SA’s IVF clinics success rates ranked

Couples are spending $5000 on a single IVF cycle — and their chances of having a baby depend on where they go. Search and see the full list.

These are the results Australia’s fertility doctors don’t want you to see – a league table of the success rates of the nation’s IVF clinics.

At Australia’s best clinics nearly two in every three younger couples trying for an IVF baby have their dreams come true.

However, at poorer-performing clinics only one in four couples get a baby.

And while in older age brackets some clinics have success rates of more than 42 per cent, others deliver a baby less than 10 per cent of the time.

Given many couples pay more than $10,000 for each IVF cycle, with only a portion covered by Medicare, researching the best providers is a critical exercise.

SEE THE 2023 IVF SUCCESS RESULTS FOR SA CLINICS IN OUR SPECIAL ANNUAL IVF SERIES. 

Just as important is knowing how age can affect your chances of having a baby, and a handy tool on the government-run yourivfsuccess website lets you explore this.

News Corp analysis of yourivfsuccess.com.au data shows that the most successful IVF clinics Australia-wide are Genea’s Newcastle, Wollongong and Canberra clinics.

Among women aged under 35, success rates are 64.79 per cent, 60 per cent and 59.42 per cent respectively at these clinics.

For women aged 35-42 the most successful clinics are Monash IVF Rockhampton (42.86 per cent), Cairns Fertility Centre (35.9 per cent) and Genea Liverpool (35.79 per cent).

In South Australia, Repromed (27.3 per cent) led the way for success rates in the number of women aged 35-42 having a baby after a complete egg retrieval cycle. Flinders Fertility (23.9 per cent) had closely matched results.

The Monash and Cairns clinics treated only a small number of patients (less than 70) and this means just a few more, or less, births can have a dramatic effect on ranking.

“It is easy to be successful when you’re only doing 300 cycles. If you’re a very small clinic you can select patients in a different way,” cautions University of Sydney embryologist Associate Professor Ceclicia Sjoblom.

Genea medical director Mark Bowman said the secrets to the company’s success included performing egg collection when it needed to be done, not on a predetermined day of the week and not giving more drugs than were needed.

The performance of IVF clinics is measured in four ways by independent UNSW experts and couples can search the success rates of clinics on the yourivfsuccess.com.au website.

But getting an overall picture is complicated if you want to compare all clinics.

However, the Fertility Society of Australia New Zealand has banned providers from listing their rankings, saying the risk of “league tables” is that it might encourage clinics to only treat patients who have a good prognosis of pregnancy.

Professor Bill Ledger from the Royal Hospital for Women, who is on the advisory board for the government’s website, said one of the reasons for measuring performance was to “help the poorly performing clinics do better”, and revealing performance might discourage clinics from sharing results.

Originally published as SA’s IVF clinics success rates ranked