She [Dr. Lisa Kolp] is pretty blunt and honest but also laid back and willing to listen to what you want. I didn't feel like we had a specific office wide protocol or process to follow like other major clinics have. And no board to really answer to. She was willing to try things maybe other doctors wouldn't want to risk.
[The staff at Johns Hopkins Fertility was] more flexible on protocols and who they accept as patients. not as much organization or policies/procedures as larger clinics. since part of hospital billing insurance seemed to cover more than might at stand alone clinic. lab is in building and has early morning hours as does clinic. [The nursing staff was] not extremely organized or the best at communicating. You have to be organized for yourself. They rarely answer the phone but can be paged for emergencies or leave a message and they'll get back to you by the end of the day. I went to this clinic more for dr kolp than the nurses.
How was your experience with Lisa Kolp (deceased) at Johns Hopkins Medical Institute?
She is pretty blunt and honest but also laid back and willing to listen to what you want. I didn't feel like we had a specific office wide protocol or process to follow like other major clinics have. And no board to really answer to. She was willing to try things maybe other doctors wouldn't want to risk.
What's one piece of advice would you give a prospective patient of Lisa Kolp (deceased) at Johns Hopkins Medical Institute?
She takes MONTHS to get an appointment, but we instantly started our cycle with her after our initial consult, so things moved relatively fast after that.
During treatment, were you treated like a number or a human with Lisa Kolp (deceased) at Johns Hopkins Medical Institute?
During gyn surgery with her, she rubbed my hair as I fell asleep. She was interested in my success personally. And we still communicate by email a year after successful treatment
Describe the protocols Lisa Kolp (deceased) used in your cycles at Johns Hopkins Medical Institute and their degree of success.
She couldn't locate my ovaries via vaginal ultrasound, so she wasn't sure about my AFC or if a retrieval would be possible. She did a test cycle of clomid to see how my body would respond and sure enough my ovaries plumped up and were easily accessible. With that knowledge and blood work she automatically put me on the max doses of stims (age was 28). With that I still only produced 6 follicles. 5 eggs were retrieved. all 5 fertilized and made it to 5 day blasts. She was skeptical about methods to increase egg health (acupuncture, diet, etc) but wasn't against it and allowed me to do whatever made me happy.
Describe your experience with the nursing staff at Johns Hopkins Medical Institute.
not extremely organized or the best at communicating. You have to be organized for yourself. They rarely answer the phone but can be paged for emergencies or leave a message and they'll get back to you by the end of the day. I went to this clinic more for dr kolp than the nurses.
Describe your experience with Johns Hopkins Medical Institute.
more flexible on protocols and who they accept as patients. not as much organization or policies/procedures as larger clinics. since part of hospital billing insurance seemed to cover more than might at stand alone clinic. lab is in building and has early morning hours as does clinic.
Describe your experience with your monitoring appointments at Johns Hopkins Medical Institute.
Early morning (I believe 6-7:30am in 2014) if you get in immediately it went quick. the later you got there the longer it took. lab opened a bit earlier so I would go there first (sometimes the wait was longer there since other patients not just infertility patients were there) then go to the clinic for monitoring.
Describe the costs associated with your care under Lisa Kolp (deceased) at Johns Hopkins Medical Institute.
With no health insurance coverage for infertility treatments, our IVF retrieval, freeze and then transfer to gestational surrogate including all medications (I bought most from Israel) was about 12-13k. My insurance actually did cover a substantial amount, anything that was explicitly for infertility (like all of the monitoring and bloodwork) was covered.
What specific things went wrong at Johns Hopkins Medical Institute?
Failed to call with results
Provided conflicting information
Describe the specific things that went wrong at Johns Hopkins Medical Institute.
each day during my IVF cycle the nurses called with any changes to medications after reviewing my blood work results. Im not sure if I heard wrong or she said it wrong, but I ended up switching the doses of 2 medications for 2 days before they realized. It would have been great if they followed up with an email or added it to my online chart after our phone calls so I could go back and reference. Phone calls can easily be misheard or taken at times you cant take notes and your memory isn't perfect.
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...Dr Kolp did not make many decisions for me personally....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...Follistim/Gonal + Menopur/Bravelle + agonist like Cetrotide/Ganirelix. I had good result
Clinic [Johns Hopkins] 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...nurses gave useful tips for injection...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.
How was your experience with Lisa Kolp (deceased) 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 (deceased) 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 (deceased) 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 (deceased) 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 (deceased)'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.
[Dr. Kolp is a] kind and caring doctor, very patient and understanding...I switched from Dr Garcia to Dr Kolp at Johns Hopkins. Dr Garcia is very nice but didn't seem as understanding as I needed nor was he willing to think outside of the box to help us. Dr Kolp has a great bedside manner and very open to talking about new and less researched ideas even if she doesn't agree that that is the way to go.
[Dr. Kolp is a] kind and caring doctor, very patient and understanding...I switched from Dr Garcia to Dr Kolp at Johns Hopkins. Dr Garcia is very nice but didn't seem as understanding as I needed nor was he willing to think outside of the box to help us. Dr Kolp has a great bedside manner and very open to talking about new and less researched ideas even if she doesn't agree that that is the way to go.
How was your experience with Lisa Kolp (deceased) at Johns Hopkins Medical Institute?
Kind and caring doctor, very patient and understanding...I switched from Dr Garcia to Dr Kolp at Johns Hopkins. Dr Garcia is very nice but didn't seem as understanding as I needed nor was he willing to think outside of the box to help us. Dr Kolp has a great bedside manner and very open to talking about new and less researched ideas even if she doesn't agree that that is the way to go.
During treatment, were you treated like a number or a human with Lisa Kolp (deceased) at Johns Hopkins Medical Institute?
Dr Kolp takes the time to explain things very clearly. Front office staff and nurses are friendly and seem to be rooting for good outcomes for all the patients.
Describe your experience with the nursing staff at Johns Hopkins Medical Institute.