High Probability IVF Patients Are Being Failed

Patients Dropping Out Before IVF Completion Is Costing Clinics Millions

This News Digest Story is paid featured content.
BY INSIDE REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH

 

Blunt Tools Push Patients Out Before They Begin

A growing number of IVF clinics have adopted bundled pricing to boost access, lock in revenue, and improve outcomes. But data from Cercle shows these same programs are excluding high-probability patients at alarming rates—leading to avoidable churn, revenue loss, and missed treatment opportunities.

Most bundled programs use public prediction models like SART and CDC calculators to determine eligibility. These tools typically consider only three to five variables—age, BMI, and diagnosis among them—and ignore critical local or historical data. This leads to false negatives, where clinics turn away patients who may have had a high likelihood of success.

Cercle’s analysis of one large clinic network uncovered nearly 200 rejected bundle applicants who, based on deeper health history and lab performance data, would have qualified for treatment. Without accurate predictions, patients drop out early—never starting treatment, leaving revenue on the table, and stalling IVF care expansion.


Protect Clinic Finances, Patient Outcomes

See Why US Fertility Uses Cercle. Book Demo.

  • Leverage your own data for your AI applications

  • Consolidate your AI vendors into one

  • Build agents & tools on top of your data 

  • Automate tedious data & compliance tasks

  • Personalize medicine

See how US Fertility and others utilize Cercle’s AI platform to revolutionize their business insights.


1 in 3 IVF Patients Abandon Treatment Midway

IVF churn isn’t limited to the start of care. Dropout rates across the field remain high: Cercle reports that up to one-third of patients do not complete their full treatment course. Whether due to poor counseling, vague prognoses, or misaligned bundle eligibility, the result is the same: worse patient outcomes and unpredictable clinic performance.

The financial impact compounds. When eligible patients are denied entry into bundling programs, clinics lose not only the initial cycle fees but potential future cycles, long-term patient relationships, and positive outcomes data. Worse, without structured feedback loops, clinics miss the chance to improve predictive accuracy over time.

IVF churn becomes a self-perpetuating problem—fewer completions lead to less data, reinforcing the use of outdated models and increasing dropout risk for future patients.

Clinics Under Pressure: Revenue, Staffing, and Reputation at Risk

COOs and CFOs now face pressure to reverse the churn trend while managing strained operations. Clinics relying on manual physician judgment or simplistic calculators are falling short. According to Cercle, the consequences are mounting:

  • Lost Revenue from patients wrongly denied bundle access

  • Wasted Staff Time due to inefficient consult workflows

  • Poor Conversion Rates from unclear or pessimistic eligibility assessments

  • Data Blind Spots caused by the lack of outcome-linked analytics

  • Reputational Risk from negative patient experiences and reviews

These issues create systemic inefficiencies that hinder access, erode trust, and slow the shift toward personalized care.

Fragmented Data Blocks Personalization and Progress

Although fertility leaders increasingly recognize the need for personalized medicine, many clinics lack the infrastructure to make it actionable. Data is often siloed across EMRs and lab systems, making real-time integration difficult.

Attempts to build in-house models have stalled due to messy data, staffing shortages, and limited machine learning expertise. As a result, clinics remain stuck with static calculators that don’t reflect their population or performance.

Public tools like SART and CDC were never built to inform financial decisions at the clinic level. Yet they remain the default—until data structuring and predictive analytics become standard.

Outdated Prediction Tools Are Fueling IVF Dropout and Revenue Loss

Cercle’s platform addresses the problem at its root: fragmented data and limited predictive capability. The company structures raw clinic data into a harmonized system, runs live birth probability models trained on millions of patient journeys, and embeds predictions directly into clinic workflows.

The result is real-time, personalized patient stratification—enabling better decisions about who should be offered bundled pricing and which patients need more support to complete treatment. Clinics no longer need to rely on intuition or third-party averages.

One major clinic network found that nearly 200 bundle rejections could have been avoided using Cercle’s deeper data review. That’s a direct hit to both patient care and the bottom line—now recoverable with more precise insights.


Protect Clinic Finances, Patient Outcomes

See Why US Fertility Uses Cercle. Book Demo.

  • Leverage your own data for your AI applications

  • Consolidate your AI vendors into one

  • Build agents & tools on top of your data 

  • Automate tedious data & compliance tasks

  • Personalize medicine

See how US Fertility and others utilize Cercle’s AI platform to revolutionize their business insights.

 

This News Digest Story is paid featured content. The advertiser has had editorial input and control over its creation. However, the views and opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily represent the views of Inside Reproductive Health. The sponsorship of this content does not imply an endorsement by Inside Reproductive Health.