Our methodology

Data source

All success rate data on FertilityMetrics comes from the CDC's National ART Surveillance System (NASS) — the federal database that US fertility clinics are legally required to report to under the Fertility Clinic Success Rate and Certification Act of 1992.

The most recent published report covers cycles performed in 2022. This is the same data source used by SART (Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology) and referenced by major fertility clinic networks in their own marketing materials.

We do not collect, estimate, or supplement any outcome data. What you see is what the CDC published.

Why 2022 data?

CDC ART data is published on approximately a two-year lag. This is a standard feature of federal surveillance reporting — clinics submit data, the CDC validates it, resolves discrepancies, and publishes verified results. The 2022 report is the most recently published as of our last update.

This lag is consistent across the entire industry. SART's publicly available statistics use the same 2022 dataset. No third party — including us — has access to more recent verified outcome data.

What the success rates mean

The primary metric we show is live birth rate per intended egg retrieval for new patients using their own eggs, broken down by age group. This is the most conservative and meaningful measure of clinic performance:

• Per intended retrieval — includes patients who started treatment but did not complete retrieval (due to poor response, cancellation, etc.). This is harder to game than "per transfer" or "per retrieval."
• Own eggs only — donor egg rates are shown separately, as donor cycles reflect donor characteristics rather than the clinic's ability to treat the patient's own infertility.
• New patients only — excludes frozen embryo transfers from prior cycles, which reflects a clinic's ability to take a new patient through a full cycle.
• By age group — age is the single strongest predictor of IVF outcomes. Comparing clinics without controlling for age is meaningless.

Data suppression

The CDC suppresses success rates when fewer than 20 cycles were performed in a given age group, to protect patient privacy and prevent statistically unreliable rates from being published. When you see "N/A" or "Insufficient data" on a clinic page, this is why.

We flag low-volume clinics explicitly. A clinic that performed 30 total cycles in a year has rates that are statistically unreliable regardless of what the number says.

What we do not do

• We do not adjust, normalize, or risk-adjust clinic rates for patient mix. A clinic that treats harder cases may appear to underperform on raw rates.
• We do not accept payment from clinics to improve their ranking or suppress their data.
• We do not recommend specific clinics. We present data and analysis — the decision belongs to you and your physician.
• We do not have relationships with clinics that influence how their data is presented.

A note on interpreting rates

Higher live birth rates are not automatically better. Academic medical centers that accept difficult referral cases — severe male factor, recurrent implantation failure, complex genetics — often report lower raw rates than boutique practices that select favorable patients. Volume, accreditation, and service breadth matter alongside raw percentages.

Our red flag analysis attempts to surface these nuances, but no automated system replaces a conversation with a reproductive endocrinologist who knows your specific situation.