Does Health Insurance Cover Egg Freezing?

Freezing your eggs can be a major expense. With most clinics and egg freezing companies, the cost of freezing your eggs can run between $10,000 - 20,000, including upfront consultation costs and the retrieval process. Once the retrieval is complete, you can expect to pay an additional storage fee, which ranges depending on the clinic or facility. 

We believe the best time to freeze your eggs is when you can least afford it. While we provide more affordable — even free! — egg freezing options, if you do not qualify for our Split program, where you can freeze your eggs for free when you give half to another family who can’t conceive, we’ve still lightened the financial load of egg freezing with partnerships and discounts as part of our Keep program. That said, we always recommend taking a closer look at the fine print of your health insurance policy to see what you’re entitled to.

As of June 2022, there are 20 states in the US that have laws on the books requiring health insurance companies provide some type of coverage for infertility. However, for those looking to be proactive about their fertility and freeze their eggs without an infertility diagnosis, coverage is even more sparse.

In a 2020 study tracking the coverage of employer sponsored fertility benefits, Mercer discovered that just 42 percent of employers with 20,000 or more employees provide coverage for IVF. Unfortunately, those numbers drop significantly for those looking to help offset the cost of proactive egg freezing, with just 19 percent of employers in that same size employee pool providing coverage. 

If you don’t live in a state with mandated fertility coverage (or work for one of the 19 percent of large companies that include egg freezing as part of their benefit package) there are a few things you need to know about how your health insurance policy stacks up when it comes to freezing your eggs. 

Your health insurance may cover some costs

According to the journal Dovepress, the process of freezing your eggs is called vitrification. There are several steps involved in completing the vitrification process. While your insurer may cover parts of this process (like some basic blood work) other parts may require you pay out of pocket (like the cost to store your eggs after they’ve been frozen). 

• Consultations: You will likely have a sit down meeting with your doctor to discuss your fertility plans. If your insurance covers fertility procedures like having your eggs frozen, your insurer may cover these types of visits in full. If they're not covered you may need to foot the bill for a portion of the visit like a co-pay.       
• Blood tests and lab work: You’re going to have to have to undergo a few different types of tests throughout the process of freezing your eggs to monitor important things like the quantity and quality of your eggs (ovarian reserve testing), as well as an  ultrasound of your ovaries (to check their function), and screens that will confirm your overall health (which include a variety of tests including routine lab work like a Complete Blood Count). 
• Medications: Typically your doctor will prescribe synthetic hormones to help manage your ovulation. There are a few different different types of medication used, depending on what stage of the process you're in, including drugs that can help your ovaries produce multiple eggs ahead of the retrieval and ones that will prevent premature ovulation so that you and your medical team can get the timing of your retrieval just right.      
• Retrieval: Once it's time for your egg retrieval, you'll do this on-site as an outpatient procedure where you go home the same day. You'll be under anesthesia for this procedure, requiring the expertise of a few different medical professionals.   
• Storage fees: After your eggs have been successfully retrieved they will need to go into storage. Depending on the type of facility you used for your retrieval, this may be handled by them or taken care of by a third party.

Questions to ask your insurer

To get the best picture of what your insurance covers when you freeze your eggs you should call your benefit hotline to ask a few key coverage questions like: 

• Are all of my medical consultations covered, especially if I meet with a few different facilities before choosing one?
• Do I have to have a diagnosis or preexisting condition to have any portion of freezing my eggs covered?
• How does the coverage for freezing my eggs factor into my lifetime limit for fertility treatment? 
• Does my coverage change depending on whether the retrieval was successful? 
• Will you cover any of the ongoing costs of freezing my eggs (like storage) and is there a time limit on how long that coverage lasts?
• What are my coverage options if I decide to use my eggs later on?

Making freezing your eggs more affordable

Through our Split program, members are able to freeze their eggs for free when they give half to another family in need of donated eggs. This could include LGBTQ+ parents, couples with infertility, or those with other fertility-impacting medical conditions. 

If you’d rather keep all of the eggs from your retrieval, our Keep program still offers a more affordable way of freezing your eggs when your insurance won’t cover the total cost. Depending on where you live, some of the benefits of Keep may include lower medication costs, egg storage fees, and discounted consultations discounts. 

Summing it up

Through most avenues, egg freezing can be pretty cost prohibitive. We’re excited to change this, while supporting reproductive choice for all women and helping intended parents seeking egg donation to help complete their families.