This week on Inside Reproductive Health Griffin Jones interviews Pamela Hirsch from Baby Quest Foundation. After witnessing her daughter struggle to conceive, she launched Baby Quest in 2012 and has since awarded grants totaling $2.3 million. Grants like the ones from Baby Quest are not only beneficial to the patients, but also to the clinics by increasing conversion rates from consult to treatment and getting paid quicker than from insurance claims.
In this episode we cover the topics of:
The perception of scholarship programs among doctors
Where to learn more about fertility scholarships
How to utilize these programs in your arsenal to increase conversion rates
Links:
Pamela Hirsch: linkedin.com/in/pamelababyquest/
Baby Quest Foundation
Website: www.babyquestfoundation.org
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BabyQuestFoundation
Twitter: https://twitter.com/babyquestgrants
Transcript
[00:00:56] Griffin Jones: On today's episode, I talked to Pamela Hirsch. Pam started, Baby Quest is a scholarship for those undergoing fertility treatment. They've awarded $2.3 million so far just have had their 120th baby, born from the scholarship. I'm gonna go into the details of why this is so pivotal at the finance stage between consult and treatment inside the fertility center to have relationships with scholarship programs, like this have education about them.
Today's shout out is going to go to Dr. Lora Shahine. Dr. Shahine hit me too, Baby Quest, she was a board member for. Time still, maybe as far as I know, but at least she was, and I don't know if I've shouted out Dr. Shahine. I may have, I don't really keep track of the shout outs guys. So please let Lora know that I shouted her out on this episode.
And if I already did. two shout outs is just fine. It's good to be benevolent with your shout outs. On today's episode. It's not that Baby Quest is the only good scholarship program. And I feel like people are going to be like, why the hell didn't you mention mine? I'm sorry. ECG scholarships is another really good one.
There's there's a few more that I'm forgetting that people are probably going to remind me of in the emails, but they should, and they should be on your list as well. So finance is one of the stickiest points of moving people from. Consult to treatment and having a list of scholarships and having different places that people can apply is the final catch.
For those that aren't able to get employer coverage, aren't able to get insurance coverage. Maybe you can't get a loan maybe you can't get money from friends and family. It's important that you have all of those steps. We want to reduce. The number to as minimal as possible of people that can't afford treatment and scholarships are your last line of defense, everybody needs to have them.
And so we talk about what that's like with Pam and how they interface with clinics and pay clinics, frankly, a lot more easily than many insurance companies do. So I hope you enjoy this episode with Pam Hirsch.
Ms. Hirsch, Pam, welcome to Inside Reproductive Health.
[00:03:10] Pamela Hirsch: Thank you. Thank you for having me here today.
[00:03:13] Griffin Jones: You were brought to my attention organization was brought to my attention by some people that have been on your board. And I do get a lot of requests from non-profits to come on the show and sometimes I have them on and other times I'm too busy and sometimes it's little.
Of luck of the draw. So I hope people don't hate me that have wanted to be on the show, but haven't been, but Baby, Quest I knew of, because I know some of the docs that have been on your board for a few years today, I want to talk about how you work with or how you interact with. With clinics, but let's first just start off with some of the backstory of Baby Quest.
You've awarded more than $2 million at this point. You've got, you have almost 120 babies born.
You've got 10 pregnancies right now from Baby Quest funds. So let's just talk about how. Got there and what it is that got you there
[00:04:12] Pamela Hirsch: and actually to correct you as of yesterday, we have 120 babies.
[00:04:17] Griffin Jones: There we go yesterday and down what a milestone
[00:04:21] Pamela Hirsch: it is.
I started Baby Quest almost 10 years ago. It will be 10 years since we've given out the first grant. This March March, 2022 will be 10 years. And I was totally out in a different area, different workspace than fertility. I was one of the founders of a group called the Princeton Review Test Prep Company.
And I had worked in education for a long time. And. After I spoke my part of the company very soon after our younger daughter started to experience issues, trying to have a child. And she and her husband first, she had a miscarriage. Then there was Clomid and there were many IUIs. And then for IVFs, each ending and miscarriage until it was discovered that she needed to have a child via surrogacy, because she couldn't carry.
