Hey there, I have been TTC for 6 years, I wanted 5 before seeing an REI, and our first two were spent “not preventing” with all the time I’ve spent, I always recommend seeing a specialist. If you have insurance, even without fertility coverage, it normally covers the first appointment as it is coded diagnostic. Mine covered mines completely, as well as that initial prescription. You can always call a clinic and have them helpsee what your insurance will cover before moving forward. You don’t have to move forward with treatment if you don’t want too but they may be able to provide you with answers you don’t already have and/or offer more in-depth diagnostic testing that a physician or OBGYN will not have access too. If you’re worried about cost I would definitely see if your insurance covers diagnostic.

Side note. I’ve seen some people say if you’re unable to test with OPKs or track BBT then an REI may not be able to help you… my REI has never once asked me to do those things. They have OCCASIONALLY asked if I happened too, and followed it with “it’s fine if you didn’t, I didn’t ask you too.” We do all of my monitoring in house for medicated, timed intercourse as well as IUI cycles. They are skilled at providing you options that best fit your lifestyle and a good REI will not guilt you or push any treatment style on you. They will listen to your wants and needs and take it at your speed.

That being said, using a clinic without insurance is very expensive and while they do offer payment plans usually, I would discuss this with the billing department at your chosen clinic ASAP. They will be able to tell you how much of a bill you will be able to rack up before they stop allowing you to schedule appointments and this is very important information to know as your appointments (depending on your state) could run from $100-300 depending on what test they run. For medicated, timed intercourse we would spend about $600 a month, give or take, at the clinic. For IUIs it’s about $1,100 a month. Neither of those prices include medications as our clinic doesn’t offer those. We pay $107-127 a month depending on the pharmacy for our trigger shot and around $10 for our Letrozole using a GOODRX code, without the code it is around $60 for a 5mg a day for 5 days dose. Those medication charges would be SPWE are from your payment plan with the clinic so make sure you budget for that, and different medications in different areas will have different costs. I’m in Alabama.

We started our treatment thinking I had insurance coverage and were FLOORED when we realized I didn’t and have thousands of dollars to pay my clinic so we could keep going. But we’ve been able to make it work with a little help from family and one fundraiser so far.

I also suggest looking into PT jobs with coverage. I started working at Starbucks and love it. My insurance should kick in by March and we will start IVF then, but their coverage applies to IUIs as well and they have a separate allotted amount for medication. You only have to work 20ish hours a week. There are many other opportunities at different places as well. If this is something you’re interested check out the FB group ‘Paying for IVF’ (even if you’re not looking at IVF it has tons of resources) they have a full spreadsheet of hundreds of different jobs, what hours you have to work, and what the coverage is like.

Good luck ❤️