July 29, 2009 
by Rebekah Sanderlin
Monica Campbell can’t seem to stop buying baby clothes. Everywhere she goes she finds outfits that are just too adorable to pass up. Her baby – the one she wasn’t sure she would ever have – is due in two months and at the rate Campbell is going, the little girl won’t have to wear the same outfit twice. Not for awhile, anyway.
A few years ago Campbell, an Army wife whose husband is a stationed at Fort Bragg, didn’t even think she wanted kids. She didn’t mind when her husband told her that he’d had a vasectomy after his two children with his first wife were born. But then something changed and Monica Campbell couldn’t get babies off her brain.
“I was so ready to have a baby that I didn’t care what it took,” Campbell said.
Her husband made an appointment with a urologist who told him that it had been so long since his vasectomy that reversing the procedure probably wouldn’t work. The doctor recommended that the Campbells consider In-Vitro Fertilization (IVF), an expensive and complicated procedure in which eggs and sperm are harvested from the parents, fertilized in a lab, and then implanted back into the mother. The procedure is costly, not pleasant for either parent and doesn’t always work. Worse, it is rarely covered by insurance companies.
“When I got to that point, I just wanted a baby so bad,” she said, so they forged ahead. What they learned is that, though Tricare does not specifically cover In-Vitro Fertilization, some aspects of the procedure are covered or available at a reduced cost. They also learned that there are other fertilization procedures that Tricare does cover.
According to Austin Camacho, a spokesman for Tricare, the insurance provider will pay some of the costs for male infertility testing and treatment, including surgery to correct male fertility problems and erectile dysfunction. Tricare, however, will not pay to reverse a surgical sterilization, such as a vasectomy.
For females, Tricare will pay to test and treat the causes of infertility, but will not pay for artificial insemination, In-Vitro Fertilization, Gamete Intrafallopian Transfer (GIFT) or the services and supplies related to those procedures, and will not pay to reverse a surgical sterilization, such as having tubal ligation (aka, getting tubes tied).
That news, disappointing as it was, was what the Campbells expected to hear. They had never even hoped that Tricare would pick up the tab for them. So it came as a very pleasant surprise when they learned that there are, however, ways that military families can save money on fertility treatments even when the treatments are not covered by Tricare.
For instance, there are four military medical centers that offer In-Vitro Fertilization programs; Wilford Hall Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas; Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, DC; Balboa Naval Hospital in San Diego, Calif. and Tripler Army Medical Center in Honolulu, Hawaii. Though these programs exist mostly for medical training, they are available for use by military members and their families.
For the Campbells this meant that the same procedure that a civilian doctor had told them would cost more than $15,000, ended up costing less than $8,000 because they were able to get the procedure done in a military treatment facility.
They decided to drive a few hours from their home to Walter Reed Army Medical Center to have the procedure performed. Monica stayed in the hospital for two weeks on her first visit there so that medical personnel could monitor her condition, test her blood and perform daily sonograms so that they would know when her eggs were ready to be harvested. Once her eggs were harvested and combined with sperm that had been surgically removed from her husband, two good embryos had been created.
Knowing that embryos can sometimes split into two, the Campbells did not want to risk having twins, triplets – or more – so they elected to have just one embryo implanted. They paid to have the other embryo stored. Unfortunately the procedure did not work the first time and Monica Campbell had to return to Walter Reed to have the second embryo implanted. The second time, however, was easier and quicker because she didn’t have to produce eggs. That time everything worked perfectly.
Campbell said that they were billed for the anesthesia for surgery, the nurses fees, the lab fees, her husband’s surgery, the In-Vitro Fertilization procedure and the cost of storing the second embryo until they used it. They were not billed for doctor visits or medications.
Camacho said that the costs of the procedure can vary between military treatment facilities and that patients should talk to officials at the facilities to determine the exact cost.
He said that approval procedures for treatments covered by Tricare are the same as for any other covered treatment. “But because the technology of this kind of care is always changing, checking with your regional contractor in case pre-certification is needed is always a good idea,” Camacho said. “The appeals process would also be the same as for any other coverage.”
Though it took Monica Campbell a bit more work than most to get pregnant, her pregnancy, she said, has been a breeze. No morning sickness, no heartburn, not a lot of aches and pains and just a little anxiety as her due date approaches.
“I never even dreamed it would be like this,” she said, happily.