And this opened my eyes to the world of infertility and seeing the disparity of those who can afford, procedures such as IVF and surrogacy and those who can't. And the fact that many people don't have insurance coverage for this. So that's when I started Baby Quest in March of 2012, that was when we first gave out our first grant.
And that was maybe $9,000 to grants. One very small one for IUI, one larger one produced the first baby in Reno, Nevada. And since then we've grown considerably. We, as I, as you said, we've given out over $2.3 million now, and 120 babies and counting, and we do this twice a year, giving out grants.
[00:06:08] Griffin Jones: So, how did you start to get some doctors on your board?
How did you even get a board? If I look at your, I look at your board, I recognize 5, 6, 7 names on here. And so how did that come to be?
[00:06:24] Pamela Hirsch: Well, let's see. When I first started, I pretty much saw somebody on the street and said, oh, you want to be on my board? I have no idea what, whether it would be able to be around next year, but here's the idea.
And as we progressed, obviously we became more selective and I started going to some conferences and I met some amazing doctors. I actually knew Dr. Marc Kalan first here in Encino or Los Angeles. And then, eventually by word of mouth because of what we were doing connected with several other doctors.
I believe we have six doctors from all around the country, on our board now, and we're very fortunate to have their expertise to guide us in the medical part of evaluating applicants.
[00:07:17] Griffin Jones: So how do you evaluate applicants? One of the things that I look at from, fertility patient journey standpoint is you first, you attract their attention and.
And educate them on the problem that they're facing, then educate them on your approach to solving the solution. Then you have to get them into the office. And there's a gap from when they contact you to when they actually come in and people can fall off there and then you get them in the office and you, you ostensibly educate them or test them depending on when follow up or the first visit comes.
But then you have a gap between that consult and treatment. And in that. So between the second and third phases, finances is hugely at play. And so anything with finance. We tried to help with the system that people use on the clinic side and the information that patients are prepared with before hand.
But you're coming in, you, you are helping with that, but 120 people out of, out of all of the people that need help. Of course you are. You're helping as many people as you can. And that's a fraction. Who needs help. So how do you make that decision?
[00:08:30] Pamela Hirsch: Right. Well, first of all, as far as when the people consult us, we, we get applicants after they've been sitting in the business office and they know what their treatment plan is.
They need IVF they need surrogacy. They need sprayed donor sperm, donor. Genetic testing to eliminate cystic fibrosis or taste, acts, something like that. And they sit there in the financial counselors office and they learn what the price tag is. And they start to cry and realize that they don't have the money.
And that's when people start to do their research on what's out there for me, you know, my insurance won't cover this, my employer, you know, won't cover this. What kind of resources are out there? So that's generally when somebody reaches out to us and when they apply and we have two grant cycles a year we receive hundreds of applications and we.
As many applications are good. We just are obviously strapped by how many donations we get. And we can only give out the amount of money that we have. So it's a very selective process and the way applicants are selected There are several committee levels. Our board consists not just of the doctors that you mentioned that will come into play, but also of financial people of women's health advocates of surrogacy agency owners of people who have dealt with infertility in their own lives and have.
Oh, an expertise in the subject, whether it's personal or professional. So the first round of applications is looks in the application is looked at, does this include everything? Did the person submitted doctors evaluation? It's everything there. That's the first round next round. We have a fantastic committee of seven people around the country and we go through the applications one by one, and we eliminate is the person asking for more than what we think.
I can give just a myriad of, of different, different criteria. Are
[00:10:43] Griffin Jones: you investigating their coverage as well? Like they broke down in the financial office, but wait, turns out they actually do have progeny coverage.
[00:10:51] Pamela Hirsch: They submit their insurance information and we don't do that for everybody. But we do that when it becomes, when the group is more limited, we can't do that for hundreds.
