Any financial crisis reveals the existing problems of the industry. Reproductive medicine is not an exception.
If earlier small clinics and agencies kept their word of honor, now this word costs nothing. Patients complain about the violation of contracts and arrangements. Programs are closed without any promise to renew or refund. There is no money to maintain doctors, conduct research, and even simply store biomaterials, because for this you need to pay for work of laboratory assistants, utility bills, and rent. And there is no one to blame: small clinics and mediators simply can not cope with it now.
“Good afternoon. We are patients of the “…” clinic (we temporarily reserve the right not to disclose the names). Our contract was terminated unilaterally. Our embryos remained in the clinic, we can not use them, we don’t even know if they are alive … ” – this is the third call of similar nature to our consultation center this week. The first two came from surrogate mothers, they complained about termination of payments in several small Kyiv clinics (whose names we also do not disclose). Small infertility treatment clinics, as well as intermediaries in the reproductive medicine market, are now in a panic: there are no incomes due to the pandemic and quarantine and aren’t expected soon.
Safety cushion
Now, absolutely all reproductive clinics feel the crisis. New contracts are either occasionally signed or not signed at all. The only income reproductologists can now rely on is payments for existing programs. But it is hard to be enough to cover the costs of the medical institution. If there are few current programs, then the clinics and intermediaries work for minus. And here the availability of financial and material resources will be the key. If the clinic is young or medium-sized, it does not have enough resources to hold out.
By resources, we mean first of all the availability of property. The more property clinic has, the more time it has to work on the inferior limit. That applies to premises – after all, not everyone was lucky to come to understanding about a rental vacation. It is also worth noting that some industry giants have switched to full energy autonomy: geothermal heating, solar panels, heat pumps. But now for many, even a utility bill can be a key factor for closing.
Capital will be the second on the scale. If the clinic has been on the market for a long time, then it has bank accounts that will hold out. But to start saving and putting by, business has to go through the stage of rapid turnover: after earning – invest. At the time of the outbreak of the pandemic and the crisis of the industry, most medical centers were at the “investment” stage, and now it will not work to spin the wheel to the stage “earn”. Therefore, it will be necessary to reduce salary costs, which means the loss of specialists and the termination of programs which are already started.
Only giants of the industry, who can afford to pay salaries to doctors and staff, and who already have the material base, will save jobs (and therefore continue started infertility treatment programs).
How can the “kids” of the industry – small or new clinics or intermediaries – survive during a crisis?
There is only one answer – retraining. Firstly, you have to accept the fact that you simply will not be able to comply with obligations to patients. Even if you sell everything you have, even your kidney – it won’t work. Reproductive medicine is too expensive. In order not to leave the market completely, you should better look at small fish behavior during the food shortage. Accompany industry giants, occupy those niches where you are most needed right now. This is the supply of necessary goods, and technical support, and advertising. Becoming one of the divisions of a major player in reproduction, you can save your position and money. Those who can’t drop their pride and pretend to the very end that everything is fine, messing around with gullible patients and surrogate mothers, already needs to take care of finding lawyers who will soon be investigating lawsuits from deceived parents, surrogate mothers, and contractors.
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