WEBVTT - Rocketship to Nowhere 0:00:02.480 --> 0:00:07.560 Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. 0:00:08.400 --> 0:00:14.000 This series features conversations about pregnancy, complications and loss. Please 0:00:14.040 --> 0:00:18.400 take care while listening. By the beginning of twenty twenty two, 0:00:19.079 --> 0:00:23.720 kind Body was riding high. It had opened thirteen clinics 0:00:23.720 --> 0:00:28.920 in ten cities, and then in February, the company announced 0:00:28.920 --> 0:00:32.320 a plan that would double its size. Kind Body said 0:00:32.320 --> 0:00:36.240 it would acquire a larger competitor, a fertility chain called 0:00:36.320 --> 0:00:40.840 Bios Fertility Institute. Unlike the venture capital and corporate world 0:00:40.880 --> 0:00:44.479 that Kindbody's founder, Gina Bartesi came from, Bios was more 0:00:44.520 --> 0:00:47.720 of a family business. It was founded in twenty fifteen 0:00:48.040 --> 0:00:50.160 by a doctor named Angie Beltzos. 0:00:50.760 --> 0:00:57.320 Angie is unique. She is extraordinarily talented as a physician, 0:00:57.960 --> 0:01:01.240 and she has even more talent it as a clinical leader, 0:01:01.440 --> 0:01:02.640 just as a leader in general. 0:01:02.960 --> 0:01:06.280 That's Gina talking to Griffin Jones, host of the Inside 0:01:06.319 --> 0:01:09.000 Reproductive Health podcast, back in twenty twenty two. 0:01:09.560 --> 0:01:15.600 She knows a tremendous amount about business, about productivity, about margin. 0:01:16.040 --> 0:01:19.959 With Bios, kind Body immediately doubled its number of clinics 0:01:20.040 --> 0:01:24.800 from thirteen to twenty six, and Gina wasn't done. She 0:01:24.920 --> 0:01:28.360 had her sights set on doubling the number of clinics again. 0:01:28.720 --> 0:01:37.880 But we're opening Seattle, We're opening Dallas, Houston, Orange County, Miami, Charlotte, 0:01:38.080 --> 0:01:41.600 We're opening Washington, DC next week. Our plan calls for 0:01:41.680 --> 0:01:44.360 fifty locations within the next two years. 0:01:45.160 --> 0:01:47.480 In one of their first appearances as a new company, 0:01:48.120 --> 0:01:50.920 executives from Bios and kind Body ring the bell at 0:01:50.920 --> 0:01:57.400 the New York Stock Exchange. That summer, doctors and executives 0:01:57.440 --> 0:02:00.160 from the two fertility companies gathered for a retreat in 0:02:00.200 --> 0:02:03.920 Chicago to kick off this new chapter. At the front 0:02:03.920 --> 0:02:07.360 of the room was Gina selling a vision of the future. 0:02:08.160 --> 0:02:11.400 A former marketing executive from kind Body remembers that day. 0:02:11.720 --> 0:02:15.200 We're coming together, Bios and kind Body. We're all on board. 0:02:15.960 --> 0:02:19.359 We are not using her real name. She and others 0:02:19.400 --> 0:02:22.720 you'll hear from in this episode asked for anonymity because 0:02:22.800 --> 0:02:26.160 kind Body has threatened legal action against employees they believed 0:02:26.200 --> 0:02:29.400 were talking to journalists. A voice actor is reading what 0:02:29.480 --> 0:02:30.000 she told me. 0:02:30.800 --> 0:02:34.000 Here's where a focus is. Here's a motivator for the team. 0:02:34.320 --> 0:02:37.320 I mean, Gina knows she knows how to command a room, 0:02:37.400 --> 0:02:41.200 an excited room, and it was really just focused on 0:02:41.400 --> 0:02:43.920 here's the growth. Here's how we're going to do it, 0:02:43.960 --> 0:02:46.200 and we're all going to be so rich at the 0:02:46.320 --> 0:02:47.120 end of this journey. 