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Birth Defects We Treat

Since FTC was founded we have treated more than 15,000 birth defects

All Defects

Fetal Treatment Center ~ Inside Online Review & Diagnosis

Fetal Treatment Center - Inside The Fetal Treatment Center's new online patient program, Inside, allows families and their local physicians to interact directly with the team at UCSF without leaving their home. Through Inside, patients can receive an evaluation of their problem. After receiving your evaluation, the team at UCSF can be available as a personal resource for the duration of the pregnancy.

What it means to be an online patient

Since you are an online patient our physicians will not be able to physically examine you. In order to help you, we will rely on your personal test results, sonograms, echocardiograms, or MRI images. This information from your healthcare providers, coupled with our 25 years experience in fetal diagnosis and management, will allow us to evaluate your fetal problem.

The online patient process consists of four steps:

The application and approval process
Account sign in and evaluation fee payment
Using your patient profile site and uploading images/documents
Your evaluation and continuing care recommendations

Benefits of becoming an online patient

As the birthplace of fetal surgery, we have more experience in the diagnosis and treatment of fetal defects than any institution in the world.
Every online evaluation is reviewed by our highly experienced Fetal Treatment Center team consisting of nurse specialists, pediatric/fetal surgeons, radiologists, and perinatologists.
Your online evaluation will be reviewed quickly without the need to schedule an appointment or spend time and money to travel to our clinic.
Every online patient has their own personal patient profile site and secure message center to guarentee confidentiality.

The application and approval process

To become an online patient you must fill out our online patient application. The Fetal Treatment Center staff will review your application to see if you are eligible.

Eligibility restrictions include:

Your state of residence.
Online evaluations are currently not available for residents outside of the United States or for residents of LA, ND, NV, OR, SC or the territories of Guam or Puerto Rico due to telemedicine law restrictions.

If you are not a resident of the United States, please contact the UCSF International Medical Services.

If you reside in one of the restricted states, please contact us via email fetus@surgery.ucsf.edu or call our toll-free number 1-800-RX-FETUS. as we may be able to find another way to provide assistance.
Your diagnosis.
Some diagnoses currently have no available fetal treatment options.
How far along you are in your pregnancy.
There are fewer treatment options later in the pregnancy.

If fetal treatment or diagnosis is not an option for any of the above reasons, we will inform you of this. In this eventuality, we can still evaluate your case and offer our expertise by informing you of your treatment options after birth.

Apply today to become an online patient

Account sign in and evaluation fee payment

Once you are accepted as an online patient, you will notified by email with a link to our Inside sign-in pages. In order for you to become a full online patient you must complete the following steps:

Click the link provided in your email.
Answer the provided Identity Confirmation question
Read and agree to the Patient Consent For Telemedicine Agreement
Pay the Online Patient Evaluation fee (MC or Visa)
The fee for online evalutation is a flat $575. This low price covers your entire evaluation and your personal profile site.
The evaluation fee must be paid during the sign up process. Due to the nature of this service, we cannot directly handle this fee through your insurance. You will however be given an invoice that can be sent to your health insurance provider or healthcare flexible spending account for possible reimbursement.
Choose a password and fill in any additional account information.

Using your patient profile site and uploading images/documents

After you have completed the sign in process, you are now an online patient of the UCSF Fetal Treatment Center. You can log in into your personal patient profile, upload a photo of yourself, and use your secure Message Center to ask us any questions. The Message Center is also used for uploading medical imaging and medical report files.

In order to keep your information secure and confidential, please use your Message Center for all communication and to upload any and all medical files.
If you do not have your medical files, contact your doctor for JPGs of your sonograms and any additional medical reports (PDF or Word format).
Also, at this time you will need to have your doctor sign our Referring Physician Agreement form [PDF] and fax it to our office at (415) 502-0660.
We need to receive your signed Referring Physician Agreement form before we can sent you the results of our evaluation.
If your doctor is unable to provide you with digital files, please let us know and ask that your doctor mail us hard copies to our clinic.

Your evaluation and continuing care recommendations

Our team of specialists will review your medical information and advise you if any additional tests are needed. Most additional tests can usually be handled by your doctor or a specialist in your area.

After completing your review we will provide both you and your doctor with a detailed diagnosis and treatment recommendations. Further involvement by the UCSF team depends on the results of the your diagnosis.

After your online evaluation

For some complex problems, we may recommend that you come to San Francisco for detailed monitoring and treatment. More often, the patient can continue to be monitored by their own physician or specialists closer to home.

Your Inside online patient profile will remain open for the duration of your pregnancy, and we are always happy to hear how our patients are doing. Also, if your condition changes, we can set up a new online evaluation to assess this fresh information.