Competition is dropping prices at fertility clinics

With Madison soon to have three fertility clinics, about a year after the near loss of its only one, the competition for prospective parents can sound as if it's more about BMWs than babies.

In fact, the doctor running one of the clinics used an auto analogy to criticize the marketing pitch of another.

The Wisconsin Fertility Institute, to open Jan. 15 on the West Side, will offer a ''cooperative risk'' plan. Qualified patients can pay more up front for in-vitro fertilization, or IVF, and get most of the money back if they don't get pregnant.

Dr. Jacek Graczykowski, whose Reproductive Health and Fertility Center in Rockford, Ill., will open an IVF lab on Madison's East Side by April, said the cash-back arrangement is ''not fully honest'' because patients who qualify are likely to get pregnant.

''It's a bit like selling used cars,'' he said.

Meanwhile, UW-Madison's hospital-based clinic, which nearly closed last spring because of tensions among its three doctors, will move to a site across from Meriter Hospital this year, perhaps by the summer, said UW Hospital spokeswoman...