0:02:47.960 --> 0:02:51.880 Gina Bartesi declined to comment for this series. A spokeswoman 0:02:51.919 --> 0:02:56.160 said this was because of quote multiple factual inaccuracies, as 0:02:56.160 --> 0:02:59.680 well as continued biased reporting given Bloomberg's lack of context 0:02:59.720 --> 0:03:04.200 provide to readers regarding the fertility industry kind body and 0:03:04.240 --> 0:03:08.200 her role as an experienced leader in the field. Asked 0:03:08.240 --> 0:03:14.960 to identify specific inaccuracies, the spokeswoman declined to comment. Part 0:03:15.000 --> 0:03:18.679 of the biosteal was that after the acquisition, Gina would 0:03:18.720 --> 0:03:21.880 step back a CEO. She would stay on as chairman 0:03:21.919 --> 0:03:24.079 of the board, but would hand over the reigns of 0:03:24.160 --> 0:03:26.560 day to day operations in an effort to make room 0:03:26.600 --> 0:03:31.240 for the Bios executives. Gina knew a lot about employee benefits, 0:03:31.520 --> 0:03:34.720 egg freezing, and how to raise money, but the next 0:03:34.760 --> 0:03:37.480 phase of growth needed leaders who knew how to grow 0:03:37.600 --> 0:03:41.480 multiple IVF clinics at once, and Gina saw the founder 0:03:41.480 --> 0:03:44.960 of Bios, Angie Beltzos, as the person who could do that. 0:03:45.840 --> 0:03:48.880 Here's Gina again on the Inside Reproductive Health podcast. 0:03:49.640 --> 0:03:52.240 Now I will tell you Angie has uped the game. 0:03:52.480 --> 0:03:55.320 A lot of doctors I talked to are very comfortable 0:03:55.360 --> 0:03:58.200 doing one hundred and fifty cases a year, and they 0:03:58.240 --> 0:04:00.480 say that listen, I do ten to twelve cases them up. 0:04:00.920 --> 0:04:03.520 I sell an IVF cycle for twenty five thousand dollars 0:04:03.600 --> 0:04:04.560 and that's my model. 0:04:05.040 --> 0:04:08.760 With Angie's help, Gina envisioned higher volumes of IVF. 0:04:09.400 --> 0:04:13.360 You look at the physician productivity of her doctors and 0:04:13.360 --> 0:04:16.560 it's extraordinary. One of her lead physicians did more than 0:04:16.600 --> 0:04:19.719 one thousand cases last year. That's extraordinary. 0:04:20.400 --> 0:04:23.080 Kind Bodies leaders also had their site set on an 0:04:23.160 --> 0:04:26.839 initial public offering, the kind of move that can bring 0:04:26.880 --> 0:04:29.559 a big payout for those who got into the company early. 0:04:30.000 --> 0:04:32.479 He is the rocket ship analogy a lot. 0:04:32.600 --> 0:04:34.720 We are on a rocket ship to the moon, and. 0:04:34.680 --> 0:04:37.120 Then he always talked about, like the rocket ship, we're 0:04:37.160 --> 0:04:40.440 going to like last to the moon and help everyone's fertility. 0:04:40.560 --> 0:04:43.360 We're gonna get yellow planes. Everyone's gonna have a yellow plane. 0:04:43.600 --> 0:04:45.640 Who's gonna buy the first plane? 0:04:46.080 --> 0:04:51.039 Blind Bline. Amid all the talk of private jets and 0:04:51.200 --> 0:04:56.200 worldwide expansion, the acquisition had saddled Kind Body with more 0:04:56.279 --> 0:04:59.599 financial pressure, and it came at a time when the 0:04:59.600 --> 0:05:04.680 start up was already struggling with operational issues from Bloomberg 0:05:04.760 --> 0:05:10.040 and iHeart podcasts. This is IVF disrupted the kind Body story. 0:05:11.000 --> 0:05:17.880 I'm Jackie Devalos. That spring, the two companies came together. 0:05:18.520 --> 0:05:21.080 Employees were told it was the start of kind Body's 0:05:21.160 --> 0:05:22.320 most exciting chapter. 0:05:22.440 --> 0:05:23.279 Yet. 0:05:23.520 --> 0:05:26.159 One of the executives who came over from Bios who 0:05:26.160 --> 0:05:30.320 were calling Emily remembers the promises made. An actor is 0:05:30.360 --> 0:05:31.360 reading what she told me. 0:05:32.279 --> 0:05:35.719 It was a huge part of the deal was that 0:05:36.080 --> 0:05:40.280 people wouldn't lose their jobs because the two companies came together, 0:05:40.520 --> 0:05:42.680 that there was more than enough work to go around. 0:05:43.120 --> 0:05:46.919 If we had redundant positions. We were growing, so let's 0:05:47.040 --> 0:05:51.640 figure out how to reallocate someone, train someone on something new. 0:05:52.480 --> 0:05:55.800 But the deal in kind Body's aggressive growth plans that 0:05:55.920 --> 0:06:00.000 followed it were based on overly rosy assumptions, according to 0:06:00.200 --> 0:06:04.400 what I heard from current and former executives. The company 0:06:04.440 --> 0:06:07.680 didn't disclose how much it paid to buy Bios, but 0:06:07.760 --> 0:06:12.200 former executives tell me it was substantial. Kind Body had 0:06:12.279 --> 0:06:15.080 used up a lot of its cash and the expectation 0:06:15.279 --> 0:06:17.480 was that the deal would result in more people coming 0:06:17.520 --> 0:06:21.400 through the doors. The Bios locations were already up and running, 0:06:21.480 --> 0:06:24.240 and they were quickly remodeled to fit the kind Body aesthetic. 