And there's. That are just, you know, if somebody is, is asking for $50,000, we can't give that to one person. And the thing with our grant is that if somebody needs. $10,000. For instance, their procedure is 15,000 and they have 5,000 of their own. They need $10,000. If we give them a thousand and say, we're giving a grant, what does that person going to do other than save money for another five years and not be able to proceed?
So our grants cover. The major portion of what the treatment plan is, whether it be IVF service, the egg donation, sperm donation, egg freezing, embryo donation, whatever. So after the first two committees, we have a financial person who looks at the application. Does the person, does the applicant seem to be spending their money wisely?
Do they have three cars for two people? Do they How, you know, if there are, do they have enough in their savings, but they just don't want to contribute it. They'd rather have somebody else paid for it. Things like that. Then after the financial committee looks at the application, the finalists go to the medical doctors, and those are the doctors that you mentioned five or six doctors who look at the same medical piece of information for each of the finalists.
Give us their judgment on this person has a decent chance to have a viable pregnancy.
[00:12:35] Griffin Jones: You had five or six judgements back when you do that. Yes, I will
[00:12:40] Pamela Hirsch: say yes, very true. And it makes you realize that this is not a precise science whatsoever. You're you're, you're totally right on that. There are certain times when there is just something there that maybe we haven't caught and the doctors will say, oh no, this is just not going to work.
And if that person is consistently low. On every evaluation we realize this is not a good candidate, but it's difficult. There is no perfect solution. Every single time we've done this, we have improved it. We've made corrections. We've become more diligent and there's it's. There's no perfection. Unless we had a million dollars and then we can give money to everybody, but that that's not going to happen.
[00:13:29] Griffin Jones: But speaking of a million dollars, how have you raised the 2.3 that you've been able to distribute thus far?
[00:13:35] Pamela Hirsch: Grovelling at first, because
[00:13:39] Griffin Jones: To whom to anybody that you could have a cocktail party with in LA, who are the first people that you graveled to.
[00:13:46] Pamela Hirsch: Friends who charities I had donated, or my husband and I had donated to for years and years and cocktail parties and not fun chicken dinners, that cost $500 a person that we had gone to for many years.
And I had never called in any favor so that they were first on my list and I didn't make any enemies. So that's good. And then word of mouth and then social media. It just grew you know, I been very fortunate in business and I just run, you know, even though I came from the for-profit world, I really run Baby Quest as a business.
And hopefully I'm very fiscally prudent in the choices that we've made. And we, we just, it, part of it is luck. And the other part is a lot of
hard work.
[00:14:40] Griffin Jones: So the first was from, from friends and growing the network. When did it become fundraisers or now, do you have a systematic approach for, do you have any corporate philanthropy?
How is it.
[00:14:55] Pamela Hirsch: Sure. Started out as individuals probably crying when an earth screaming. When I got my first check, that was over a hundred dollars. I kept on like that for awhile. Then we started with some small fundraisers, again, like hikes or what did we do? Small cocktail parties, just telling people a little luncheons, telling people about Baby Quests and it kept growing word of mouth.
And now we do have a much more structured program. We offer the giving hope grant, which is for companies, corporations. If they contribute a minimum of $12,000 on a yearly basis, they can choose. To adopt one of our recipients. And that has happened a couple to several times. We have couples who've come along who have been very fortunate with their own journey to parenthood, through IVF or surrogacy.
And they'd been, they acknowledged the fact that they have been fortunate financially, so they want to pay it back. So they come to us and they say, you know, here's a grant, here's a donation of $10,000. We want to help a particular couple. They can remain anonymous. Or they can actually communicate with the couple who they, more or less adopt.
And that has happened, you know, several times, quite a bit as well. But
[00:16:13] Griffin Jones: Can couple's earmark as a scholarship at earmarks, not the right word, because I don't mean to say set it aside for a particular case, but rather can they, can they title their scholarships so that it's, you know, it's, it's coming from Baby Quest, but this is the.
Janet and Tim Rodriguez Scholarship.
