Medicare cover on IVF ICSI
Australia Medicare funding for IVF services will be expanded to cover an advanced technique for injecting sperm cells into human eggs, which is a step likely to help thousands more infertile couples have a baby.
The technique, is called intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) , is used when a man’s sperm is unable to fertilise his partner’s egg naturally. The treatment costs from $500 to $800, a fee couples have so far had to pay from their own pockets. Releasing its response yesterday to an expert panel review of IVF, the federal Government said the procedure would be covered in a planned readjustment of IVF items under Medicare.
The Government confirmed it would not restrict funding for In vitro Vertilisation services, either by limiting the number of cycles per year or by denying Medicare subsidies to women in their 40s, when success rates are lower.
Both steps had been flagged by Health Minister Tony Abbott last year, before a furore among the Coalition’s ranks forced a backdown and prompted the Government to refer the matter to the review committee.
Treasurer Peter Costello sought to douse the continuing controversy in January this year, pre-empting the committee’s findings by saying the Government would not cut back funding as initially proposed.
Instead, the Government’s official response yesterday said doctors should “take into account relevant clinical practice guidelines” when deciding whether taxpayer-funded IVF treatment was appropriate. Fertility experts last night welcomed the decision, which was released at the same time as the expert panel’s recommendations.
Deputy medical director of Sydney IVF Mark Bowman said the decision to fund ICSI under Medicare held enormous importance because infertility was male-related in about 50 per cent of cases. Sometimes a man’s sperm “just don’t have enough oomph” to fertilise an egg by themselves, in which case ICSI was the only hope, he said.
“ICSI has been used since the early 1990s with increasing success, and for a wider and wider group of couples for whom normal IVF was not going to be successful. It’s gratifying to see the Government has accepted that it’s appropriate to have a specific Medicare item number for ICSI,” Dr Bowman said.
The announcement comes as the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare today issues a new report on assisted reproduction technology. The report found the proportion of IVF pregnancies that resulted in twins or other multiple births was falling, down from 20 per cent in 2002 to 17.2 per cent in 2004.
The institute found that women implanted with their own fresh embryos had the best success rate, at 22.8 per cent.
Women implanted with embryos that had been frozen after a previous IVF cycle and then thawed had a success rate of 15.6per cent.
Peter Illingworth, medical director of IVF Australia, and a member of the IVF review committee, said the use of thawed embryos was increasing as IVF techniques improved and more spare frozen embryos were available for later attempts.