How was your experience with Rebecca Flyckt at Cleveland Clinic Fertility Center?
Our initial meeting with Dr. Flyckt was great. She has a very kind and caring demeanor and she really listens. She was also happy to answer any of our questions and explained her initial hypotheses for our infertility and why she was recommending specific next steps.
Now that we've completed all our necessary testing, it's taken a little while to get to our treatment plan. I don't necessarily think this is Dr. Flyckt's fault (it seems like CCF has some communication issues internally), but it's definitely frustrating to not be able to contact Dr. Flyckt directly or get a timely response.
What's one piece of advice would you give a prospective patient of Rebecca Flyckt at Cleveland Clinic Fertility Center?
She is a very busy woman and is in high demand. Currently, Dr. Flyckt has a long wait list to see her. For our consult, we had to wait 4 months for the earliest appointment. After our initial consult, I tried to schedule a follow-up appointment to discuss our treatment plan and was told that the wait to see her is FIVE months for current patients! That's crazy! Since I can't wait that long to meet with her in person, my only opportunity to communicate with her is via one of the nurses or through MyChart (though I don't recommend that because she is the first to admit that she doesn't have the best response time through MyChart).
All in all, if you don't have the luxury of waiting, I would advise that you consider one of the other REs in the CCF practice who has a shorter wait time. I was eventually diagnosed with DOR and waiting for 4 months just to find that out was a lot of time wasted.
During treatment, were you treated like a number or a human with Rebecca Flyckt at Cleveland Clinic Fertility Center?
During our consultation with Dr. Flyckt, I felt like she was really listening and trying to understand. She never once seemed rushed and she took the time to explain things clearly -- even drawing several diagrams to help us understand better.
Describe the protocols Rebecca Flyckt used in your cycles at Cleveland Clinic Fertility Center and their degree of success.
Before my DOR diagnosis and while waiting on my husband's updated semen analysis, I took Clomid and progesterone suppositories for time intercourse. Her guidance was to do this for 3 cycles. That plan made sense up until my husband's semen analysis indicated that he has severe male factor infertility and I have DOR. I'm still waiting on an updated protocol, but I would hope that IVF is our recommended treatment plan give those two issues.
Describe your experience with the nursing staff at Cleveland Clinic Fertility Center.
My interaction with the nursing staff has been a mixed bag. For my consult intake, I thought the nurse was fine; she wasn't particularly friendly or pleasant, but she also wasn't unpleasant. Since then, I spoke to another nurse regarding questions about my HSG and medication and she was very helpful.
After I had completed my "checklist" of tests from Dr. Flyckt, I was advised to call the office immediately for a treatment plan. When I called, the nurse who called me back left a voicemail that, although she used my name, clearly was in reference to another patient and was in no way was answering my request. I had to call back to ask that the nurse call me again and she then replied by sending a message on MyChart to say that she would ask Dr. Flyckt to get back to me.
Overall, communication has just been a little messy and it's a big game of phone tag (you call, leave a message, you wait for someone to call you back, etc.).
Describe your experience with Cleveland Clinic Fertility Center.
CCF is a well-regarded medical facility and it's fairly well run compared to some other medical offices I've been to (granted, those other offices weren't fertility clinics). That said, trying to communicate anything in a timely fashion comes down to a giant game of phone tag. You have to call and leave a message with a receptionist in order to get any information or an answer about any question (no matter how simple). Then you have to hope that someone calls you back. I had one message that I left regarding medication and still hadn't heard back almost 10 days later, so I called again and then someone finally called me back. You really have to stay on top of things here and be prepared to call A LOT and sometimes multiple times for the same request, just to make sure they haven't forgotten about you. Also, since you don't speak to a nurse when you originally place your phone call, they generally call you back when you're not available or free (e.g., you're at work), so that's also quite inconvenient and stressful.
Describe the costs associated with your care under Rebecca Flyckt at Cleveland Clinic Fertility Center.
I've only done medicated timed intercourse thus far, so it's the cost of Clomid and Progesterone, which are fairly inexpensive. The lab work and office visit were close to $1k.