ReproTech

 

PRINCIPLE 1 :

Capitalize on your frozen assets and eliminate long-term liabilities.

THE MYTH is that tanks fail.

THE FACT is people fail. That is not to say there are not documented tank failures, however, the majority of reports of tank failures are protocol failures. This is true for both storage and shipping tanks. Maintenance of a working shipping tank fleet with proper protocols to prevent failures requires concentration on the details. Problems occur when a clinic has one or two shippers and staff are not properly trained in tank preparation and validation and "emergency" shipments or poor planning result in staff breaking protocol and not properly preparing tanks for shipment. Shipping should be left to those that have the protocols in place to provide the absolute safest process available.

 

THE MYTH is that when a physician retires and closes a practice they'll just send out letters to all patients and they will transfer their embryos to another facility.

THE FACT is that even with a six month window and multiple mailings and phone calls, few clinics have better than a 50% response rate. This leaves your facility with the other 50%. This non-responsive 50% are the patients you must now deal with, and in a short period of time. These are now abandoned embryos, and a real liability.

 

THE MYTH is that when a clinic closes, they'll sell the storage accounts to a cryobank.

THE FACT is most closures result in the closing facility writing a check to the cryobank to accept the whole set of accounts. This is simply due to the fact that patients who are still actively attempting to build their families will respond and move their embryos to another clinic. What is left then are the non-active patients and in this group, the number of abandoned/non-responsive patients will greatly outnumber the responsive accounts. The physician now must deal with these embryos and these patients. How this liability is handled is highly dependent on the consents/cryostorage agreements that have been in place during the clinic's life, the physician's own tolerance of risk, and in some cases, state laws and ethics positions of multiple organizations. The safest way out of this scenario is generally a paid assignment of the accounts to a professional cryostorage facility. But it isn't the cheapest.

 

Are your accounts receivable truly profitable or are they merely frozen assets?
 

THE MYTH is that if a clinic keeps possession of the embryos the patients are more likely to complete future cycles at their clinic.

THE FACT is the decision of whether a patient continues to cycle at one clinic is simply dependent on their experience and satisfaction. The current location of their embryos is not a factor in those decisions. The vast majority of embryos which come into ReproTech for storage, if used in a later cycle, go back to the original clinic. Patients who want to switch clinics will do so, regardless of where their embryos are stored. It takes a certain amount of time and focus to receive, pack, and send out a tank. Doing so on a patient by patient basis is very inefficient compared to monthly bulk shipments to and from a professional cryostorage facility.

 

THE MYTH is that a clinic’s consents/agreements will protect them.

THE FACT is that most clinic’s consents/agreements will not protect them. Most clinics/laboratories have not properly revised their storage agreements to accurately keep up with changes in case law and technology, even those that have are not immune to a lawsuit. Death, divorce or separation of couples or individuals can pull your clinic into a lawsuit, even when you think you dotted all the “i”s and crossed all of the “t”s. We all know of lawsuits that have been settled quietly and effectively, but we also know of colleagues who have appeared on the front page of the newspaper or the six o’clock news. There is no protection for bad press, and it is hard to recover from.

All estimates based on ReproTech’s experience analyzing the cryostorage businesses of facilities which we have been asked to assist. Cycle volumes (fresh vs. FET) are drawn from 2008 SART data.