How much does cord blood therapy cost?

When parents want to treat their child with cord blood, the out-of-pocket cost can vary enormously, depending on the diagnosis being treated and the institution where they get the treatment.

Generally, if your child has one of the 80+ standard diagnoses that are treated by stem cell transplant, the cost of treatment should be covered by your health insurance. You would either by covered by your national healthcare program (for example in European countries) or by your personal health insurance (for example in the United States). If you are enrolled in a "Community" cord blood bank (for example in India) then your customer service package includes a lump sum payment for therapy. When cord blood transplants are considered one of the standard care options for the diagnosis, you can usually rely on your healthcare provider for a referral to a treatment program. In some hospitals, doctors will not consider cord blood transplants because they are not trained to perform them. If parents have doubts about why their doctor is steering them to one therapy choice over another, it is always a good idea to get a second opinion from a specialty center.

If your child is diagnosed with a condition where cord blood therapy is not yet a standard of care (such as cerebral palsy and other complications of prematurity) then finding affordable treatment gets more difficult. If you enroll in a clinical trial that is being conducted by a research center, then the cost of the therapy will be covered by the trial. However, parents still have to pay for travel and lodging costs associated with the trial, unless they can find a charitable program to help with these expenses (for example, Ronald McDonald House).

If parents want to try an experimental program at a commercial clinic (for example cord blood or MSC for autism), they can expect to pay thousands of dollars out of pocket. Regardless of whether the clinic has registered the treatment as a "clinical trial", if the clinic is commercial in nature and not a research institution then the parents have to cover all the costs. There are a number of support groups (for example on Facebook) where parents compare notes on the cost of various commercial clinics and how many cells you get for the price.