NYU Fertility Center

Below is the brief summary of our experience with NYU.
* I only spoke with Dr. Berkley once on the initial visit. I felt that Dr. Berkley was not involved in the decision making/​guidance after the initial visit.
* Terrible internal communication between the NYU staff (physicians and nurses) as I was repeatedly told erroneous or conflicting information/​guidance.
* I and the NYU staff was not able to communicate with Dr. Berkley in regards to issue that were time sensitive.
* Overall while I am sure that Dr. Berkley is an expert in the infertility treatment, I personally did not feel that his care was different/​exceptional from other physicians and that NYU internal workflow/​communication was the worst I have ever seen.

From the donor perspective, some thoughts: this place is rundown as heck. Maybe the building is just old, but there are scuff marks, crumbling facilities/​furniture, tape on wall cracks and messes everywhere — not the kind of place that made me comfortable. They don’t even have a sheet for your exams — it’s just «here, toss this extra gown over your lap.»
The onus is on the donor to know exactly what is going on every step of the way; as another reviewer said, these people are AWFUL communicators, both with donors and the donor agencies. That complicates how and when you get your meds as well as make your travel plans. They don’t treat you like the patient they should be taking care of, exactly; it’s more like a business arrangement where you have to tell them everything. They don’t track your meds, so if you run out of something and didn’t tell them, you’re SOL. Don’t expect them to remember or take the initiative on anything.
All that aside — my post-​op care was phenomenal. I know that sounds like a 180, but once I got through the actual procedure, everything went smoothly. The doctors were kind and the nurses, superb. I had no trouble in recovery.

I think the doctors are top-​notch here and they are worth coming here for, but the support staff needs reorganization.
The nurses are good at responding to voicemails, but their response is always to tell you to speak with billing. Their default start of conversation is always to ask «did you speak with billing?» I’ve learned that if you press them, sometimes they will actually look in your chart and see that there really is no need to speak with billing.
And I’ve found that billing only returns calls about 1 out of 4 times. Several months ago, I was told that I had to speak with a particular person at billing before I had a procedure. I left message after message. When I spoke to others at the office, they kept telling me to call her. She finally called me back over a week later and told me she had been on vacation — apparently no one was covering for her and no one knew she was on vacation. In the meantime, after speaking with someone below her at the office, I called insurance myself and relayed all the info — Insurance told me to go ahead with the procedure. When the woman from NYU returned from vacation and returned my call, she became upset with me because I had spoken to someone else in her department in billing! It was really quite odd. But, If I had waited, I would have missed that month’s window.
As a patient, I’ve continued to experience this type of disorganization with each cycle. I’ve at various times waited two hours to be seen during morning monitoring — and double checked to see if my name had been called — have been told no, it hadn’t, and then upon seeing the nurse, have been told that i was called earlier. Unfortunately, it seems that the staff does not communicate very well. Others I’ve spoken with have also experienced it. It’s very stressful.
Also — I would skip the Recombine Genetic testing that they recommend here. I was previously tested at another place and that should have been enough. I was told that Recombine would accept my insurance — and my insurance did pay them over $ 1500 for the carrier map testing, but yet I still received a bill from Recombine for over 4 hundreds dollars. (Even though they only charge people without insurance $ 345). When i called Recombine, they told me they could reduce the payment, but refused to issue a new bill for me stating this. I felt like i was being jerked around.
Despite this, I think my doctor is great. Just wish the rest of the experience was more pleasant and straight forward.

