Liz Rubin

I first saw Dr. Rubin a few years before TTC, because I had stopped menstruating and was very concerned about what that meant for my fertility. Other doctors (in a different state, where I lived before) had blown off my concerns and diagnosed me with PCOS, but when I moved and found Dr. Rubin, she was determined to get to the bottom of what was happening. She wasn’t convinced PCOS was the right diagnosis, and she was tireless in working to figure out what was really affecting my cycles. Eventually we discovered I have a prolactinoma, and she was able to prescribe meds that got my cycle back to normal. Without Dr. Rubin I would still be working with an incorrect PCOS diagnosis and I quite literally don’t know if I would ever have a chance to get pregnant. I’ve never met a doctor more committed to helping me. Dr. Rubin is thorough, very smart, and extremely optimistic. She has an east coast business-like energy that I think is a huge plus — she really gets stuff done.

Be really specific about your goals! Dr. Rubin has so much knowledge, and she’s willing to try lots of options depending on what you as a patient want to do, so be honest with her about what’s important to you and she will take care of the rest! Also I would say if you’re queer, Dr. Rubin is the best choice you’ll ever make!

It’s clear that Dr. Rubin has devoted her entire professional career to caring for LGBTQ+ people. As a queer woman herself, she has personal experience to back up her research, and my wife and I felt both respected and incredibly well cared for when meeting with her. There’s something very special about a doctor actually understanding your lived experience because she has lived it too, and that’s how we felt with Dr. Rubin. I would recommend all queer people go see her.

Covered by insurance.

I started out with a lot of hope with Dr. Rubin. She was very nice and seemed to care about me as an individual and was open to working with me and my ideas. My first egg retrieval with her was a success. We got 2 Euploid Embryos with Donor sperm. Next retrieval was not as good and we got 2 embryo's untested because the quality was so poor with the same donor sperm. 3rd retrieval I got the flu and was running a fever and was concerned about doing another egg retrieval then as it was the last egg retrieval I was going to do and with a partner this time, so the only one with my partner. I kept telling the team that I was sick, but Dr. Rubin insisted it was fine and to just keep taking Tylenol and to not cancel. Later she said in hindsight she would have cancelled. We only got 1 embryo from that round a 6 day 4bb untested. Gearing up for the embryo transfer is when everything started to fall apart. Before I did my 3rd retrieval with her, the plan was to transfer one of my donor embryo's. Since I have endometriosis we decided to do two months of Lupron (1 shot each month). Lupron was supposed to suppress my estrogen but it surged instead and I got a really bed endometriosis flare. I was nervous of doing a 2nd month on Lupron because of how much pain and inflammation I was in (we were taking Lupron to decrease pain and inflammation). We agreed to stop Lupron since my body didn't respond well to it and that's when I decided to go ahead and do one more egg retrieval. Gearing up for another FET attempt with my untested 4BB, we decided to try Orilissa for 2 months instead of Lupron. The side effects were extreme as they were with Lupron, but we marched on. I was still having some endometriosis pain so Dr. Rubin decided to double my dose of Orillissa which helped. At one point I went to refill my Orilissa but my pharmacy stated that even though Dr Rubin told me to take the double dose, she didn't approve that with my insurance so my insurance wasn't going to refill my prescription in time. I gave Dr Rubin at least 2 weeks notice of this situation and the nurses stated they were having a hard time reaching Dr. Rubin. I was also having a hard time reaching Dr. Rubin. I had sent her a message asking if I could continue taking Low Dose Naltrexone that my naturopath had prescribed but never did get a response back from her or her team. It felt impossible to get answers especially in a timely manner. After repeatedly telling Dr. Rubin and her team that I needed more Orilissa, they finally tried to help with only a few days to spare before I ran out. Dr. Rubin decided that it would be okay if I went to a lower dose of Orilissa until I could get more. They got a pre-approval for more but it was too late. I went several days on the lower dose, and unfortunately as we would find out later, it caused my body to recruit follicles. After 2 months of taking Orilissa at mixed doses, Dr. Rubin decided to put me on Lupron once again, even though I voiced my concerns that I had a bad reaction to it last time and that it had the opposite effect on my body than it was supposed to. She insisted it would be fine and that it must have been a fluke. Turns out it wasn't a fluke. When I went in for my suppression check not only were my ovaries not suppressed, but I had 5 follicles growing, 2 of which were fully matured at around 22mm. I had been voicing concern for the past 2 weeks that I was in pain again, but Dr Rubin didn't seem to be concerned. They cancelled my FET cycle and had me take a trigger shot that night. The kicker was that I had to wait at the clinic all day in order to get the trigger shot before the pharmacy closed. My appointment was in the morning and I knew what was happening based on the Ultrasound, yet Dr. Rubin didn't give the okay for the trigger shot until the end of the day. So, not only did I get terrible news, I had to wait until the end of the day to get the trigger shot which didn't have a pre-approval for my insurance so I had to pay out of pocket. Not only did I have to wait, but I never got a phone call or message from Dr. Rubin after that. She totally dropped me as a patient and never gave a courtesy call to explain what might have happened or even that it wasn't happening. The nurse even turned off reply messages. Thankfully the nurse turned them back on the next day and asked if I wanted a follow up appointment with Dr. Rubin. I said yes. They didn't have an appointment to speak with Dr. Rubin for another 5 ish weeks. Which I decided to take. 5 weeks later I still hadn't heard a peep from Dr. Rubin. I felt that was very unprofessional and when I spoke to her she acted as if she couldn't believe she forgot to call me. After going through all of that with a patient you don't forget to call them. She clearly avoided me and even said she thought I might not want to talk to her. That is very unprofessional and I deserved an explanation. At the end of the day, I liked her as a human, but she was a terrible doctor to me. Lack of communication was always an issue with her. Even her nurses would tell me how hard of a time they had getting a hold of her. In my opinion, she should not be allowed to work with patients as she doesn't give them the quality of care they deserve. I don't want anyone else to have to go through what I went through.

