The Finances of Egg Donation

Abstract

Egg donation has always been a relatively expensive form of assisted reproduction. This is partly due to the obvious fact that in most cases, the donor receives financial compensation for the performance of her service, as well as the extra costs associated with screening the donor prior to her acceptance into the program. However, the discrepancies presently seen in cost between conventional IVF and donor egg IVF were not always so great. For instance, in 1990 patients were typically spending approximately $5,000–7,000 with medications for a cycle of in vitro fertilization, whereas egg donation averaged around $9,000–10,000. In 2012, including the cost of drugs, IVF in most American centers costs around $10,000, whereas a donor egg cycle commonly runs $25,000 or more per attempt.

Egg donation has become increasingly expensive due to several factors related to the egg donor portion of the treatment cycle and not to the process of IVF itself. In addition to normal medical services that must be paid for by the recipients, inflated donor compensation and state and federal regulatory requirements have steadily and substantially increased the cost of doing the business of egg donation over the last 20 years.