IVF providers are bracing for an influx of patients scrambling to access fertility treatments over the Christmas break after the New South Wales government said it would cut a rebate for fertility treatments for many patients from February.
The $2,000 rebate, an Australian-first program, was available to all NSW women accessing fertility services for the first time to cover some out-of-pocket expenses. It was introduced in 2022 by the former Coalition government.
The Minns government announced it would scrap the rebate for many women from mid-February 2025 and introduce a means test. That would mean only those on family tax benefit, health card-holders or those with a combined household income of $116,000 or less will be eligible.
The short period until means testing is introduced “feels unfair”, said Vanessa Ferguson, the CEO of low-cost IVF provider Adora.
“We do anticipate an influx of people wanting to get in before Christmas and in January,” she said. “But it’s time-critical for patients; they don’t always have a choice as to when they can start, either, in terms of the way a treatment cycle goes. So there could be some people who unfortunately don’t get to start before this takes effect in February.”
Tim Yeoh, the CEO at IVF clinic Genea, said the timing of the announcement means the change “is effectively without notice”.
“A lot of patients are going to get caught – [they are] planning their journeys for next year, expecting this as part of their funding. And then it’s effectively been pulled out from under them. It’s a fairly abrupt move.”
Tanya Bertolli, from Roseville in Sydney, said that without the government rebate her 16-month-old daughter, Bella, wouldn’t exist.
“I don’t think we would have probably even tried [to conceive] if we hadn’t had that rebate and that access to Adora. So, yeah, it’s everything,” she said.
“We obviously couldn’t imagine our lives without her now and so it’s really sad. It’s the reality of what a lot of people face, especially if they’ve been doing IVF for a long time and [have] had multiple losses, or they don’t have any children, or all of those kinds of scenarios.”
Bertolli was able to access low-cost IVF to conceive her son Lachlan in 2020 and Bella in 2023, which, with Medicare rebates and the government rebate (in Bella’s case), meant her total IVF bills came to less than $1,000 for each child.
She knows this is low and that she was very lucky in that she had access to low-cost IVF and that she conceived after just one round of IVF with both children. But like many women going through IVF, her journey was not straightforward and finances played a significant role in her decision-making.
Providers said the rebate had assisted thousands of women with the cost of IVF, which can often leave a woman thousands of dollars out of pocket for a single round, even with Medicare rebates and private health insurance.
“We’re disappointed,” said Frank Quinn, medical director at IVF Australia. “Because we know a lot of our patients do rely on that rebate to help subsidise their expensive fertility treatment.”
Bertolli and her husband, who runs his own business, conceived naturally between Lachlan and Bella, but discovered at 17 weeks that their baby boy had a chromosomal condition and would not survive the pregnancy.
“We ended up having to medically terminate him because he was dying,” she said. “It was a very sad, very traumatic time.”
Because of her age – she was then nearly 43 – Bertolli had a higher chance of conceiving another baby with health complications and they debated going to a more expensive IVF clinic, where they could genetically test the embryos.
In the end the cost was prohibitive sothey went with Adora, which did not offer the genetic testing, but they’d had a positive experience conceiving Lachlan.
Bertolli said many women going through IVF had already been through heartache, loss and pain, and reducing the financial burden of the IVF process made a huge difference.
“If you can at least eliminate one of the major stresses, which is the financial side … that’s going to help the whole situation.”
