How We Choose IVF Clinics Abroad for You

What Happens on the First Call?

Your coordinator asks about ten questions in 10 to 15 minutes, takes notes, and tells you what happens next. That's the whole call.

It's a discovery call, not a sales call: we get to know each other and your situation. It starts with a short description of who we are and why we're calling, and only then come the questions.

Your coordinator isn't a salesperson. They aren't a doctor either: our coordinators come from healthcare, but they don't diagnose, interpret results, or prescribe.^[1] What they do is listen, for the handful of details that decide which clinics can help you and which can't.

What Do We Actually Ask?

• Who the patient is: you, your partner, or both of you.
• How long you've been trying, and what you've already tried.
• Previous IVF cycles: where, when, and what happened.
• Any diagnosis you've been given, and whether you've had an AMH (anti-Müllerian hormone) test, plus an antral follicle count (AFC) if you're planning IVF with your own eggs.
• What documents you already have, and what you don't.
• Timing: as soon as possible, within 3 months, 3 to 6 months, or flexible.
• Country preferences, if you have any (or none).
• What matters most: cost, the doctor's experience, location, or something else.
• An approximate budget, so we don't waste your time on clinics you'd never choose.

What Do We Never Do on That Call?

• Interpret your results: that's a doctor's job, and we'll say so.
• Promise a result: nobody can, and anyone who does is selling.
• Tell you that a higher price means a higher chance: it doesn't.

Important:
If you don't have a diagnosis, a test result, or a budget in mind, say so. "I don't know yet" is a perfectly good answer to most of these questions, and it changes what we do next. It doesn't change whether we help.

→ Learn more: You Don't Need to Have It All Figured Out Before the First Call

What Do We Need From You?

Any test results from the last 6 months, if you have them. If you don't, that's fine, because the clinics can do the tests themselves.

Why Do Documents Change the Offer?

Because a clinic quote is built on them. A hormone panel, a semen analysis, a scan report, or a previous cycle summary lets the clinic's doctor say, "Yes, we can treat this, here's the plan, here's the price." Without them, the quote is an educated guess, and educated guesses get revised.

• Ideal: results from the last 6 months; for IVF, ideally the last 3.
• Imaging: scans as files on disc or a download link, not a photo of a screen.
• Previous cycles: the discharge summary or the clinic's report, even if it's in another language.
• Nothing at all: also fine; many clinics run the full work-up on your first visit.

In practice, UK patients fall into two groups. Those who've already had IVF usually have everything a clinic needs; those who haven't often have no reports at all. Both are fine, because the second group simply gets the work-up at the clinic.

Key Insight:
UK patients have one practical problem most Europeans don't. Your GP isn't obliged to arrange IVF tests for private treatment,^[2] and copies of your NHS records take time: legally, a subject access request must be answered within one calendar month, complex ones can take up to two months more, and in practice it sometimes takes even longer.^[3] Ask for your records on the day you decide to look abroad, not the week before you fly.

Who Actually Reads Your Documents?

Your coordinator does. They review every report, check the details that matter for your case, translate anything that's in another language if needed, and build them into one patient file. That file is what goes to the clinics we approach for you.

What If You'd Rather Not Share Your Medical Details?

You don't have to. If you're not comfortable sending them to us, you can send them straight to the clinic, and we won't push. Or we can proceed with general information, but then the offer will be at the clinic's standard price, not one worked out for your case. Everything you do share is handled under data protection law (GDPR).

→ Learn more: What to Do Before Your First Fertility Clinic Visit

How Many Clinics Do We Look At, and How Many Do You See?

We consider far more clinics than we show you, and you see a maximum of three, usually two.

Where Do the Candidates Come From?

Not from a search engine on the day. We keep a curated pool of clinics we've already worked with or assessed: what happened to previous patients, which doctors have deep experience with which procedures, what the lab can do, and how the clinic treats people after the invoice is paid. The first call narrows that pool to the clinics that can legally and medically treat your case.

