CNY is pretty good, actually
Just wanted to make a little defense of CNY, at least CNY Buffalo. They have their problems, but I have read so many horror stories here about other clinics, and it’s made me appreciate CNY.
Cons:
- you’ll have to wait for an appointment. It fluctuates, but 2-6 months seems pretty common.
- they’re busy. I did two egg retrievals at a very expensive, up scale clinic in NYC, and of COURSE they were more available and held my hand through everything more than CNY (CNY hasn’t treated me badly, but I’ll put that in the pros)
- “factory” I’ve seen people say they feel like it’s an IVF factory, and while I have never felt that way, they are doing a huge number of appointments every day
- communication; getting someone on the phone is TOUGH. You are not getting an answer after hours. They answer the portal messages pretty fast
- one of the people who works in billing is rude. Not too much to say about it, but everyone else is pretty nice
- lots of different providers; you don’t know who you’ll be seeing for your appointment until they come in. All of the providers at the Buffalo office are women, except one male doctor who performs retrievals + transfers, and the nurse anesthesiologist is male.
- children are allowed in the waiting room. It’s rare, but certainly happens
- the room for partners to collect semen sample is, by all accounts, pretty bleak
Pros:
- cost, almost goes without saying, but they’re SO much cheaper than everywhere else. Cost considerations extends to being very helpful if you’re looking for cheaper options for meds, including working with compounding pharmacies. And there’s just a general attitude of trying to save you money, which can’t be said everywhere
- they don’t care if you’re a little late. I completely missed an appointment around the holidays, just truly thought it was on a different day. They called me and had me just come in later that day, no fee, no criticism, nothing.
- they give patients a huge amount of freedom. This is really big for me, I realize other people might prefer more guidance or stronger suggestions. But if you want additional testing, they’ll just do it. Want to add or subtract a med? Sure, they’ll advise but if it’s safe, they’ll let you. I’m shocked by how often I read about people having their provider flatly refuse what patients want, nothing like that has ever happened to me at CNY
- NO “batch” retrieval or transfer nonsense. No putting everyone on birth control so everyone starts meds at the same time. They just go with your body’s timing, unless you want to time it differently
- I have never had a difficult time getting an appointment at the right time. I have had 6 or 7 baseline appointments with them, every single one was within 2-3 days of my period starting
- for communication, you can schedule a phone consult or longer appointment to discuss things in more detail. They don’t rush you too too bad at regular monitoring, but I’ve done this twice when I wanted to discuss results/questions in detail.
- for transfers, they do a “halfway” appointment where they do a blood test and check levels. Mine caught a problem, that they addressed. A lot of clinics make you just wait until the beta.
- they take anyone. BMI too high? They work with you. Too old? Let’s see what happens. Too poor? Payment plan.
- they will freeze/transfer any embryo you want to keep. I am VERY disturbed by clinics that refuse to freeze or transfer mosaic embryos and low graded embryos, or refuse to freeze or transfer day 3s. This goes back to letting you make your own decisions - you want to transfer an aneuploid embryo? That’s YOUR CHOICE. I’m not saying they won’t give you guidance or encourage you to make choices to minimize risk of miscarriage, but you are allowed to choose to accept the higher risk.
- small, and tough to replicate every time, but I feel like they have followed my emotional lead. I’m not big on being overly positive, and even if they default to “well sometimes it works out!” I felt like they’ve generally mirrored my tone in a way I appreciate. I think I would struggle at a clinic that forced an excessively positive attitude