Alyaa Elassar

Dr. Elassar was very impressive in my initial consultation. And she has outstanding reviews online. So I was very surprised and disappointed when she seemed very rushed and uninterested in answering questions during my in-person visits. At one point, she said "I don't have time to answer your questions. You can ask [a member of our medical team] -- she is working on a medical degree and can answer these questions for you." You want to feel like your doctor is genuinely interested in your success, and that he or she is willing to take the time to make sure you are aware of what's happening and what the next steps are. It was really disappointing.

Ask in advance if she will be available to answer your questions via phone or email, or during in-person sessions. Be your own advocate and have questions prepared so that you understand what is going on in your protocol / cycle.

I began an IVF cycle that had to be cancelled due to poor response. Dr. Elassar did not say this to me directly, but a member of her medical team said that they believed my ovaries were likely "over-suppressed" by taking birth control pills for too long, which meant that not as many follicles as anticipated grew. I was on birth control for about 2.5 weeks, and then on Menopur and Follistim for 2 weeks. I had 3 mature follicles (we anticipated 7-8 based on prior evaluations) so we decided to cancel the cycle.

Please note this is NOT NEW HOPE. This is NYC IVF with Dr. Alayaa Elassar. $350 for each monitoring visit. An IUI would have been $2,000. IVF was $14,000 not including any transfers.

Dr. Elassar is a fine doctor if you are a normal patient with a diagnosed cause. I have unexplained infertility and I thought my treatment was not customized. I went through two rounds of IVF, each round was trial and error. I only yielded one blastocyst from two rounds of IVF.

Ask all your questions. Even if it sounds silly or confusing, it's important to understand the protocol being recommended. Look into their stats. I didn't have the clinic information, only the national stats.

First round of IVF included birth control, two vials of menopur and follistim 150. I had 10 follicles, 8 retrieved and 5 fertilized. None of them made it to blastocyst. Second round of IVF included birth control, lupron, two vials of menopur, follistim 200. I had 8 follicles, 6 retrieved, 1 mature and fertilized. One made it to Day 5 graded B blastocyst.

Prices changed midway through my two cycles. IVF process was $13,500 and the transfer was another $2,000.

This was our second clinic and we were looking for somewhere with better communication and with a doctor we felt trustworthy. We had a good first consultation with Dr Alassar. She seemed very thorough going over my history. My partner and I were wanting to move into IVF but we didn't get too much info about this on the first consult. None the less we felt pretty good about the doctor and the clinic. After leaving we emailed some additional questions that we felt would help us in making a decision whether to proceed with the clinic for the 20k IVF cycle. Some of these were answered over email but we were told we could go over everything with the doctor on our next visit. On the next visit we were taken by a nurse at the front desk and put in an ultrasound room without any information about what we were doing. They said "take your pants off and watch this video" and put on a 5 min video about IVF medication without explaining anything to us. They left us in the room waiting for the doctor for 40 mins while the lights kept turning out. No one told us anything and we began to feel quite frustrated and not know what was going on. Finally when Dr Alassar came to the room to see us it was her that seemed annoyed at us. I don't know if she was just very busy that day but she was very rude and not apologetic in the slightest. When we tried to ask certain questions about what to expect moving forward with an ivf cycle she was very dismissive, patronizing and rushed in her responses. We were completely shocked and never returned to the clinic.

Be firm in asking for the information you need. You are entitled to this and any good doctor should answer the questions and concerns you put forward.

Had we proceeded with IVF, costs were roughly 20k for a cycle +5k for meds

I felt that she not only lacked compassion but worst of all, didn’t answer questions and made us feel like we were a nuisance by asking them. She was cold hearted and her recommendations were contradicting. She charges a fortune and I would expect her level of customer service especially with sensitive issues to be at the same level. Extremely disappointed and would hope that people don’t have to go through the same expensive mistake as we did. Find a doctor who believes in you and makes you feel like they are thinking about everything deeply and in a holistic manner. I don’t need things sugar coated but I want a doctor who is happy to answer my questions.

Don’t be fooled by the 5th ave stylish offices (remember, this is part of what your money is funding); find a clinic and doctor where you feel treated like a human and are comfortable asking your questions. On the plus side, the office was very good at sending all medical records and Dr Elassar was the one who saw me each time for monitoring which is somewhat unusual. Very disappointing and hope other women don’t have to go through the same.

I don’t remember exact costs but I believe the first consult was $400.

Extremely cold, she tries to act compassionate but you can tell she is quickly annoyed and not interested in genuinely helping families. When mess ups happened with her clinic/staff she was quick to blame her own employees/team and even said "she is not the villain and her billing department is". She would scold me during any/all scans/office visits, yelled at my husband that "she wouldn't talk to me" because I questioned what a "new requirement" was that they had allowed us to sign a waiver for (some genetic testing) the day prior. It sickens me that someone would take advantage of families already going through hell to try to expand their family, and in the background they are taking all the money they can even when you paid out of pocket for everything.

Please for all that this review is worth - do not go to this clinic. I thought we had found the best place to help us and it all turned into a nightmare.

Egg retrieval procedure and were planning to have transfer to our gestational carrier here as well but ended up moving to another clinic due to severity of ethical/legal issues

This is where things started to de-rail - I own a financial/insurance based business - I had/have documents of all costs and confirmed we were paying out of pocket. They then submitted invoices to our insurer and basically "whited out" the part showing we paid already. We were submitting claims for reimbursement after paying out of pocket, and they kept denying them for "duplicate claims". Turns out the rep I was working with at my ins. noticed they were filing claims a back way, and started quickly putting pieces together.

We didn't get to this part with them.