Then the conversation refines it further. Two clinics in the same network in two cities can have different doctors and different waiting times; a clinic that's excellent for donor eggs may be ordinary for male-factor cases.

That's also why your shortlist can't be the same three clinics we send everyone. Legal requirements differ from country to country and from clinic to clinic, and clinics themselves tell us where they're strongest: donor programmes, endometriosis, and so on.

Why Not Send You Ten?

Because ten options is what you had at 10 pm on Tuesday. A study of 79 UK fertility clinic websites found that two-thirds that published success rates did so using 51 different outcome measures, so comparing clinics yourself is close to impossible, and more options make it worse, not better.^[4]

So we do the comparing internally and show you the result.

• Option 1: a balanced, mid-range clinic that fits your case well.
• Option 2: our top choice for you, explained in detail.
• Option 3: an alternative that differs on something that matters: country, price, or logistics.

Sometimes all three are equally suitable and sit in the same price range; it depends on your budget and your situation. For complex cases, we may contact up to ten clinics before we settle on your two or three. That's rare. It usually means the first two or three clinics declined the case and we had to search further. Either way, you see the reasoning, not a list.

Home or abroad, by the way, is part of the same question. If you want to stay in the UK, typically because your job doesn't allow much travel and you don't have the time for it, we'll shortlist UK clinics instead.

Bottom Line:
Two or three clinics, each there for a reason you can read in one paragraph. We're an independent company, always on the patient's side, and no clinic can pay us for a higher rating or a better place on your list. If you want to know what else we considered and why it didn't make the cut, ask. We'll tell you.

What Does "Validated" Actually Mean?

It means a clinic has passed the checks that predict a good experience, not that it has a lot of stars.

What Do Licences and Certificates Tell You?

• A national licence: the legal minimum to operate; every clinic we show has one.
• ESHRE ART Centre Accreditation (formerly Certification): a voluntary certificate of good clinical and laboratory practice from the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology (ESHRE), audited on site.^[5][6]
• Laboratory standards: embryology labs can measure themselves against the Vienna consensus, a set of agreed performance indicators for IVF labs.^[7]

What Do We Look At Beyond the Paperwork?

• The doctor's experience with your procedure: not the clinic's, the doctor's.
• The lab: technology, embryologists, and how they handle freezing.
• Outcomes by age and procedure: with one honest caveat below.
• Patient feedback split three ways: organisation, medical care, and the medical-tourism specifics (interpreters, transfers, and how the clinic communicates once it's been paid).
• Our red-flag list: a clinic goes on it when something happens to one of our own patients, or when it lacks the certifications it needs to provide the care.

Why the Caveat on Success Rates?

Outside the UK, success rates are mostly clinic-reported. The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) publishes per-clinic results for UK clinics, all calculated the same way, and the Spanish Fertility Society (SEF) registry publishes results by clinic, but in most countries there's nothing comparable to check a website against.^[8][9][10] So we ask for rates by age and by procedure, we compare them with what we know, and we treat them as one factor among several, never as a promise.

→ Learn more: Why the Best IVF Clinic Isn't the Same for Everyone

How Is the Shortlist Presented?

First, a call, then a written summary you can forward to your partner, with every clinic laid out in the same structure so the comparison is real.

Before anything reaches you, we check the clinic's quote for errors. Mistakes do creep in, sometimes at bigger clinics, and they're worth catching before they reach you.

Source: Medical Navigator quotation process, September 2026

When two clinics give different medical opinions on the same case, we explain the difference rather than hide it. Doctors disagree. That's normal, and it's useful information.

What If You Can't Decide?

Take your time. There's no deadline on our side and no pressure; a second call with your partner on the line is common.