0:06:25.279 --> 0:06:29.120 These clinics were also profitable, something kind Body couldn't say 0:06:29.120 --> 0:06:33.120 about many of its other clinics. According to internal documents, 0:06:33.160 --> 0:06:38.159 I saw Atlanta, Austin, and some California locations were burning 0:06:38.200 --> 0:06:42.520 through cash. This wasn't part of the plan. When they'd 0:06:42.520 --> 0:06:47.000 originally opened. Kind Body had expected the retail centric clinics 0:06:47.040 --> 0:06:50.400 would attract a flood of new people looking for fertility services. 0:06:51.120 --> 0:06:54.279 They also expected deals with employers to translate into a 0:06:54.279 --> 0:06:58.560 steady flow of business, but former employees and executives told 0:06:58.600 --> 0:07:01.440 me it was more of a trick. Part of the 0:07:01.480 --> 0:07:05.040 reason is because people just weren't using their IVF benefit 0:07:05.200 --> 0:07:09.320 at the rate kind Body had projected. Another challenge was 0:07:09.360 --> 0:07:13.360 that IVF patients take time to cultivate to build trust with. 0:07:14.440 --> 0:07:19.120 Even so, the company continued to spend and expand they 0:07:19.120 --> 0:07:23.080 were banking on patient volume catching up. Here's Emily the 0:07:23.160 --> 0:07:24.880 former bios employee, again. 0:07:25.400 --> 0:07:31.280 The honeymoonish period was probably maybe nine months. We weren't 0:07:31.280 --> 0:07:34.880 getting IVF patients in the door. We weren't building the 0:07:34.960 --> 0:07:38.640 IVF volume to then grow and hit the projections. That 0:07:38.680 --> 0:07:42.960 we had if you work backwards. The numbers were created 0:07:43.080 --> 0:07:47.200 on bad math. So yes, of course you have to 0:07:47.200 --> 0:07:50.080 make hard decisions if you're not hitting your projections. 0:07:50.560 --> 0:07:54.840 By the fall of twenty twenty two, layoffs began, and 0:07:54.880 --> 0:07:57.480 according to Emily, they were done in waves. 0:07:59.160 --> 0:08:02.880 The first round of layoffs just laid a horrific foundation 0:08:03.200 --> 0:08:08.160 for profound anxiety. They're often rolling layoffs. There might have 0:08:08.240 --> 0:08:11.600 been an initial batch and then everyone felt like, Okay, 0:08:11.720 --> 0:08:16.680 I'm safe, and then two, three, four weeks later others 0:08:16.720 --> 0:08:21.040 would trickle out, and that hit to productivity cannot be understated. 0:08:22.040 --> 0:08:26.280 People were not able to do their best work ever. Again, really, 0:08:27.040 --> 0:08:29.800 there was always this concern that they would be next. 0:08:31.120 --> 0:08:35.040 According to internal documents, the cuts hit hardest among those 0:08:35.080 --> 0:08:40.160 working directly with patients, medical assistance, billing staff, and a 0:08:40.240 --> 0:08:46.360 roll kind body called financial navigators. Financial navigators worked remotely 0:08:46.679 --> 0:08:51.120 handling patients across all kind body clinics. Here's one of them. 0:08:51.880 --> 0:08:56.960 So I feel like the financial navigator is probably next 0:08:57.000 --> 0:09:00.280 to the doctor. We will basically come in and we 0:09:00.320 --> 0:09:03.200 will go over your benefits, we will verify anything. We 0:09:03.240 --> 0:09:05.520 will be the person who gets any authorizations. If you 0:09:05.559 --> 0:09:08.560 have insurance, we will then cancel you on anything that's 0:09:08.559 --> 0:09:11.480 going into come out of pocket for you. If you 0:09:11.559 --> 0:09:16.079 didn't pay, then you can't start your cycle. We're essentially 0:09:16.080 --> 0:09:18.880 the last person you talked to before you start treatment. 0:09:19.679 --> 0:09:23.920 For patients, financial navigators were more than just number crunchers. 