Columbia Fertility Associates

STAY AWAY. I've had a horrible experience. Staff is unorganized, unfriendly and overall incompetent. I can't imagine they will be in business for long. I enjoyed my initial consult with Dr. Sacks but after my payment went through its been nothing but inconsistent and contradicting communication. I called and emailed many times to get direction on what medication to take and when, the response from Imani (the office manager) was rude and inconsistent with what the Dr. had said in-person. I was promised a refund, yet I am still following up and fighting for it. The CFA staff has no integrity or respect for their patients, please BE AWARE! For the women that have experienced CFA already- I urge you to submit complaints with the BBB, DOH and contact the DC Medical Board and Council. We can't let this continue.

Columbia Fertility associates changed my life. Their principal, Dr. Preston Sacks, took me in as a much older double donor IVF patient, where other clinics declined me outright because of my age; largely because, I imagine , they don’t want to risk older patients lowering their success rate averages. One major clinic also rejected me because I was single and they wanted their babies to have a biological connection to at least one parent, which frankly felt like a form of medical discrimination to me. Somehow, Columbia Fertility made it feel almost as easy as routine medical treatment instead of something difficult and specialized. I gave birth to a healthy, beautiful , full-term baby and I really don’t think it would’ve happened without Columbia Fertility and especially Dr. Sacks. If anyone is having fertility difficulty at other clinics or is being rejected at clinics, don’t wait, talk to Dr. Sacks. He changed my life. The only thing I would definitely change from my experience is much better communication from the front office and patient coordination staff. The coordinating with the staff was very often difficult but frankly I have experienced that at every single medical office I’ve ever gone to in my life. It definitely never became a dealbreaker, and for me getting the outcome that I wanted was far more important than having a perfectly smooth Office experience.

This place is a nightmare to work with. Totally uncommunicative, operational mistakes, bare minimum patient education or efforts to explain interventions and successes or lack thereof, appointments never ever starting on time, monitoring that lasts all day. We switched to SGF and I feel like I’m at a fertility concierge in comparison to the utter chaos of this clinic. If you are using insurance and/or require anything more than the bare minimum of care, DO NOT GO HERE. The administrative lift of the fertility process is already hefty, but it can be so much easier and less stressful than these people force it to be.

DO NOT GO HERE! I got the PRP treatment. Went in with regular cycles and I haven’t had a regular cycle since. I came from another clinic and after 3 appointments and a PRP treatment I was told I "wasn’t a patient". I received zero treatment plan after the surgery. Zero guidance on my next cycle. The surgery process itself felt like a factory. After two egg retrievals at CCRM, I can tell you that my experience at CFA was a nightmare. Go elsewhere.

Warning to all—don’t agree to ANY testing (blood work, ultrasound) unless you know the cost and are prepared to pay out of pocket. I ended up on the hook for $1000+ after insurance denied the testing recommended here (months later). CFA should’ve given me some kind of warning or estimate, but nope. Especially bc 99.9% of plans don’t cover this type of testing for my situation—something I had no idea about but should be basic knowledge for this business. Never would’ve taken these tests if I had that info. I feel so frustrated and let down.

Whoever was the receptionist that helped me this morning in getting my records uploaded to the patient portal thank you! I know it was last minute and I really appreciate it 🙂

I have never had a more bizarre, horrible, and inexcusably unprofessional experience with a medical office in my life than I had with CFA. After an initial consult call, Dr. Sacks requested several pre-treatment tests, which for some unknown reason he would not order himself and attempted to pass off to my OBGYN. Communication during this time was horrendous. Dr. Sacks would only respond to questions via email, and sometimes weeks (or more) went by before getting any kind of response. He refused to order the genetic carrier screening that HE required - again, he attempted to pass this off to my other providers and even had the audacity to argue with me when I explained that those providers (reasonably) would not order tests on his behalf. Eventually, after months of back and forth, he vaguely mentioned having a testing kit sent to my home a few times but then completely stopped responding after numerous attempts to follow up. We quite literally stopped receiving any kind of response from CFA at all. All in all, we wasted months of our time trying to receive treatment at CFA. And, as anyone involved in a fertility journey knows, time is of the essence. We have since moved on to Shady Grove and were able to complete all of our testing within A WEEK. We spent nearly 6 months going back and forth with CFA trying to accomplish what Shady Grove accomplished in a week - unbelievable. I STRONGLY recommend avoiding CFA at all costs. Shady Grove has been wonderful so far - warm and friendly staff, excellent communication and education, and they keep things moving along. Please don’t waste your time with CFA as we did! And if anyone from CFA or Dr. Sacks actually still reads these reviews, please know that your clinic is a disgrace to the reproductive health community. Every other medical provider I have spoken to about my experience has been appalled. Dr. Sacks needs to retire if he doesn’t want to do his job, and the entire clinic needs a massive overhaul of their procedures.