Pasquale Patrizio

Dr. Patrizio is friendly and easy to talk to and will be straight forward. He tells you what he thinks the best course of action is, but will let you make your own decisions. For instance, he clearly laid out why we should only transfer one embryo, but let us make the final decision. He did not perform my IUIs, but he was adamant that he would be the one to perform the egg transfer as he says that is the most important part. The one thing I did not like was that I felt like he gave us false confidence with the IUIs. Because I have unexplained infertility, he was very sure that an IUI would work and when it didn't, I was even more devastated. In the end, we achieved a live birth with only one round of IVF, which was still pretty good.

Don't expect someone meek and sympathetic - though he is friendly, he's not there to be a therapist, he's there to get you a baby.

Dr. Patrizio recognized us and made small talk with us at our visits and didn't just dive into the treatment, though that was the focus of our visits. He is to the point, but friendly.

Because we had unexplained infertility, Dr. Patrizio suggested we began with 3 IUIs because they were cheaper and I am young, so the likelihood of them working was good. Coincidentally, we also needed to do 3 IUIs for our insurance to cover IVF. After I failed to conceive following each of these, we did a fresh IVF cycle that produced my son.

The nursing staff was very nice and would answer my questions, but I got the impression that they were very busy. There was one occasion I specifically remember that I did not like. On one of my early visits I told the nurse that I had been tracking my temperature to see when I ovulate and she said, "Aw, that's cute. You don't have to do that anymore." It made me feel very stupid.

The clinic is clean and the front desk staff is helpful and friendly. I haven't had problems making appointments if they aren't last minute. I am often late and they were graciously accommodating of me multiple times.

There was a monitoring window every morning from 7 -8:15 or so. When you arrived, you were given a number and taken on a first come, first served basis. Sometimes I was taken right away, other times I waited over an hour. It was luck of the draw. I did arrive after the window a few times and they still monitored me, which was much appreciated.

My insurance fully covered the care, so I'm not sure.

Dr. Patrizio is all for single embryo transfer when possible, but will do what you ask. He personally looks at all the embryo grades and picks the order best for transfer.

Dr. Patrizio is very warm and welcoming with a great bed side manner and great sense of humor. I feel like he could have been more involved with my care but then again, I know he is busy and has lots of patients. I was however very happy with the staff at yale and was ok with them tending to my care.

Be aware that you won't see him at every visit. There are times where you have to let him know what you want because he is very laid back in his approach.

I was definitely treated like a human and a lot of that is thanks to the staff. Dr. Patrizio is a great doctor, but I am not his only patient. However, when it was us, he was great and is very down to earth and welcoming.

I remember for my 2nd round of ivf - I told him that I wanted to keep it similar to my first round because my body reacted well to the meds and I did get pregnant, although I did miscarry. He was ok with that and was open to my feedback. We followed the same protocol with injectables but my body took longer to react the 2nd time. I think that was a good thing because it gave my body the time to grow and nurture my eggs!

Let me start by saying that Dr. Patrizio's main nurse is Marie. I told him from day 1 of my 2nd round that I did not want her involved in my care. She is very nice but she just wasn't on top of things in regards to my care as I would like. As we know, this whole trying to conceive process is very delicate and can be very emotional. I find Marie to be very lax in giving exact details. I would always have to call the office for clarification. I also found that she waited to the evening hours to provide details or blood results which was very upsetting when you are waiting for these bits of information. I have had great experience dealing with Kree from the moment I walked into Yale Fertility. She was the nurse of my previous RE and she was just on top of things. She was detailed, would call personally to let me know what needed to be done and made sure I understood everything before she hung up the phone. She provided results in a great, timely manner and she always and still does, greet me by first name and hugs when I go to the office. She actually does care. There are other nurses that are just like her - they really do have a great team at Yale but Kree is just top notch.

The clinic is great with scheduling appointments and fitting you in as your schedule allows. They have made some improvements to the front end area to help with appearance but they've added this frosted tint to the windows by the receptionist which block them from seeing you when you are waiting in line. There are times where I've waited over 10 mins for the receptionist to call me but she didn't know I was there because of the frosted glass. Also, they've hired new receptionists that need to be trained a little more but that is fixable.

IVF is covered under my insurance, thankfully. I just paid for the office visits or fees not covered by insurance such as freezing of the embryos.

no comment

Dr. Patricio cared about getting me pregnant. He moved a little slower than I would have hoped, but maybe that’s just the nature of the industry. He called me personally with results, joked when needed, and was serious when needed. I felt loved and embraced by him and his team.

To come prepared with as much of an education about fertility treatments as possible. He respects intelligence and will give you more information if he feels it will benefit you.

When under Dr. Patrizios care of the other docs at the clinic, face to face, I felt personally cared about. When speaking with Kree, who ran the morning monitoring program, it was made clear that I was a number in line, and that no exceptions could be made. She didn’t want to hear any explanations or reasoning behind needing to speak with anyone. She was rude and unwavering.

I did IVF with PGD, using Gonal-F, Follistim, and other I can’t remember. We had one failed cycle where one embryo was transferred, and one successful live birth after a transfer of two embryos.

Marie was so kind and loving. Sometimes I wondered though if she forgot details regarding our care, which i was compelled to remind her of periodically.