[00:16:36] Pamela Hirsch: Exactly. We have a company called an escrow. One of the surrogacy, one of the companies that many people use for surrogacy to put their money in an escrow account, Seed Trust, and they have adopted, if you want to call it our sponsors. Recipients two or three times we have a surrogacy agency, Abundant Beginnings, which happens to be owned by my daughter who knows the surrogacy agency owner.
They have sponsored a grant we have a celebrity from real Housewives of Atlanta, Kenya Moore, who, whose hometown is Detroit. And she great generously sponsored. Two couples from Detroit one, will be having a baby next month and her grant was the Giving Hope Grant. So definitely couples, some choose to remain anonymous.
Some definitely want to name their grant. And the companies generally, we have Brides For a Cause, which is a company in Seattle based out of Seattle. And they have been very generous with sponsoring recipient.
[00:17:43] Griffin Jones: So as you start to grow forward, I imagine the board might change every couple a years or some seats stay on for longer.
Are there, are there fixed terms? Do you have board needs now? What's that.
[00:17:58] Pamela Hirsch: The, the term is two-year renewable. If the person wants to. And many, fortunately many of our board members have stayed on for quite a long time. I believe there's 18 of them and we just recently added two new board members. It's always good to get a new infusion of ideas.
And since our focus has changed recently to try to do more corporate outreach. Some of our board members were not adding physicians at this time, but we're looking at board members who have some corporate ties that might be helpful.
[00:18:37] Griffin Jones: Speaking of corporate ties, have you noticed the demographics of the.
Especially the geographics of the patient population that you're awarding scholarships to start to shift because, you know, 10 years ago you had very little corporate benefits and now it's far more common and in some marketplaces it's more common than it isn't. And so, as you know, progeny and carrot and others that are trying to enter that race kind body as they start to.
Broker benefits and now you've got Facebook and Google and Amazon and Microsoft offering those kinds of benefits. Are you starting to see different folks apply for the scholarships than you were some years ago?
[00:19:26] Pamela Hirsch: Not really now there's always a need and no matter what companies are offering insurance, which is wonderful.
If that happens, there's still a need. And we see so many nurses applying fire, firemen, policemen social workers. Just now it I wouldn't say that really has changed that much. And again, it seems as though we do get more applicants from certain cities, whether that's word of mouth, whether if the clinic telling people, but some of the major cities, Philadelphia, Dallas, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Seattle.
They see, you know, those are cities where we get a lot of applicants.
[00:20:19] Griffin Jones: Proportionally. Do you see far fewer from mandated states than you do mandated states?
[00:20:25] Pamela Hirsch: Not really it well, yes. In one instance, I will say that. Yes, Massachusetts. We just gave the first grant we have ever given to Massachusetts it's same sex, male.
From the military actually using a surrogate. And we, I would say Massachusetts, per people in Massachusetts apply the least amount number and the least numbers of just about anything. Populated state. I mean, if you look at a state like Montana or Wyoming, no, we're not. We don't get very many applicants from
[00:21:02] Griffin Jones: that.
Sure. So how do you work with clinics? You know, my interest in working with clinics is always getting the prospective patient through. Journey with the least pain possible, meaning the least, the least pain to them. They know what they're getting themselves into. They're prepared. The clinic has rapport ahead of time, the least pain possible to the staff.
They have less resistance. They're getting less questions that could be answered ahead of time and spending more of their individualized time with the patient actually individualizing their care and not doing redundant things. Causing more stress and extra work for them. And at the financial end, anything that I can do to prepare.
Patients to be ready for that discussion without giving them the wrong information ahead of time. That's kind of the hard thing family is when people want financial information. Well, you could tell somebody that the base price of an IVF cycle is $15,000. That is even though you're trying to be transparent, that's not really transparent because one, they might need just timed intercourse, and then.
Kind of scared somebody away that that just needs to see a consult, even if it's with an app in your office, even via zoom, like you've just scared somebody away from that. Or it could be somebody that needs a gestational carrier. That's going to need a multi-cycle guarantee. That's going to need donor gametes and then.
