Hello all! My wife and I have been on this journey now for a while. And finally got insurance that covered IVF this year. We opted to go with UChicago's team with Dr.Zamah. Everything was going very smoothly until a week ago. My wife is scheduled to start on her injections for egg retrieval next week. Last week we got a message that our insurance (United) denied the follistim and menopur, despite authorizing the IVF treatment. Supposedly this is somewhat normal and they filed an appeal.
Then yesterday we got a message saying that we needed to prepay for egg freezing (1500$) and storage (75$ per month). I expected the storage fees but not the egg freezing. Fine. They also then mention it will be 2700$ for ICSI. This struck us by surprise since our doctor said due my wife's age (27) and everything looking good test/health wise, we could do conventional insemination of the donor sperm. They submitted for preauth for ICSI just in case it would be covered (because if it was then sure). The insurance denied this since there wasn't any history stating there were issues and my wife being young.
However yesterday they said because we were using donor sperm, they are REQUIRED to do ISCI. So essentially we had a 4200$ bill dropped on our laps a week before her start date, with the medication appeal still pending, and her being on their prescribed birth control (which has been an adventure on its own). We saw that even though we are with IChicago, they are using FCI labs. I am not seeing great things about them. We are feeling really frustrated, upset. And a bit discriminated against (if I were a cis man, they would not require ICSI. It feels like the queer tax). It also does not feel like it bodes well for no more future surprises. Have any of you used UChicago, and is our chain being yanked? Any advice for moving forward?