Hellobee

I would love to say that Mr. Starfish and I were diligent and smart and careful in selecting our first infertility clinic when we realized that we needed help starting our family. Instead, I got the name of a clinic from a friend of ours who basically said her experience there “wasn’t bad.” I gave that clinic a call one afternoon and made an appointment to see the first available doctor. Although we spent over one year with that first doctor, I never once felt a good patient/doctor connection with him, and I was frustrated more than I was satisfied with the entire experience.

It took us two more doctors and two more years until we ever saw a positive pregnancy test. I learned a lot over those years as I progressed through different clinics and doctors about what to look for in a good infertility doctor and clinic. I also became a lot smarter about getting other patients’ advice about their experience with their own doctors and clinics. I selectively reached out to individuals who had similar infertility issues to my own for their specific doctor recommendations, I learned from them which doctors were open to different or experimental therapies, I paid a lot of attention to SART success rates, and I also placed a lot of importance on the nursing staff (which any infertility patient will tell you is your day-to-day contact, not your doctor). While we eventually found the doctor and clinic who would lead us to conceive our miracle babies, I have to say that a lot of research and effort went into finding him. Countless hours of online research, hours of coffee chats with support group friends, and hours of phone consultations.

Frankly, couples struggling through infertility have enough on their minds that they shouldn’t have to spend so many hours finding the perfect doctor and clinic. And that is why I’m so excited about a new website called FertilityIQ, which basically aggregates patient reviews of infertility clinics and doctors. This is a relatively new website, and one that I really wish had been around when I was desperately seeking unbiased and realistic information and opinions about different clinics and doctors.

I view FertilityIQ as the Yelp for infertility clinics. Every day patients have anonymously posted reviews of their doctors, clinics and nurses. You can search for a specific clinic, or a particular doctor within a clinic. They also have information on the particular ages of the reviewers as well as their specific infertility conditions so that you can try to hone in on the patients who have similar issues to your own. You can also look more broadly at a full-city level to see which clinics and doctors have been most highly rated in the geographical region that you may be considering. Another thing that I really like is that each reviewer has the option to explain the specific cycle protocol that led to success or failure with a particular doctor – this could be an amazing way to brainstorm potential treatment protocols for any patient who has already exhausted most standard treatments. Best of all, all of the reviews and data are free to access, which is music to any infertility patient’s ears, since it can often feel that you pay for everything in the infertility process!

One of my favorite parts of this website is that it was started by a couple who themselves struggled with infertility. They have dedicated their own time and money to build this service to help other couples who are suffering from the same frustrations that they once felt to find the very best doctor. Furthermore, they really care about the information that they are providing and they independently verify each and every review that gets posted to their system.

FertilityIQ is still in its infancy stages, so many of the doctor reviews are somewhat difficult to decipher. For instance, I’ve noticed that some of the doctors in Chicago that I’ve never heard of are rated extremely highly, and that’s because one single reviewer rated them that way. Conversely, I’ve noticed that some of the most famous and well-known Chicago doctors don’t have the matching high scores that I would expect, but it’s because they have more reviewers and more reviewers means a more accurate picture of the doctor’s reputation and perceived expertise.

Just like Yelp, I expect this website will only get better with time and with more reviews. If you’ve struggled with infertility in the past and you visited a clinic or doctor, I strongly encourage you to hop over to FertilityIQ and fill out a review of your experience. It may be just the review that the next crushed, worn-down, exhausted and frustrated infertility patient may use to pick the perfect doctor to fix a difficult diagnosis. Let’s pay it forward!