• "Which would you choose?" You'll get an honest review of both, without a bad word about either; the decision stays yours.
• Still unsure: we can't decide for you, so we suggest an online consultation with each clinic's doctor (sometimes paid) and deciding after.
• Want to speak to a previous patient? Rarely possible; IVF is very personal, and not everyone is open to that conversation.
• Have a clinic in mind that isn't on our list? Unless it has real problems (low success rates, no certification), we'll contact it on your behalf and arrange an appointment, even without an agreement in place.
• Check us: ask why, ask what else we considered, and call the clinic yourself if you want to hear it first-hand.^[1]

How Long Does It All Take?

A reply within 24 hours, clinic replies in 2 to 7 days, and a written shortlist about a week after the first call on average, though IVF itself waits for your cycle, not for us.

Source: Medical Navigator coordination process, September 2026; NHS subject access request timelines^[3]

So, What Should You Do Now?

Six things, and the first one takes a quarter of an hour.

Step 1: Book the Call, or Fill In the Form

10 to 15 minutes. Name, phone, how you'd like to be contacted, what you're interested in, and your timing. Everything else is optional.

Step 2: Request Your Records Today

Ask your GP practice and any previous clinic for your results and cycle summaries now. If it takes a month or more, better that month starts today.

Step 3: Decide Your Non-Negotiables

Country, budget ceiling, donor anonymity, a female doctor, no more than two trips: whatever they are, tell us on the call. They shape the shortlist.

Step 4: Read the "Not Included" List First

When the shortlist arrives, start with the exclusions on each clinic, then the price. That's how you compare like with like.

Step 5: Ask Us Why

Why these clinics, what else we considered, why the top choice. And call the clinic yourself if you'd like to. Good answers should survive that.

Step 6: Choose, or Tell Your Coordinator What's Missing

Pick a clinic, and we take it from there, or tell us what doesn't fit, and we go back to the pool. Either way, the next step is the same person you've been talking to.

→ Get your free clinic shortlist: MedicalNavigator.com/contact

Too Long, Didn't Read

• The first call takes 10 to 15 minutes, covers about ten questions, and involves no selling and no medical interpretation.
• Send test results from the last 6 months if you have them; if not, clinics can run the work-up themselves.
• We consider many clinics and show you 2 or 3, each with the reasoning written down.
• "Validated" means licences, certificates, the doctor's experience, the lab, outcomes by age, and real patient feedback.
• Every shortlist entry lists what's not included: interpreters, flights, medication, and extra days.
• Expect a reply within 24 hours, clinic replies in 2 to 7 days, and a written shortlist in about a week.

References

1. Medical Navigator. Why Our Service Is Free for Patients. Updated 30 April 2026. ↩
2. British Medical Association (BMA). General practice responsibility in responding to private healthcare. 31 August 2023. ↩
3. Kingston and Richmond NHS Foundation Trust. Access to health and staff records (subject access requests). ↩
4. Wilkinson J, Vail A, Roberts SA. Direct-to-consumer advertising of success rates for medically assisted reproduction: a review of national clinic websites. BMJ Open. 2017;7(1):e012218. ↩
5. European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology (ESHRE). ART Centre Accreditation for good clinical practice. Accessed 7 September 2026. ↩
6. Gianaroli L, Veiga A, Gordts S, et al. ESHRE certification of ART centres for good laboratory and clinical practice. Hum Reprod Open. 2022;2022(4):hoac040. ↩
7. ESHRE Special Interest Group of Embryology; Alpha Scientists in Reproductive Medicine. The Vienna consensus: report of an expert meeting on the development of ART laboratory performance indicators. Hum Reprod Open. 2017;2017(2):hox011. ↩
8. Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA). Choose a fertility clinic. ↩
9. Sociedad Española de Fertilidad (SEF). Registro Nacional de Actividad: Registro SEF (national assisted reproduction registry, results by clinic). Latest published year: 2023. ↩
10. Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA). Fertility treatment abroad. Reviewed 14 July 2016; accessed 7 September 2026. ↩