0:09:24.480 --> 0:09:28.240 They were guides through a complex and costly journey where 0:09:28.240 --> 0:09:31.240 a single cycle of IVF could cost as much as 0:09:31.240 --> 0:09:36.400 sixteen thousand dollars. But as the layoffs continued, the remaining 0:09:36.480 --> 0:09:38.520 navigators found themselves overwhelmed. 0:09:39.559 --> 0:09:43.640 Here's another There was probably ten or twelve people on 0:09:43.679 --> 0:09:46.400 our team, and then at one point there were three 0:09:46.480 --> 0:09:49.080 or four of us, and we were in charge of 0:09:49.240 --> 0:09:52.480 all of the markets, all of the offices. And then 0:09:52.720 --> 0:09:55.560 it was just like here's more work, and here's more work, 0:09:55.559 --> 0:09:57.760 and here's more work, to the point where we were 0:09:58.720 --> 0:10:01.120 on the phone with each other and on meetings with 0:10:01.200 --> 0:10:02.880 each other just breaking down crime. 0:10:03.440 --> 0:10:05.360 We had to do the phone calls, we had to 0:10:05.400 --> 0:10:08.600 cut the money, we had to check the cycles, the schedules, like, 0:10:08.640 --> 0:10:10.800 we had to do all of it, and we had 0:10:10.880 --> 0:10:12.400 no help. I was drowning. 0:10:12.760 --> 0:10:16.000 We were like, this rocket ship is like nose diving 0:10:16.160 --> 0:10:19.040 right now, and if we're not going to jump off right. Now, 0:10:19.360 --> 0:10:22.720 we're all doomed. There's no one on this rocket ship 0:10:22.840 --> 0:10:24.000 that is going to survive. 0:10:24.760 --> 0:10:28.160 The two financial navigators said they worried the mounting workload 0:10:28.520 --> 0:10:30.080 would open them up to mistakes. 0:10:30.559 --> 0:10:32.760 People are going to make errors. Things are going to happen, 0:10:32.800 --> 0:10:35.839 The stations are going to happen. You would quote the 0:10:35.840 --> 0:10:41.200 wrong amount, You could send the wrong patience financial estimate 0:10:41.280 --> 0:10:44.720 to the wrong patient, you could attach the wrong thing. 0:10:45.360 --> 0:10:48.240 Like we have to double check and triple track everything, 0:10:48.640 --> 0:10:54.800 and if you didn't send the authorization with the right codes, 0:10:55.240 --> 0:10:57.360 you'd have to go and start the whole process again, 0:10:57.400 --> 0:11:01.439 which is a two week process than now, putting off 0:11:01.600 --> 0:11:02.959 the patient's treatment. 0:11:04.120 --> 0:11:08.320 With IVF, timing is everything. You're trying to sync up 0:11:08.400 --> 0:11:13.200 multiple biological processes that normally happen naturally over weeks, from 0:11:13.280 --> 0:11:15.600 getting the eggs to mature at just the right time 0:11:16.120 --> 0:11:19.560 to ensuring the uterine lining is perfectly ready for implantation. 0:11:20.440 --> 0:11:23.000 If your timing is off even by a day or two, 0:11:23.600 --> 0:11:27.400 the whole cycle could be unsuccessful because embryos need exactly 0:11:27.440 --> 0:11:30.600 the right conditions at exactly the right moment to have 0:11:30.679 --> 0:11:33.280 the best chance of developing into a healthy pregnancy. 0:11:33.960 --> 0:11:37.480 But if you made a mistake, it was the worst 0:11:37.559 --> 0:11:39.560 thing in the entire world. 0:11:40.880 --> 0:11:44.079 Patients frustrations with kind Body started showing up in negative 0:11:44.080 --> 0:11:48.320 reviews online. The company was now being criticized for exactly 0:11:48.360 --> 0:11:52.840 what it claimed to be fixing confusing bills, hitting costs, 0:11:53.160 --> 0:11:58.480 and a lack of transparency. Patients described getting unexpected charges 0:11:58.760 --> 0:12:03.480 weeks after procedures, insurance claims that were filed incorrectly, and 0:12:03.600 --> 0:12:09.000 authorizations that arrived too late. These weren't just administrative headaches 0:12:09.480 --> 0:12:13.439 for patients already stretching their finances to afford fertility treatment. 