Don't see her. She is only working at the clinic with patients one day a week and is focused more on research. You are not her priority.

For my protocol because I ovulate on the early side (LH surge on day 11 on a 29 day cycle)... Dr. Rubin felt I may be recruiting follicles earlier than my cycle. So we decided to go with an estrogen priming cycle for my egg retrievals. After priming with estrogen and HGH we did menopur (2 vials) and follistim 300 daily. First time it worked great and I ended up with 3 day 5 embryo's to test. 2 of which were Euploid. 2nd time we did the same thing and I got bad results. Only 2 embryos of too poor of quality to test that were both day 6. 3rd time we attempted the same protocol but HGH was out across the country and I had the flu, yet Dr. Rubin still decided I should continue with the egg retrieval (bad idea). I only got 1 embryo and we chose not to test it. 4BB. The first two retrievals were with the same donor sperm and the 3rd retrieval was with my partner's fresh sperm. We did ICSI all 3 times.

I had really good insurance so it's hard to say. I kept getting bills here and there and it added up for sure. Wasn't cheap. But the bad part about billing is they asked you to prepay. When you pre-paid then Billing would still send you the bill as if you hadn't pre paid and I accidentally overpaid and I'm still waiting to get reimbursed several months later. Very unorganized billing department. Do not recommend.

She was very adamant of only doing single embryo transfers expect for with the 2 untested poor quality embryo's. She was okay with transferring both of them. But only wanted to transfer the best embryo's first. One at a time.

Dr. Rubin is a fantastic doctor, we are so happy with all the services she provided. She is very experienced and diligent. She always treated us with empathy and respect. I appreciate her so much. She worked with us throughout our fertility journey.

I highly recommend working with Dr. Rubin

For embryo transfer it was approximately $4,000

Dr. Rubin recommended in our case a single embryo transfer