CD5: Time to act.

Hey, did you know fertility treatments are expensive?

Let me clue you in our a little scenario that’s been eating away at us. So, we live in this great Commonwealth of Massachusetts and my fertility treatments are covered by my insurance, as mandated by state law. Piece. O. Cake. Right?

Ha ha ha, no.

The Massachusetts insurance mandate doesn’t cover everything related to our donor cycle. In fact, there’s a lot that’s not covered at all, including: our legal fees; our donor’s diagnostic screening; mental health screenings for both our donor and Larry and I; our clinic’s donor coordination fee; and (weirdly enough) our donor and Larry’s required FDA blood testing. And let’s not talk about how much my donor’s meds cost, even with insurance.

Then throw into the mix that our donor lives out of state, so her Day 2 and Day 5 monitoring are being conducted at a fertility clinic near her home and of course, neither my nor her insurance covers that monitoring, so that’s another out-of-pocket expense we hadn’t planned on.

We had budgeted for about a certain amount out-of-pocket, but between things we thought were covered versus what’s actually covered, we’re paying a LOT more out-of-pocket than we thought. While we’re still deeply grateful for the coverage we have, to be off by $5-6K is a bit of an issue right now.

And we’re the lucky ones who just happen to live in one of only 15 states in this country with mandated insurance coverage. To be honest, if we didn’t have any coverage, we wouldn’t even be cycling at all right now.

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We have our own plan on how we’re going to make up that difference in what we’ve budgeted versus what it’s costing us out-of-pocket. Remember that eBook I mentioned yesterday? That’s part of it. (Which, if you’re not on my e-List, sign up now so you get get the scoop on the date my eBook drops!)

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The Family Act: tell me know know about it.

You don’t?

Let me lay it on you real nice like this:

The Family Act of 2011 (S 965/HR 3522) is a bill that proposes a tax credit for out-of-pocket costs associated with infertility treatment. It’s not seeking to create mandates in every state. It’s modeled after the current Adoption Tax Credit (which also desperately needs your help).

The Family Act was introduced last year. And now time is running out to get it off the ground in Congress. RESOLVE needs your help. Without it, we may not have this kind of opportunity again for a LONG time if this bill doesn’t become law before Congress wraps up this year.

Here’s a-what you need to know and do:

Lord knows we could benefit from The Family Act and there are millions of Americans just like us paying two, three, four, five times as much as we are out-of-pocket, if not more. It only takes about 10 minutes to contact your legislators. I’ve emailed, called and even visited mine in person or talked directly with their staffers. Have you?

The time to act is now.

PS – You know you love RESOLVE’s infographic hotness, right? Please Pin, Share, Tweet and re-blog the crap out of this. Eyeballs = clicks = action. Make it happen people!