Health Cost Savings through Elimination of Unnecessary Infertility Investigations

Abstract

Objective: to provide an estimate of the direct health care cost of supplementary endocrine evaluation among ovulatory infertile women and to use this estimate to project the total health care savings if these tests were eliminated.Data Source: letters of referral on a consecutive series of patients.Results: of 200 infertile couples considered ovulatory (on the basis of menstrual intervals), 98 (49%) underwent supplementary endocrine evaluations prior to referral. The most frequently encountered tests included prolactin (76, 38%), thyroid function (47, 25%), and gonadotrophin (46, 23%) evaluations. The estimated health care cost of these 294 laboratory tests was $7,134.61 ($72.80 per patient). Projections of national savings from elimination of these unneeded tests are presented.Conclusions: identification and elimination of unnecessary or redundant testing are effective means of reducing health care costs. In this example, the savings from supplementary endocrine evaluation of 200 infertile couples would be sufficient to fund the estimated direct costs of 36 cycles of donor insemination or two cycles of in vitro fertilization.