And plus the meds and then all of a sudden $15,000, this is hardly a drop in that bucket. And, and, and then you've totally bait and switch someone. And so what I try to do is get someone to think about, okay, this is where in the journey you are going to get the accurate information. This is how you are going to get it.
This is how you are going to learn how to pay for it. And so preparing them of how they're going to receive the right information, as opposed to giving them the wrong information. What you do because you really come in at that place between the second and third phase between consult before treatment.
And it's for those that have gotten stuck in the financial counselor, that is, that is one of the things in the arsenal that clinics have that I think they often forget about. And so can you talk about how you work with clinics?
[00:23:23] Pamela Hirsch: We generally get the applicants after they have a plan. And actually, because we can't do the research, let's say that somebody applies and they say, well, We don't know what we're applying for. We don't know if we need an IVF or we don't know if we need an IUI or we don't know for sure if we're going to need donor rate, you know, whatever, we don't have the manpower to go through 200 or 300 applications and help the person decide what they need.
And we're not doctors to begin with. So we really. Take that applicant when they have a plan, that person has been to the clinic. In fact, okay. For donor eggs, for example, somebody who's worded need. Donor rate or surrogacy, that person really needs to have a plan because if they submit an application to us and they say, well, we may need donor eggs
we may not. The price is going to be 15,000. If we don't need them 30,000, if we do. We don't have the manpower to call each person and say, let's talk about your plan. What your, your ovarian reserve, what does your doctor say about this? What are the champ? You know, how many IVFs if you've gone through, have you had an egg retrieval and none of the eggs have turned, you know, been able to be fertilized.
We get the person really when they have a. And the plan is concrete. This is a person who has spoken with the financial counselor has explored his or her options for insurance coverage. And basically has said, I'm going to either need to take out a big loan if I don't have the money or. I, you know, because I've been denied insurance coverage because my insurance coverage will only cover the diagnosis.
It will not go one step further. So that's when we get the person. And so we have to proceed from that step of this person needs. $9,000 to proceed because they have a little bit of cash that they can do it. We will call the doctor if we love this person, if this person proceeds through all the committees, the different levels.
And we come up to an application that is really wonderful with a personal story. And we're just so impressed with the person they've spent $12,000 already on failed procedures and here they are, and they just don't have the. To proceed. We'll call the doctor office and ask if there is any chance we've asked already in the application, but we'll call and say, you know, you've indicated that you cannot give the discount to this patient.
Is there anyone we can get $500 off or a thousand dollars off so that we can help this patient and take that $500 that you give us off. And give that to another, add that to another grant for somebody else. Anyway, that's the place where we meet the applicant.
[00:26:39] Griffin Jones: How often does the clinic meet you there on, on a request like that?
[00:26:45] Pamela Hirsch: Less than
[00:26:45] Griffin Jones: 50%. Less than 50? Yes. All right. Well, that's why you're on the podcast because I want that number up when we talk, I want it better be hearing everyone that's listening that better be 75% next year. I want that number going up so that you can benefit more people. But other than that, so, so hopefully you get a little bit of a discount because then you can put that back and.
Some helps more people, but even if you don't get it, is, is there anything you really need from the clinic?
[00:27:20] Pamela Hirsch: Good communication cooperation, as far as Servicing their patient returning phone calls to their patient, just being, being the clinic that anybody would expect them to be as far as customer service, as far as us.
In fact, this just happened this week. Last Monday night we told the six people who got grants. That they had received a grant. The next day we sent them paperwork explaining exactly what their grant entailed, how much money, what medications, if any, and everything. And then the procedure is we tell the clinic, your patient got a grant.
You know, the clinic had filled out some paperwork because they have to for the medical part and we tell the clinic, your patient got a grant. There are some clinics that we have worked with before that are a pleasure. I mean, the nurses responsive, the business office is responsive. It works like clockwork.
There are other times when, the patient has received a written signed statement of this is what the procedure will cost. And all of a sudden the costs seem to change and they always change in the higher, rather than the lower we are their advocates. We will fight for them. It does not happen.