0:12:14.000 --> 0:12:17.200 These mistakes could mean the difference between starting a cycle 0:12:17.600 --> 0:12:20.720 or having to wait months to save up again. In 0:12:20.760 --> 0:12:25.600 the c suite, some executives were losing confidence. Kind Body's 0:12:25.679 --> 0:12:28.679 high profile CFO had quit after less than a year 0:12:28.720 --> 0:12:32.079 on the job, and then the chief scientific officer left 0:12:32.120 --> 0:12:35.320 the company. I reached out to both of them, and 0:12:35.440 --> 0:12:37.959 neither wanted to speak to me for this podcast because 0:12:38.000 --> 0:12:44.840 they signed non disclosure agreements. In written comments, kind Body 0:12:44.920 --> 0:12:48.000 told me it hired more customer service staff and made 0:12:48.000 --> 0:12:52.000 significant improvements to its billing processes. It disputed that the 0:12:52.040 --> 0:12:56.120 former chief scientific officer lost confidence in the organization. And 0:12:56.160 --> 0:13:01.800 said executives leave companies for various, often innocuous reasons. For 0:13:01.920 --> 0:13:05.920 doctors and lab staff, the chief scientific officer leaving was 0:13:06.040 --> 0:13:09.760 more than just another executive departure. He had been the 0:13:09.760 --> 0:13:14.240 guardian of their scientific protocols, the person ensuring that the complex, 0:13:14.520 --> 0:13:18.400 precise work of creating and handling embryos was done right. 0:13:20.080 --> 0:13:22.720 Here's Emily, the former Bios executive again. 0:13:23.480 --> 0:13:25.840 I think you can see some of the personnel changes 0:13:25.960 --> 0:13:28.960 in the chief scientific officer role, and a lot of 0:13:29.000 --> 0:13:31.880 movement in terms of who was in charge of labs 0:13:31.920 --> 0:13:35.600 and people had to step in in interim fashions and 0:13:35.800 --> 0:13:40.760 people left. Physicians were concerned. You can't just go grab 0:13:40.800 --> 0:13:45.600 a benchtop scientist. It takes years, years to train as 0:13:45.640 --> 0:13:49.080 skilled embryologist, and if you treat them as disposable people, 0:13:49.559 --> 0:13:50.400 the word spreads. 0:13:51.559 --> 0:13:55.080 The pressure to do more with less was already trickling 0:13:55.120 --> 0:13:57.680 from the corporate offices all the way down to the 0:13:57.760 --> 0:14:03.280 labs and in at Atlanta. Another preventable mistake would change 0:14:03.280 --> 0:14:13.280 a woman's life forever. That's coming up. By the time 0:14:13.400 --> 0:14:16.480 Vernita Pearsall started at Kind Bodies Atlanta Clinic in the 0:14:16.480 --> 0:14:19.920 fall of twenty twenty two, the cracks were starting to show. 0:14:20.720 --> 0:14:24.920 It seemed as if there was a revolving door when 0:14:24.920 --> 0:14:29.240 it came to employees in the Atlanta office. 0:14:29.480 --> 0:14:32.960 Vernita had seen her share of medical practices, but nothing 0:14:33.080 --> 0:14:37.320 quite like this. While other kind body locations were also struggling, 0:14:37.960 --> 0:14:40.240 she says, Atlanta was in free fall. 0:14:40.960 --> 0:14:44.040 At one point, a lot of the executives came to 0:14:44.120 --> 0:14:48.640 the office in Atlanta due to things occurring with so 0:14:49.200 --> 0:14:50.160 much turnaround. 0:14:50.760 --> 0:14:53.720 I saw an internal presentation that backed up what Vernita 0:14:53.800 --> 0:14:57.920 was seeing. The Atlanta clinic had a staggering sixty four 0:14:58.000 --> 0:15:02.520 percent turnover rate among its clinical staff. To handle the volume, 0:15:03.080 --> 0:15:06.520 staff was told to move patients through their appointments even faster. 0:15:07.360 --> 0:15:12.000 It was that feeling of a conveyor belt going in, 0:15:12.400 --> 0:15:17.000 going out next, going in, going out next, And it 0:15:17.480 --> 0:15:27.000 looked aesthetically like a soothing place, but in all actuality 0:15:27.560 --> 0:15:31.200 that was not the case. It was pretty much let's 0:15:31.280 --> 0:15:33.360 get them in, let's get them out. 0:15:34.320 --> 0:15:38.320 Former employees told me. Staff inside the embryology lab, which 0:15:38.360 --> 0:15:42.040 required the most precise and time intensive work, was burned out. 0:15:42.800 --> 0:15:45.040 They struggled to keep up with a patient load that 0:15:45.160 --> 0:15:47.560 kept growing even as their team kept shrinking. 0:15:48.200 --> 0:15:51.320 A lot of times. They were there before I started, 0:15:52.040 --> 0:15:56.840 and they were there after I would go home, and 0:15:57.200 --> 0:16:01.640 they had to work many weekends, many holidays. 