Baltimore might be in line for a baby boom.
Shady Grove, a Rockville-based reproductive science center, runs nine offices throughout the Washington metropolitan area, but will make its first excursion into the Baltimore market with its acquisition of Greater Baltimore Medical Center?s Fertility Center. Completed late last week, the deal includes renaming the facility Shady Grove Fertility at GBMC and bringing Shady Grove?s well-known patient-care option to Baltimore.
Known as the Shared Risk 100 Percent Refund program, birth of a baby is guaranteed 100 percent, or the facility will issue a full, money-back refund to the patients.
“They are by far the market leader, and we wanted to work with a company that has a proven track record, is active in the business and is committed to the market,” said John Ellis, senior vice president of corporate strategy and business development.
“The advantage from our side is that we keep the service on campus and participate in its growth because the patients will still get all their services here,” he said.
One of the links between Shady Grove and the GBMC Fertility Center are the doctors that work there. Greater Baltimore doctors Eugene Katz, Ricardo Yazigi and Wende Allen have followed work done at Shady Grove?s other offices and had become fans of its progressive practices, including the Shared Risk option.
The state of Maryland mandates IVF as a covered health benefit, but Shady Grove estimates that 40 percent of couples are not actually covered due to strict limitations. These include stipulations such as limits on the number of embryos transferred. According to advancedfertility.com, the average cost of an IVF cycle in the U.S. is more than $10,000.
Following the acquisition, Shady Grove estimates five out of every 10 IVF treatments in the Baltimore-Washington corridor will be through one of their centers.
“From a patient?s perspective, it will look the same as usual,” said Mark Segal, chief executive officer of Shady Grove. “Changes are really taking place behind the scenes, with electronics, machinery and lab upgrades.”
Since 1984, GBMC?s Fertility Center has helped more than 5,000 couples conceive, while performing about 400 IVF cycles annually.
