barad instead.

450 for first consult. $250 for follow up calls or Skype. It is expensive.

Fresh transfer w no PGS test