Embargoed from 4/16 7:30 ET
Progyny, a women’s health and fertility treatment company, announced a new full insurance benefits option that it says will make it easier for small and medium-sized employers to offer fertility treatment coverage to their employees.
The service, called Progyny Select, provides a comprehensive end-to-end patient experience when employees choose to embark on fertility treatment, while making it easy for employers to track and manage costs and outcomes. According to an announcement first provided to Fierce Healthcare, the plan features a fixed premium model with predictable monthly per-member pricing.
Melissa Cummings, Progyny’s chief operating officer, told Fierce in an interview that employers with 100 to 1,000 employees lack fertility benefits options compared to larger companies. However, as companies seek to recruit and retain high-quality workers, offering family planning options has become a strategic imperative.
Services like Progyny’s can help further widen the playing field for talent for these small businesses, while ensuring access to a broader range of fertility services for those who need or want them, she said.
“The real philosophy and principle behind it is that access to fertility benefits should not be dictated by the size of the company you work for,” Cummings said.
The program is also being built to avoid becoming a lower version of what Progyny offers for large enterprises, she said. Enrolled patients will have access to comprehensive coverage for all avenues of parenting they choose, including key services such as in vitro fertilization, intrauterine insemination, and genetic testing.
We also plan to collaborate with Care Advocates, who provide “concierge” support such as coaching during pregnancy, postpartum, child-rearing, and menopause. Care advocates can also assist families seeking adoption or surrogacy to have a child, according to the announcement.
Mr Cummings said such solutions are attractive to employers beyond the potential recruitment benefits. Providing consistent support throughout pregnancy, pregnancy and childbirth will help workers return healthy and productive and deliver healthier babies, she said.
Maternity costs are also an area of increasing focus for employers, and Progyny’s 10 years of experience helps teams identify and work with high-quality providers who can guarantee outcomes at manageable costs. Additionally, having the infrastructure in place to support the journey to parenthood before employees start working toward pregnancy ensures that potential negative outcomes are avoided.
For example, Cummings said Progyny’s team can work with employees before pregnancy to ensure they stop smoking or drinking, which can lead to complications down the road.
“We have those relationships with our network, so we know their ability to take someone on a journey in the best way possible,” she said.
Progyny aims to market this new product and is working closely with general agents who can connect employers seeking such benefits. Cummings said connecting with these agents early will give them a seat at the negotiating table to help design the program.
Because these were built into the employer’s needs, agents were able to validate the demand for something like Progyny Select while also identifying areas where their approach might be lacking. This means they were “bought from the beginning,” Cummings said.
“We enlisted these partners to help us co-create and co-design,” she said.