0:16:02.400 --> 0:16:06.320 In text messages shared with me, one embryologist in Atlanta 0:16:06.560 --> 0:16:10.320 told a fellow staffer quote, I have to be coach, 0:16:10.640 --> 0:16:14.280 quarterback and wide receiver. We do not have the space, 0:16:14.480 --> 0:16:18.320 equipment and people for this level of volume. It's dangerous 0:16:18.400 --> 0:16:23.120 and not sustainable. I spoke to five former embryologists who 0:16:23.200 --> 0:16:26.720 worked in the Atlantic Clinic. They all described the same 0:16:26.840 --> 0:16:31.400 crushing workload, the constant turnover, the feeling that it was 0:16:31.440 --> 0:16:35.040 only a matter of time before something went wrong, and 0:16:35.080 --> 0:16:39.040 then one day, in March of twenty twenty three, it did. 0:16:41.840 --> 0:16:45.040 Among the dozens of patient reviews and complaints I encountered 0:16:45.080 --> 0:16:49.800 while reporting this story, one stood out. A Google review 0:16:50.160 --> 0:16:54.360 that described a disappointing experience at the Atlantic Clinic. It 0:16:54.400 --> 0:16:58.200 was a devastating error, one that would reveal just how 0:16:58.280 --> 0:17:02.640 dangerous Kind Bodies staffing crime had become. Here's Vernita reading 0:17:02.640 --> 0:17:03.120 the review. 0:17:03.480 --> 0:17:07.480 She put, I recently had a very disappointing experience with 0:17:07.640 --> 0:17:14.359 Kind Body Fertility Clinic that I cannot in good conscience recommend. Unfortunately, 0:17:14.720 --> 0:17:19.360 they gave me the wrong measurement of medication during my treatment, 0:17:19.960 --> 0:17:25.000 which led to a lot of complications and stress. Despite 0:17:25.160 --> 0:17:28.800 all the issues, we were able to proceed with one 0:17:29.000 --> 0:17:30.560 embryo for transfer. 0:17:31.720 --> 0:17:32.720 Wow. 0:17:32.800 --> 0:17:36.240 On the day of the transfer, however, things went from 0:17:36.320 --> 0:17:41.080 bad to worse. The clinic staff were unable to identify, 0:17:41.520 --> 0:17:45.600 Oh my God, which embryo was ours because they had 0:17:45.680 --> 0:17:52.320 some unlabeled embryos in their storage. This was extremely frustrating 0:17:52.440 --> 0:17:57.440 and concerning, and left thus feeling very uncertain about the 0:17:57.640 --> 0:17:58.719 entire process. 0:18:00.000 --> 0:18:02.560 I spoke to four employees who were at the Atlanta 0:18:02.600 --> 0:18:06.399 location the day this review is about. None would speak 0:18:06.400 --> 0:18:10.600 on the record, fearing legal retaliation from Kind Body, but 0:18:10.640 --> 0:18:13.399 the patient herself agreed to talk with me when I 0:18:13.440 --> 0:18:17.239 traveled to Atlanta to investigate what happened. She asked not 0:18:17.359 --> 0:18:20.960 to be identified, explaining that as an immigrant in a 0:18:21.000 --> 0:18:24.399 tight knit religious community, even sharing her story could have 0:18:24.520 --> 0:18:28.359 serious consequences. A voice actor will read what she told me. 0:18:29.920 --> 0:18:34.320 We are religious people, and our community will avoid us 0:18:34.440 --> 0:18:35.760 if they hear about this. 0:18:36.640 --> 0:18:39.320 I'll call her Ayana. She was thirty nine years old 0:18:39.400 --> 0:18:42.280 when she walked into Kind Bodies Atlanta clinic that March morning, 0:18:42.680 --> 0:18:45.720 carrying with her three years of hope and heartbreak. She'd 0:18:45.720 --> 0:18:49.879 been through multiple egg retrievals, most unsuccessful. Out of the 0:18:49.880 --> 0:18:53.240 few eggs they'd managed to retrieve, only one had developed 0:18:53.240 --> 0:18:56.399 into a viable embryo. She was there that day for 0:18:56.480 --> 0:18:59.960 her transfer, the culmination of a fertility journey. 0:19:00.200 --> 0:19:01.920 That was our only opportunity. 0:19:02.560 --> 0:19:05.439 Instead, she and her husband spent three hours in a 0:19:05.440 --> 0:19:07.760 waiting room before learning what happened. 