Across California's IVF insurance divide, many are priced out of parenthood

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Set us as preferred In February, when 40-year-old Nicole Torres visited her OB-GYN at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles to discuss why the recent nine-week ultrasound of her pregnancy had shown no heartbeat, she felt relieved to at least have clear next steps.Her doctor had given her a referral for an infertility specialist.Torres was hopeful about the timing, too.

She had learned about a new law requiring insurance companies to cover infertility diagnoses and treatment, specifically in vitro fertilization (IVF).Considered by fertility doctors to be the most effective medical intervention — in which eggs are surgically removed and combined with sperm inside a lab to create embryos that are transferred to the uterus — IVF is also the most expensive.

A single cycle including medication costs about $25,000 in Los Angeles, and many people need multiple rounds to bring home a baby.Yet after making an appointment, Torres, who lives in Ontario, received a message in her patient portal that made her heart sink.“The requested service is being denied because there is no covered benefit,” it read.

Confused, she did a quick search and read the fine print of California SB 729: The long-awaited legislation only applied to employers with 100 or more workers.Torres, an accountant who was working for a small brewery, didn’t qualify.“Why do some people get this benefit when other people don’t?” Torres asked.

“We’re all struggling with the same infertility, the same heartache.”Now she’s trying to find a way to afford IVF while feeling the pressure of time.So when she was laid off in April, she started looking for jobs with employers that offer coverage.“I’m 40.

I don’t want to go six more months and ‘keep trying,’ ” she says.::For most of its 50-year history, IVF was widely regarded as something o...