[00:28:44] Griffin Jones: So, so not a lot, like the, you don't need much from the clinic and so they are better off having you in their arsenal. Like, so every clinic should have a number of these scholarships in their arsenal and. And, and you're one that has been among the more established and proven, and it had longer tenures, but there is no reason that.
Every financial office should not have a list of these. Now, the order in which that comes in there, you talk about where that comes in, but there is a last line of defense when people are like, well, we don't want to bring in people that are, are totally unqualified. Well, you, you let people make that decision as they go through the system and you can get them some information earlier to think about things, but there is a way to get people.
Paid for, from a number of these different scholarships and the better relationship they have with you. And the more they have, the more people that are going to be able to serve. I
[00:29:50] Pamela Hirsch: think one of the things that to me is so annoying is that, and this still happens after 10 years. I understand if this would have happened 10 years ago but,
we'll get a personal story of somebody who applied has to write a two page story. And we've seen some of the comments in the stories. Even recently, my doctor says this is a scam, my doctor said I shouldn't apply. Do you know that makes us even want to give that person a grant even more so that we can show the clinic that.
We exist. And it's interesting that within the past week, even one of the clinics mentioned to one of our recipients and very skeptical, well, how in the world are we ever going to get paid from them? And it's just amazingly easy. Let's say that somebody that we've told the person that we will pay $9,000 of their clinic fees, they come to the day when that patient needs to pay the $9,000, she's at the clinic, or she's going to go there tomorrow for her baseline or for her egg retrieval, depending on when the clinic demands payment, the clinic picks up the phone calls our office
I answer or somebody else, I give them a credit card on the phone. They charged the credit card and that's it. There is no thousand pages of paperwork. There's no bureaucracy. There is somebody else with a credit card, paying the bill for the patient. Who
[00:31:28] Griffin Jones: did I say? 75%. When I said that should be the number of centers that give you.
Discount when you ask for it. Yeah. What that number ought to be 90% by next year. Cause guess what, Pam, they are already doing that with the insurance companies who are beating them up with the corporate benefits companies that are beating them up. And and so maybe, I mean, that could be reasons and people are slammed, especially the last year and some change fertility centers are slammed.
And so I could see well, why should we do that? It's like, well, because. Partly the, if, if the need based reason isn't good enough for you, which I hope it would be, but if it isn't because of what Pam just said, you're not fighting these claims. It's talking to Baby Quest on the phone and getting a credit card number.
[00:32:17] Pamela Hirsch: What's interesting is we have, I could actually get it out.
It's a one, what we send the doctors or what's the doctors have to fill out when somebody applies, they print our application. The website, they fill out the 15 pages of financial information and education and profession and insurance cards and insurance information and all that. And then they have three pages they take to the doctor.
Two of those pages are medical four pages, I'm sorry, assigned HIPAA form, authorizing us to be able to see the medical information. Two pages of. Height weight BMI. How many miscarriages, how many, what's your egg count? What's your AMH levels of semen analysis? That kind of stuff. And the recommendation from the doctor, what procedure do you recommend that the patient do?
And the last page? Is a letter that says to the doctors we're going to, if this big and it's in bold, if this patient is selected by Baby Quest to receive a grant, will you match our grant? Give a certain amount, give a dis count of a certain percentage, or are you unable to give a discount. And that business manager checks that were unable to give a discount so fast.
And a lot of times they'll make up an excuse. Oh, our prices are already low. Obviously they're not low enough that this person was going to be able to afford it without a grant. So that's and we reiterate. And the last paragraph, this discount, the you're allowing the patient to have is only applicable. If this person is selected for Baby Quest, if this person is not selected by us, it's your decision.
You don't have to give them. A hundred dollars off or $500 off for a thousand. You know, it's only if they're selected, but it's really easy to put that check mark there. And these are people who have spent this has happened 15, 20, $30,000 at a clinic and have had no results. And they're asking for a discount of.
A thousand dollars, $500, you know, and it's almost a crime to me that,
[00:34:46] Griffin Jones: yeah, in an instance like that, it would be much better, especially if they've already. I spent a lot of money without success. And the fact that you're, you're not asking for one, some allows some discretion because frankly there are some centers that are a lot more expensive than others.
