Drains resources because of administrative burden, OB self-reporting, limited EMR capabilities, and 6% human error rate
Outcome Reporting: The Hidden Cost Center
Fertility clinics are under mounting pressure to meet annual SART and CDC reporting mandates, with some embryologists now spending the majority of their day chasing patient outcome data rather than focusing on lab work. The compliance burden is growing unsustainable as IVF cycle volume rises, but interoperability with OB-GYN systems remains virtually nonexistent.
Clinics must report outcomes from all cycles performed in the prior year by November 15. Yet without shared EMRs or automatic data feeds from OBs, this means manual outreach—emails, texts, and phone calls—to hundreds or even thousands of former patients. Non-responses, especially from patients who’ve experienced loss, create incomplete data, which can negatively impact the clinic’s public-facing success rates.
20 Patients=2 Full Days of Admin Hours. EMRs Fall Short.
While some EMRs have introduced limited SART/CDC integration, they’ve only marginally reduced the manual workload. Clinics are still forced to stitch together patient timelines using consult sheets, clinical notes, and ad hoc spreadsheets tracking due dates. From there, they initiate multi-step outreach sequences—initial emails, follow-up texts, even doctor phone calls if necessary—just to collect a birth outcome or confirm a miscarriage.
Even with a team, the volume is overwhelming. It is estimated that for every 20 patients SART and CDC compliance consumes two full days of administrative work. In many cases, clinical staff come in on weekends in hopes of a better response rate. Errors are common due to the repetitive nature of manual data entry across systems. In one internal study at Cercle AI, human review of outcome data showed a 6% error rate—enough to materially affect a clinic's public statistics.
⅔ of Embryologists’ Time Spent on Non-Revenue Generating Admin Work
The weight of this task has shifted from admin teams to clinicians. Embryologists report spending up to two-thirds of their day not in the lab but performing administrative compliance tasks. They have to triage between several different information systems… just to be able to manually transcribe details into the respective portal.
This has become a strategic concern for practice leadership. For network operators and private equity stakeholders, this bottleneck hits not only staffing efficiency but also brand reputation—since outcome stats influence where patients seek care. Worse, the delays and inaccuracies have clinical implications, too. REIs often don’t even know how their patients’ cycles concluded unless the patient or OB reports back manually.
AI System Reduces Error Rate from 6% to 0
As IVF cycle volume continues to grow, the need to offload this reporting burden is accelerating. In the absence of EMR-OB interoperability, some clinics are beginning to adopt AI-driven tools that remove much of the manual process. Cercle AI has developed a system that automates the extraction and interpretation of outcome data from email, text, and other formats—eliminating the need for staff to sort and transcribe responses.
In one internal sample from Cercle, the tool delivered a 0% error rate compared to 6% in human review, a gap likely due to fatigue and data volume. As both the COO of Cercle and a parent who has personally experienced IVF success twice, Ashley Finch explains "the shift away from spreadsheets and weekend outreach is not just about time savings—it’s about accuracy, staff retention, and regulatory standing. For clinics seeking operational relief, the emerging automation options represent more than innovation—they’re fast becoming a necessity. Cercle is committed to making the reporting & compliance process easier not only for clinics but for SART & CDC themselves."