The strengths are the doctors, nurses, and communication once you’re mid-cycle. The communication leading up to a cycle and the insurance coordinators are both lacking. Insurance would often times call me to say I wasn’t covered for a certain medication, provide no alternatives, and disregard the fact that I needed that med either that day or the next. This was infuriating.

21k for retrieval, pgd testing, and transfer. 700 a year for frozen embryos.

Dr. Patrizio was supportive of our choice. He gave us all the information and let us choose.

I found him to be very rigid in his protocols. Anything I suggested he would say I didn't need it or it wouldn't work for me. Yet we had setbacks and cancelled cycles and he wasn't willing to try different things.

I think he's a good doctor to start treatment with, for many that don't have such a difficult case as mine he has great success.

It is a very large clinic with many people working there. I would often see different people who did not know me or my situation. Sometimes my procedures were not even done by my doctor.

My protocol was a very basic one using stim drugs for retreival. For my frozen transfers only estrogen was used in preparation, even when it didn't seem to be working, nothing was added to help. He didn't believe anything else would help or make a difference.

The nurses were the best resources there. Pretty timely in getting back to you and the few nurses I dealt with were the only people there that really knew me and my treatment.

It' a busy clinic, which is good because you can always get ahold of someone 7 days a week but bad because it can be a lot of waiting. The morning monitoring can be a zoo some days. Being a yale clinic they are part of a teaching hospital so you often see residents or fellows as well. I found that they often did not know what they were doing or did not have the answers that I asked for.

The monitoring was first come first served in a time frame in the morning. There was often quite a long line and a long wait to be seen. Also, you almost never saw a doctor in the morning so it was hard to get any questions answered.

I was under insurance when I saw Dr Patrizio so I am unaware of what the costs were.

He did not example the reasoning for using one versus two. He simply asked if we were good doing 2 and did that.

He is a very intelligent doctor. He was good. He might be better than the YNH practice.

Ask a lot of questions...

When using the Westport office, I was a "part of the family" treated very well with the nurse and staff. When at New Haven office, for retrievals and transfers, it was very clinical. The nurses were kind, but I did feel more stress when at New Haven for monitoring and major procedures. Dr P. was a good doctor overall.

She worked very hard to help me through the process. If I ran low on meds on a Friday, she would loan me meds to get through the weekend. She took my calls, texts and emails promptly. She was very detailed. I don't think YNH could have worked as well, if she wasn't in the mix.

Monitoring appointments at Westport were completely different than those at New Haven. Westport was fantastic, kind, prompt, organized. All staff members knew every patient that walked in the door and what they were there for. New Haven, made me feel like cattle. If I arrived first, I had to push my way to stay first in line. Generally, the staff didn't know if you were on IVF or IUI or another procedure. It was supposed to start at 7:15 on the weekends, but the ultra-sound doctors didn't show up until 7:30 or 7:45. It took a long time.

He is very kind, explains things well, likeable and obviously cares. I wish that he had communicated better about the actual egg retrieval and that another doctor would be performing the procedure. It was also a difficult call to decide whether to freeze only eggs or a combo of eggs and embryos.

Ask for clarity about who performs what procedures.

Dr. Patrizio was kind, sensitive, and approachable and explained everything well. However, I was frustrated that I did not know he would not be doing the egg retrieval procedure himself (found out last minute and was quite upset by that).

Lupron was used back then...this was a long time ago. Also, the old style of egg freezing (slow freeze) was used, which isn't used anymore typically. I'm guessing it would be a different experience at this point given that this was so long ago. I would still go to Dr. Patrizio though, although would want more information about the lab, techniques, etc.

When I was a patient, the clinic was very small so it felt very personable and not at all like a factory (as compared to other clinic in my experience)--this was a huge strength. I felt like 1 of a few patients vs. 1 of hundreds.

I did most of my monitoring at a different clinic so cannot comment on this.

$10k

He is always kind and answers all my questions (no matter how crazy) and will always let me be my own advocate and take into account any thoughts or ideas I might have. Unfortunately neither of my IVF rounds worked and I only get 2 rounds with my insurance so we have to wait until I have new insurance to do another round.

Ask lots of questions and write down the answers! I often forgot to ask certain things and forgot the responses to many others

Everyone at the clinic is very nice and always remembers me

My first round I loved everyone and the retrieval went very well. The 2nd time I had a different nurse who was so nice but a little more frantic so I had a bit more anxiety. I didn't feel like the drugs were administered properly and I was a bit more uncomfortable during the surgery.

Everything always runs smoothly, I really like everyone that works there and they are always on time.

There was definitely a long line but I would say the longest time I ever needed to wait was probably 35 minutes.

Most covered by insurance, I have a $5000 deductible

The Dr. wanted me to chose to do one or 2 embryos. I chose one but I know wish I had been pushed to do 2 depending on odds

He's very knowledgable but more interested in results in a statisical manner as in success rate as opposed to what would work best for you. Anesthesia did not help in pain of egg retrieval and I have a high tolerance for pain. Also, had horrific reaction to penilcillin and they kept administering it, even when my eyes swelled shut and it felt like a blow torch was being held to my chest.

Insist on instructions and medication doses in writing. Deal with head nurse if you can't deal with Patrizio. Also the "therapist" at Yale Fertility is very insensititve.

Diffferent nurses or aides called with info on medicine doses and had no idea who I was. All ignored the fact I was having an allegeric reaction to Penilcillin

HIgh turnover. Overworked.

Yale Fertility treats you like a number.

$42,000