IVF Success Rates Explained
We are proud of our statistics and are required to report them to the CDC National Registry. Patients and potential patients need to understand the complexities involved and these numbers and what they mean can be hard to navigate. While statistics should only be a part of the decision-making process involved in selecting a clinic, we currently have some of the highest success rate in the state of Washington.
How does ORH compare with other clinics?
Take a look at Overlake Reproductive Health’s success rates in comparison to the national average. Live Birth per Transfer is one of the best metrics by which to determine the best fertility clinic for you and your family.
These amazing rates are the result of both our highly trained staff and our never-ceasing push to incorporate new technologies and techniques such as freeze-all cycles and genetic testing (PGT-A) to give our patients their best chance at success.
Year after year our success rates are far above the national average and among the highest in Washington State.
Disclaimer: Patient medical characteristics, such as age, diagnosis, and ovarian reserve, affect the success of ART treatment. Comparison of success rates across clinics may not be meaningful due to differences in patient populations and ART treatment methods. The success rates displayed here do not reflect any one patient’s chance of success. Patients should consult with a doctor to understand their chance of success based on their own characteristics.
Many factors can help you determine the best fertility clinic for you and your family. While success rates should be at the top of your list, the atmosphere of the office and the empathy you feel from the doctors and staff should also give you a feeling you can trust. At ORH we take pride in treating all of our patients with compassion so patients can rest assured they are on the fastest, optimum course of treatment to obtaining a healthy baby.
We offer a wide range of innovative pricing options to our patients including the best 100% IVF refund program, and the only IUI discount programs in the region. Explore our Peace Of MindTM programs to find out more.
We’re proud of our success rates! But we’re prouder still of our patients and their courage to fight for their dream of having a family. ORH is a solid choice to achieve a safe pregnancy and a happy, healthy baby.
Putting it all into perspective
“There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics.”
-Autobiography of Mark Twain
- All statistical methods assess data from populations.
- But a patient is not a population.
- Each patient has a unique set of circumstances that defines their own specific likelihood of achieving a pregnancy.
- IVF statistics will look good if population data is controlled.
Our success rates are real and not ‘inflated’ or ‘gamed’
There are many ways to mislead with statistics, if a clinic is not honest. Here are some of the ways we DON’T make our stats look better.
Directing you to use donor eggs too early – we don’t have a cutoff age beyond which we will not let you try IVF with your own eggs such as 43 and above. Some patients never want to use an egg donor. Some couples want to try with their own eggs first before considering donor eggs. We treat the individual patient or couple not our success rates page.
Many clinics ‘cherry-pick’ the best patients to undergo IVF and recommend donor eggs for ‘poor responders’ or patients with a lower chance of success.
Some clinics also convert poor IVF egg retrieval cycles into IUI cycles – to make their stats look better. These cycles should be counted as IVF cycles if IVF was the intention at the start of the treatment.
At Overlake Reproductive Health we are quite proud of our IVF success rates. We strive to treat those patients whom we can help. And we’ll be honest with you about your chances before we start. We don’t pre-select our patient population in order to benefit our statistics. Our IVF success rates are ‘real’ with upward trends attributed to an unremitting introduction of cutting-edge ideas and technology.
Let’s look at two different types of Physicians Practice Statistics, Dr. Lookgood and Dr. Helpall:
| Dr. Lookgood | Dr. Helpall | |
|---|---|---|
| Screen (phone, records) | 100 | 100 |
| Patients seen | 75(75%) | 96(96%) |
| Accepted to program | 58(77%) | 94(98%) |
| Intended Retrieval Cycles | 40(69%) | 88(94%) |
| Embryo Transfers Started Because Dr. Lookgood pre-screens his patient population, most patients that begin retrieval cycles are likely to have viable embryos for transfer on their first cycle. Dr. Helpall allows patients with a poorer prognosis to attempt retrievals, and do multiple retrievals, even though not all will have viable embryos. |
35(88%) | 35(40%) |
| Transfers, 2 or more embryos Dr. Lookgood transfers more than one embryo per transfer to increase the number of pregnancies per retrieval, whereas Dr Helpall almost never transfers more than one embryo, and uses less dangerous methodologies like PGT-A to increase the odds of pregnancy per transfer. |
20(57%) | 1 (3%) |
| Pregnancies | 18 | 28 |
| Live Births | 16 | 24 |
Dr. Helpall treats patients according to a philosophy typical of medicine in most fields, and the philosophy that we believe is the correct one:
Take patients in the order that they come to you, help those who have a chance of being helped, do your best for each individual patient, and let population statistics fall where they may.
As you can see, Dr. Lookgood has a different vision. Take a second look at the same data as reported following the guidelines of the National Registry.
“Pregnancy rate” statistics look like this:
| Dr. Lookgood | Dr. Helpall | |
|---|---|---|
| Pregnancies per retrieval | 45% | 32% |
| Pregnancies per transfer | 51% | 80% |
| Live Births per intended retrieval | 40% | 27% |
| Live Births per transfer | 46% | 69% |
At Overlake Reproductive Health we are quite proud of our IVF success rates. We strive to treat those patients whom we can help. We don’t try to pre-select our patient population in order to benefit our statistics. Our IVF success rates are “real” with upward trends attributable to an unremitting introduction of cutting-edge ideas and technology.
