The important role of a patient care coordinator in assisted reproduction treatments

This is a very common question. Sometimes, for some patients depending on the country where they live, it’s a challenge to come to Spain. What we do at the clinic is that we can facilitate a letter saying that you are flying to Spain for medical treatment. Most of our patients receiving these letters need to go to the embassy of Spain in their own countries and with this letter most of them. I can say that all of them because I haven’t had recent denials, they have had the permission and the authorization to fly to Spain. The visas have been issued, as I mentioned before, medical treatment is a strong reason to come to Spain. We as a serious clinic with over 40 years of experience in the field, we’re well known, not only locally but internationally, and by giving you a letter saying that you are coming to Spain for a treatment, you shouldn’t have any kind of problems with the visa.

We have different plans, as you know everything starts with this first consultation where the doctor will recommend which is the best IVF treatment for you. We have the regular IVF, we have the IVF with pre-genetic screening, or we have other ways of doing your IVF treatment. The costs can start from 4995 EUR, however, I recommend contacting us directly, so we can give you a personalized cost estimate based on your specific case and what you will need. The medication is another important question, it’s not included in our treatments. What we can do as a clinic is to provide you with the prescriptions, and you can go to any pharmacy in Spain or your country and buy the medication just to give you a broad idea an IVF treatment medication for IVF treatment is around 1200 to 1300 EUR here in Spain. It will depend on the pharmacy you go to, but that’s the average price, so you can have an idea and compare it with the prices, in your own country.

Understanding the current situation and some travel restrictions or some limitations when patients fly back to their countries, we have many options. We have the option of having a treatment in one visit, however, it is important, for example, with an IVF treatment why we recommend to come here to Spain for a first visit because initially a sperm sample needs to be left and this sample if it’s okay, it will be frozen and studied for the procedure. Other options we have are that we’re able to give online consultations, and instead of having the on-site consultation, we can have the online consultation, however, the recommendation always is to be here if this is the case that is being considered.

There could be a situation happening, which we do not think honestly it will happen, but we do have the option of starting the preparation back home, and then you could only come at the time of the egg retrieval and then the embryo transfer. It’s important to know that you will need to be here the day before the egg retrieval, then the next day when we retrieve the eggs your partner, we’ll be able to leave his fresh sperm sample, so we can fertilize the eggs and wait 5 days in the incubator until we’re able to perform the embryo transfer, this is in case of a regular IVF.

In the case of egg donation, it can easily be done in one trip working in the same way, however, the doctor will need to study the sperm before and let you know if it’s possible to leave this fresh sample in the second visit. If you’re using donor sperm, it shouldn’t be a problem at all because your second visit to the clinic will be only for 3 days in the case of egg donation. After all, if it’s an IVF with donor sperm, we will be able is to fertilize the eggs the day of the egg retrieval with the donor sperm that we already selected for you and then 5 days later you can easily perform the embryo transfer, so yes it is a possibility.

There are three important things to know about the legislation in Spain. The first thing is that surrogacy is not a possibility in Spain. Donation is possible, however, the law says two important things, the first one is that the donors are completely anonymous. This means that the doctor will be the one selecting the right donor for you according to two different criteria. The first one is blood group compatibility and the second one is physical characteristics, so this means that the doctor will find a donor for you, that’s compatible with you, and that looks like you, so the baby looks like you. Using those principles and understanding that, it’s perfectly possible to have an egg donation treatment in Spain, to select the proper donor for you and do it, but surrogacy is not allowed, and egg donation is possible under these conditions.

Normally, the waiting time to find a donor is about 2 to 3 weeks, it will be the only time to find the right donor for you a compatible donor for you, and a donor that looks like you. To find a donor that looks like you, we count on technology besides you will fill the form of a physical characteristic. We use Fenomatch technology, which allows us to select from the donors that were already selected by the doctor to see their pictures and with the system compare them with your picture to find the donor that has the best match. This is a process that won’t take long, and as I mentioned, it could be two to three weeks approximately.

The maximum age is 50 years old, however, this needs to be evaluated by the doctor. Once you have the first consultation as you know each patient is different, the doctor will tell you if at 50 years old, you’re able to perform a treatment or not. It’s important to know that the recommendations are based on scientific evidence, and the doctor will give you the best recommendation is to make sure that there are no further problems and that you have a successful result.

As I mentioned before, the legislation is very strict, so this means that the only criteria to select a donor is blood group compatibility and physical characteristics. This means that we will find a donor that phenotypically matches you and a donor that’s obviously compatible with you. Many patients ask if Fenomatch is used as well for sperm donors, yes, it is. Fenomatch is used for all donors, and all our donors need to pass through a very exhaustive selection process to be part of our pool of donors, but yes, Fenomatch is used, we cannot choose any donor based on nationality or culture, or heritage. This is only the selection criteria.

Yes, it is an option. We do have the option of creating an embryo from an egg from our bank and from sperm from our bank. This is also what is important to know that we will use Fenomatch technology for that. There is also the option of adopting an embryo and having an embryo that maybe another couple decided to donate to another couple, so this is also an option, however, the waiting time will be longer as we need to find a compatible embryo for our patient. We need to find embryos done from gametes with the phenotypical characteristics that match the recipient’s mother, but it is a possibility. What we always recommend is to maybe have a procedure done using the regular techniques, but yes, it is a possibility as well.

Basically, what we do for the treatment is charging for the procedure of performing the transfer, for the medical assistance of your preparation. Normally, the embryo adoption treatment it’s a treatment that involves only transferring an embryo that was already created, and it’s less expensive than creating a new embryo from frozen eggs and frozen sperm. If you would like to have more information and you would like to receive the cost estimates for this process, just let us know, you can easily write to us at [email protected], and we can give you a call, we can explain all the options available and also we can send you the cost estimates.

We are used to working with international patients, so this means that each coordinator, we have a multilingual team of coordinators, so we have a network of places where you are able to have treatments done, for example, in the UK, which is most of the patients I work with. English speaking patients mostly, we do have places, scanning agencies where you can easily go to have your ultrasounds done, you can go to have your tests done and have everything prepared for your treatment, but yes, we do have an international network of clinics and diagnostic center that will be able to assist you.

To be honest, there is a limitation, there is a curfew that I guess is happening in many countries that from midnight to 6 am, it’s not possible to be in the streets wondering, but there are no limitations to travel to Spain. As I mentioned, if you come for a justified reason such as a medical procedure, there shouldn’t be any problems, there are no problems, and we haven’t had any kind of problems with that so far. The limitations, they depend on the countries. The most challenging situation we’ve been experiencing with patients from the UK is the mandatory quarantine that sometimes they need to take when they return from Spain, so for this, we cannot do anything about it.

To come to Spain and to have everything done here, there are no restrictions also, the safety measures that we have adopted in our clinic are very strict, individual waiting rooms, everything is disinfected, social distancing is very important and wearing a mask is now mandatory, not only in our clinic but in Spain in general. If you come to Spain, you will see that even if you are in the middle of a park with no one surrounding you, you need to wear a mask, so this is something that it’s mandatory, and it’s helpful to keep the safety and to maintain safety, and avoid the increase of cases around, those are the measures but to fly to Spain, there are no problems. We’re receiving normally patients, it will depend on the restrictions of their countries once they fly back from here.