And some, there are a few out there that have really done everything to be economical. We've had some of those folks on the podcast and and they almost have like a different model, but. It allows them to have the discretion and say, well, you know, even if it's pretty cheap, it's like, especially if they've already been with us a couple of times, could we knock a couple hundred bucks off?
And if we are on the more expensive side, then maybe you do, maybe you do knock some more off. And that's where you would. One thing that as I'm thinking about this, Pam is I've advised people not to really be so much in the middle on pricing, strictly from a positioning, standpoint not an access to care standpoint.
If it's an access to care standpoint, It's entirely within the heart of the physician, but I still would recommend perhaps channeling that difference to something like this. And here's what I mean by positioning that the, the low cost IVF, the affordable IVF model draws people based on that, but the middle of the road doesn't.
And so in the middle of the road on pricing, very often, you're just you're just sacrificing your own margins and you're not elevated in, in the eyes of the patient, but if you feel like, well, I, I want more people to access care. This is something else you could do if you didn't want to take the middle of the road on, on the position, but you are still feeling saintly.
And do you want more people to have access to care? You could be applying that. The wins that you're having in the margins or the safety that you have in the margins there to discounts like this?
[00:36:45] Pamela Hirsch: Well, I won't say that it is across the board bad. I mean, our board members, our own doctors who are on the board have generously when, and we don't want to overload them.
We, we never would send more than one person. I would say a year two at the most. To the same clinic, because we're not saying, oh, you have to be our clinic. And we're going to send you a ton of, of patients because we don't want to overload somebody who is giving us a discount. Who's generous enough to be doing that.
But on the other hand, some patients, it's hard to understand that. If, if this is a really great person who really needs the, the IVF and has a great chance for success, and this person is not going to be able to proceed with treatment. Wouldn't the clinic be? Happy to give a thousand dollars off and say, oh, we get a patient versus the patient is not going to be able to afford it.
If, if they don't get a grant. Yeah.
[00:37:51] Griffin Jones: Well, well, some of them might, what if some of them want you to slam them with a with a couple of cycles? I'm thinking most probably wouldn't with how busy they are right now. But I think in. There was one market that we did. Two groups. We, we evaluated two groups this year in the same market.
It's a very competitive. Well, top 20 market growing. And that's an area where you've got really large competitors. And especially if you feel like, well, maybe we're not converting as many people we should be. Maybe this is an angle for us, right.
[00:38:26] Pamela Hirsch: That's right. Yeah. It's just, as I say, you know, it's very disheartening to open the application.
Find a great application. Somebody who's really put the work into the application, poured their heart into their fertility journey and to see that. That there's no cooperation. And that does not mean that we won't give them a grant and people will say, well, does it mean if, if our doctor is not willing to give us a discount, does that really disqualify us from getting a grant?
Well, obviously it means, it means we have to pay a little bit more for their procedure, but it does not disqualify. Sure. We'd love everybody to be able to get a discount from their doctor, but it's not going to happen. And we're not going to disqualify somebody because we need to give an extra $2,000 in a grant because the doctor won't won't do that.
But then again, if a clinic will give a 20% discount, which usually comes up to about 2000 on the phase that, I mean, we understand clinics, can't give a discount or cannot. Promise a discount on the anesthesia, which isn't that expensive, but they can't promise that because that's out of their control and independent, some clinics can't discount.
The facility fee. They don't have their own facility, but those clinics where they do have their own facility. And we ask if they can just count the physician and the facility fee or the physician and the lab fee, if they only. Their own lab and that if it comes up to a $2,000 discount for a patient, it's fantastic.
It really helps everybody.
[00:40:07] Griffin Jones: Well, I hope you get a few more discounts between now and next year. Maybe, maybe someone's listening. That would be a good fit for a board member, maybe a couple donors, Pam Hirsch. Thank you so much for coming on Inside Reproductive Health.
[00:40:23] Pamela Hirsch: Thank you for having. I appreciate it.