0:19:08.000 --> 0:19:11.120 On the transfer date. When we reached there at twelve, 0:19:11.320 --> 0:19:15.160 like midday, and they told us like about three o'clock, 0:19:16.240 --> 0:19:19.240 like they were like, I don't know how to say it. 0:19:19.480 --> 0:19:24.600 They were like messed up. They call everyone and like 0:19:24.760 --> 0:19:28.520 put us in one room and like, I don't know. 0:19:28.880 --> 0:19:32.040 They hold us like more than three hours. 0:19:32.359 --> 0:19:36.040 When the doctor finally came in to explain, Ayana could 0:19:36.080 --> 0:19:37.879 barely process the words. 0:19:38.400 --> 0:19:41.640 They just stand in front of me. I was crying. 0:19:42.520 --> 0:19:45.480 They told us they don't have the embryo. 0:19:46.680 --> 0:19:49.879 They're one embryo. Their only chance at having a child 0:19:50.520 --> 0:19:55.000 had been mislabeled. The clinic had an embryo, but they 0:19:55.040 --> 0:19:58.080 said they couldn't be sure it was a Yana's. The 0:19:58.200 --> 0:20:01.560 only way to confirm would be through genetic testing, a 0:20:01.600 --> 0:20:07.320 procedure that carried its own risks. Many patients choose to 0:20:07.359 --> 0:20:10.479 genetically test embryos before a transfer to make sure they 0:20:10.520 --> 0:20:14.600 have the correct number of chromosomes. It helps detect abnormalities 0:20:14.640 --> 0:20:18.840 that can result in serious genetic conditions that process, though 0:20:19.280 --> 0:20:22.480 it has its own risks. It involves taking a little 0:20:22.480 --> 0:20:26.199 piece of the embryo and can sometimes damage it. Some 0:20:26.320 --> 0:20:28.800 doctors recommend that patients who don't have a lot of 0:20:28.840 --> 0:20:32.760 embryos to work with skip such testing. Ayana and her 0:20:32.840 --> 0:20:36.359 husband had opted not to do genetic testing before, and 0:20:36.400 --> 0:20:39.280 they didn't want to do it now because of her 0:20:39.320 --> 0:20:42.840 religious beliefs. Ayana said she would have carried the baby 0:20:43.200 --> 0:20:46.000 even if they had detected an abnormality, but. 0:20:46.040 --> 0:20:49.840 They told us, we have one option, which is they 0:20:49.920 --> 0:20:52.800 need to test it to know if it is ours 0:20:52.960 --> 0:20:56.399 or not. The situation pushed us to do that. 0:20:57.520 --> 0:21:00.399 Despite her misgivings, she went ahead and got the test. 0:21:01.400 --> 0:21:04.359 A kind body doctor called and confirmed the embryo was 0:21:04.400 --> 0:21:10.720 indeed theirs, but revealed something else, an abnormality. Ayana said 0:21:10.720 --> 0:21:13.639 the doctor didn't tell her what the abnormality was and 0:21:13.680 --> 0:21:17.080 didn't explain the results. The doctor only told her that 0:21:17.119 --> 0:21:21.560 the embryo had to be discarded. Normally, when an embryo 0:21:21.640 --> 0:21:25.000 is genetically tested, patients get a copy of the report, 0:21:25.320 --> 0:21:27.880 and a doctor or a counselor walks a patient through 0:21:27.920 --> 0:21:30.720 what it means. But Ayana told me she and her 0:21:30.800 --> 0:21:34.199 husband weren't given any paperwork, and no one explained what 0:21:34.280 --> 0:21:41.399 the test had revealed about their last embryo. Many patients 0:21:41.440 --> 0:21:43.840 who go through IVF have a hard time knowing what 0:21:43.880 --> 0:21:47.480 to ask in these tense moments. For Ayana, she says 0:21:47.560 --> 0:21:50.240 the fact that English was not her first language made 0:21:50.280 --> 0:21:54.040 it even more difficult. Discarding an embryo was a big 0:21:54.080 --> 0:21:58.280 decision and went against Ayana's religious principles. She said she 0:21:58.320 --> 0:22:01.040 felt pushed into a decision she didn't want to make, 0:22:01.960 --> 0:22:04.679 but she also felt she didn't have any information to 0:22:04.680 --> 0:22:09.439 be able to push back. The doctor was apologetic and 0:22:09.520 --> 0:22:10.960 offered a free round of IVF. 0:22:11.800 --> 0:22:14.159 She told me, if you work with us, if you 0:22:14.320 --> 0:22:18.520 continue with us, we offer you another cycle. We will 0:22:18.560 --> 0:22:19.600 take care of everything. 