I am surprised to see so few reviews here of this clinic. I will add my two cents and will try to be as fair and intelligent as possible in my thoughts, because, if you are reading this, you are contemplating some big stuff in your life!
Disclaimer: my partner and I did this electively — we froze our embryos — and we are not trying to conceive at this time. So I might have had higher expectations for this place, having not been in a situation where I felt that I had no other options.
I totally agree with the previous reviewer (G.B.) in her two main points:
1) If you want results, you are as likely to get them here as anywhere else
2) They are NOT into giving «more emotional type support to their clients». Amen, sister! You are so right on that.
We had Dr. Keefe, and he is awesome. One of the best doctors I’ve ever worked with. He made an immediate connection with us and I really value that. I can say that Dr. Grifo is awesome, too, because I had some contact with him also. But unfortunately, you spend very little of your time here with your doc. You will be making regular visits, and it is the rest of the staff that you will be working with, and you will be super hormone’d up and extra sensitive, to boot. I had a few bad experiences with the staff, especially this super mean lady in the recovery room, OF ALL PLACES (when you are waking up from the anesthesia, from your procedure) — dang! She was just super gruff and mean, and at one point just walked away while I was sitting alone and crying, during my intake for the procedure, when I was anxious and scared. Ugh. If I had once piece of feedback for this place, it would be to please only hire people with a decent bedside manner, especially those who work directly with patients. Sometimes it felt like they were taking the «care» out of medical care. Also, you feel a little bit like cattle, going through the process. I wanted to tattoo my name and date of birth on my forehead, from getting asked so many times.
My other negative is that they really just don’t prepare you for the enormity of what you are going through. I would read up on IVF, the hormones, the injections you give yourself, the pain and discomfort that you will experience, and the procedure, before you proceed. They really don’t provide the support for the emotions that you will experience, or even the physical pain, so you have to find this support elsewhere. (I suggest hooking up with someone who has been through it before and putting them on speed-​dial on your phone). When I think about it, this is crazy to me, because, by all accounts, stress and anxiety are really bad for fertility, but they don’t seem to give a crap about any stress or anxiety you are feeling. Nobody will ever simply ask you how you are feeling. They’re not about that.
The good stuff is: they know what they are doing, and I believe they are actually one of the clinics who helped make this whole field in the first place. I overheard a couple other ladies questioning their medicine doses and the timing of their procedures, and I just would caution against going down that road. I think it will make you crazy to second-​guess the doctors here, but hey, hormones make you do crazy things! Anything having to do with making babies is an inexact science, that’s just the way it is. But I believe that this place has the most data, the most information, to base their decisions on. It is also an emerging and changing field. There may be students in some of your appointments. (I’m all for it because it will help future couples conceive, but if you don’t want a student in there, just speak up and say so.)
Another «good» thing, if you can call it that, is that the injections that you give yourself — that you will dread — are really no bigs! You can just watch the training videos a bunch of times til you feel comfortable doing it (that’s what I did). Needles have come a LONG way. They are tiny now. Try not to over-​worry this part.
The other «good» thing, if you can call it that, is that the procedure, which I spent a lot of time dreading, it no bigs either. They put you in what they call, and I am not kidding, «twilight sedation», which is great. The anesthesiologist stays with you the whole time. The sedation is awesome. It is all the stuff Michael Jackson was into :)
My recovery was also no bigs at all — can’t say that I had any issues with that.
So, the bottom line for me is: this is a results-​oriented medical clinic that will not hold your hand through any of this. They are way more focused on the next generation than on this one. Which is, after all, their job.

We are patients of Dr. Grifo and couldn’t have had a better experience and are sooo thankful for his expertise. We had several failed attempts to have a child in the state we live in. After 4 unsuccessful IVFs with unexplained infertility, we were dropped by insurance who claimed our chances of having a baby were under 5%. We didnt give up, but a few months later, our in-​state fertility clinic dropped us after the 5^th IVF because they couldn’t figure out what was wrong.
We decided to travel to New York and try NYU because they have one of the highest success rates in the world… and I now know why. We went in for our first visit with Dr. Grifo and, even though I had an incredibly large history file for him to review, he knew exactly what to try from day 1… this is especially impressive since everyone else had no idea how to proceed. Dr. Grifo is unbelievably brilliant, he gave us great advice along the way, he addressed all our questions and concerns, and their clinic is state-​of-​the-​art in technical advancements. After learning a lot through our 6^th IVF, we did another 2 IVFs with successful results. We are now expecting our first baby soon and couldn’t say enough positive things about NYU and specifically Dr. Grifo.
To anyone considering using NYU, keep in mind that the NYU team isn’t there for emotional support… they deal with facts and are there to help give you the highest probability of having a baby. Our first clinic was definitely giving more emotional type support to their clients, but that got us no where in the end. NYU is the best at what they do. When you go to the best of the best, you DO get different results. Let them do what they do best… help give you the greatest gift of life.
Thank you to the entire NYU team for not giving up on us when everyone else did! We are very thankful.

This is an excellent fertility center. We did 4 IVF cycles at Columbia, had consultations and Cornell and at New Hope, and then found NYU. NYU was sooooo much better than any of the above. The doctors are amazing, and very approachable. The place is super-​organized, morning monitoring is really efficient and quick (unlike, say, Columbia). Everything is digital, and everyone is on board at all times. In particular, we loved Dr. Keefe. He’s truly sweet and honestly caring, on top of being an amazing expert. He was open to trying new things, and answered every question I sent, at any time of day… Wouldn’t send my friends/​relatives any place else!