Thank you for your interest in the vasectomy reversal!
The vasectomy reversal is not a cheap procedure. Costs can range from $3000 to $20,000 depending on the surgeon, the facility and the location of the country. When deciding on the doctor for your procedure, beware of choosing based on fees alone. At the low end, the fees often do not include any anesthetic other than local. The vas reversal operation is a very delicate one and the patient must remain perfectly still during it. This is just not possible under a local anesthetic. So if you want to be asleep for the procedure, add at least $1200 onto the costs, even more since facilities that are equipped for general anesthetic procedures are more expensive than offices that can only safely administer local anesthetics.
Other surgeons will get you into their office quoting one rate, then they will perform expensive and unnecessary diagnostic testing on you, such as blood testing, scrotal and prostate sonography. These tests can cost well in excess of $1500. And guess who pays for that? You do.
Under most circumstances, in the right hands, that is the right surgeon, even the most expensive vas reversal is cheaper than the cheapest sperm retrieval followed by in-vitro or ICSI cycle. In the NY metro area, one attempt at sperm retrieval with IVF/ICSI costs on average $15000. And, the chance of that resulting in a pregnancy in the best of all situations is in the 30% per attempt range. Therefore, if you are not successful on your first try and have to go to a second attempt, you've exceeded the cost of a vas reversal by 2-3 times at least, depending on the cost of the urologist you select.