0:22:20.560 --> 0:22:22.440 I talked to kind Body when I first learned of 0:22:22.480 --> 0:22:25.720 this incident. A spokeswoman said that kind Body bought a 0:22:25.760 --> 0:22:29.639 tracking system to try to minimize human errors. It's called 0:22:29.680 --> 0:22:34.240 electronic witnessing, and it gives each patience eggs, sperm, and 0:22:34.320 --> 0:22:38.280 embryos unique barcodes that must be scanned at every step. 0:22:38.880 --> 0:22:42.960 The software tracks who handles the materials and when requiring 0:22:43.119 --> 0:22:47.240 verification before allowing procedures to move forward. A Kind Body 0:22:47.280 --> 0:22:50.800 spokeswoman said at the time that this technology was used 0:22:50.800 --> 0:22:53.520 in ninety percent of its labs, and she says that 0:22:53.640 --> 0:22:57.280 now it's used in all of them, But former employees 0:22:57.320 --> 0:23:00.000 told me the problem was that they weren't properly trained 0:23:00.160 --> 0:23:03.040 on how to use it, something that Kind Body disputes. 0:23:03.920 --> 0:23:06.680 My story about lab errors at kind Body was published 0:23:06.680 --> 0:23:09.679 in October of twenty twenty three, two months after I 0:23:09.720 --> 0:23:13.119 spoke with Yana. In it, I wrote about what happened 0:23:13.119 --> 0:23:16.640 to Ayana, to Dina and b and to other patients. 0:23:17.440 --> 0:23:21.600 I'd learned of multiple incidents of embryos being mislabeled, lost, 0:23:21.920 --> 0:23:26.520 or accidentally destroyed at four different Kind Body clinics. After 0:23:26.600 --> 0:23:30.280 my article was published, Gina wrote a blog post in response. 0:23:31.040 --> 0:23:34.800 It said, in part quote, I'm proud that our doctors 0:23:34.800 --> 0:23:37.840 are candid and tell the patient the truth rather than 0:23:37.880 --> 0:23:40.240 hide any mistake made by a human in the lab. 0:23:40.880 --> 0:23:44.200 We also buy upsided the embryo to ensure its genetic material, 0:23:44.480 --> 0:23:47.399 and it came back and euploidy, which meant it was 0:23:47.440 --> 0:23:50.640 abnormal and would likely have not have been transferred anyway, 0:23:51.400 --> 0:23:54.000 So we didn't have to be honest, but we were. 0:23:55.040 --> 0:23:59.320 The outcome would have been the same an unsuccessful IVF cycle, 0:23:59.520 --> 0:24:02.439 which on fortunately happens about one third of the time, 0:24:02.600 --> 0:24:07.080 and even the best IVF clinics, including our own. But 0:24:07.080 --> 0:24:10.359 Ayana told me she felt robbed of the opportunity of 0:24:10.359 --> 0:24:14.280 at least trying to transfer the embryo as planned. When 0:24:14.320 --> 0:24:18.000 we spoke about six months after the error was discovered, 0:24:18.760 --> 0:24:21.240 she said it didn't matter if it had been abnormal, 0:24:21.640 --> 0:24:24.879 that God had gifted them that one embryo and it 0:24:24.960 --> 0:24:29.119 was their choice, their chance to take. On top of that, 0:24:29.760 --> 0:24:32.200 she had doubts about whether kind body was even telling 0:24:32.240 --> 0:24:36.640 the truth about the abnormality. She kept thinking why had 0:24:36.680 --> 0:24:40.320 they jumped to discard the embryo so quickly, Why wasn't 0:24:40.359 --> 0:24:43.960 she at least given the chance to transfer, And unlike 0:24:44.040 --> 0:24:47.560 other patients who might have sought legal recourse, she said 0:24:47.600 --> 0:24:49.600 she felt trapped by her circumstances. 0:24:50.400 --> 0:24:54.960 The situation. If it was different people like Americans, it 0:24:55.040 --> 0:24:58.920 was different. I think if it happened on you. For example, 0:24:59.680 --> 0:25:03.919 I think think it was like not this. Maybe you 0:25:04.119 --> 0:25:09.840 sue them, you do something. But I'm a foreigner and 0:25:09.920 --> 0:25:14.800 I'm religious, so my situation doesn't allow me to do anything. 0:25:15.720 --> 0:25:18.399 Ayana opted to do the free cycle kind Body offered, 0:25:19.080 --> 0:25:23.080 but it didn't yield any eggs. By that point, Ayana 0:25:23.200 --> 0:25:27.160 was forty. After six IVF cycles and tens of thousands 0:25:27.160 --> 0:25:29.920 of dollars spent, she and her husband started looking into 0:25:29.920 --> 0:25:35.520 adoption instead. It's really hard to get a complete picture 0:25:35.680 --> 0:25:38.200