For years, many smaller to mid-sized employers assumed fertility and family building benefits were out of reach. The need was there, but the cost uncertainty often was, too. That’s starting to change.

Smaller to mid-sized employers are under growing pressure to offer benefits that help them compete for talent, support employees through major life moments, and close gaps in care. But traditional utilization-based models have often made those benefits difficult to adopt, especially for employers that need more predictable costs.

For brokers, that shift creates a real opportunity.

The challenge isn’t demand, it’s the model

Employees increasingly expect support across life stages, from fertility and family building to pregnancy, parenting, and menopause. Smaller to mid-sized employers are feeling the same pressure as larger organizations. TriNet’s 2025 State of the Workplace report, focused on emerging trends in small and medium-size businesses, shows that employers are placing more focus on benefits as a way to compete for talent and support retention.

The report also found growing employer recognition of fertility coverage, with “extremely important” responses increasing to 29% from 25%, and “moderately important” responses increasing to 31% from 28%.

Larger employers have already responded. More than 40% now offer fertility benefits. At the same time, 1 in 6 people experience infertility, reinforcing the scale of need.

But smaller to mid-sized employers often face a different reality. Even when they want to offer expanded benefits, unpredictable utilization, high-cost claims, and administrative complexity can make adoption feel risky. As a result, many employers either delay offering fertility and family building benefits or settle for limited solutions that may not fully meet employee needs.

A more predictable path forward

The biggest shift in the market isn’t demand – it’s benefit design.

Fully insured, premium-funded models are making fertility and family building benefits more accessible by giving employers a way to offer meaningful support at a more predictable cost.

Instead of variable utilization-based spend or limited coverage in carrier-based models, employers can access a model designed to support:

• Fixed monthly costs
• More predictable budgeting
• Reduced financial exposure
• Streamlined implementation
• A guided member experience

That changes the conversation from, “Can we afford the risk?” to, “How can we offer a competitive benefit while controlling cost?”

Why this matters for brokers

For brokers, this creates a new way to bring value to smaller to mid-sized employer clients who may have been priced out of fertility and family building benefits in the past.

It can help you:

• Identify clients with unmet needs in your existing book
• Differentiate your offering in a competitive market
• Start new conversations around talent, retention, and benefits strategy
• Introduce a high-demand benefit category with a predictable funding model

Modern solutions, such as Progyny Select, are helping change what’s possible for smaller to mid-sized employers. Progyny Select is a first-of-its-kind, fully insured supplemental plan designed to bring Progyny’s proven fertility and family building model to smaller to mid-sized employers. It supports employees through pivotal life events, including fertility treatment, adoption, surrogacy, pregnancy, parenting, and menopause support.

Learn how to spot the opportunity

Curious which clients in your book may be a fit?

Download our guide, How to add a new revenue stream without adding risk, to learn how brokers are identifying opportunities, positioning the conversation, and helping smaller to mid-sized employers offer fertility and family building benefits with more predictable costs.

Progyny Select must be presented alongside major medical based on its licensure and additional participation criteria established by Progyny Select. Individuals selling Progyny Select need to be licensed in the State of Washington. The benefit is implemented with an effective date that aligns with employers’ major medical coverage. However, there is no medical plan integration or variation by medical carrier. When groups add Progyny Select, all employees/members who are 12 years and older, and enrolled in medical will be automatically enrolled in Progyny Select.

Progyny Select Supplemental insurance plans are insured by Progyny Health Insurance Company of Washington. All limited insurance policies contain exclusions and
limitations. For full details on coverage please refer to your specific plan documents, application, and certificate of coverage. Progyny Health Insurance Company of
Washington is located at 1102 A Street, Suite 300, Tacoma, WA 98402.

The post Brokers have a new opportunity in fertility and family building benefits appeared first on Progyny.

When we started Apryl, we made a very specific bet: fertility benefits would not stay a US-only conversation.

At the time, the US market was already moving. Employers were starting to understand that fertility and family-forming support was not a niche perk, but a benefit that mattered deeply to employees and could become a real differentiator for companies competing for talent.

Outside the US, the conversation looked very different.

In Europe and Asia, many employers had a different starting point. They were not used to funding healthcare directly in the same way US employers are, because public healthcare systems already existed. Fertility support was therefore often seen as something the healthcare system should cover – or, at best, something nice for an employer to add.

But when we looked closer, the gaps were obvious. The WHO estimates that 1 in 6 people globally experience infertility in their lifetime, a rate that holds consistent across high-, middle-, and low-income countries alike. Yet public coverage was often partial, narrow, or tied to specific eligibility criteria. In some countries, access depends on age, diagnosis, marital status, sexual orientation, or the type of treatment. In others, the treatment might be legal but expensive, difficult to access, or culturally sensitive to talk about. The result was a patchwork of support that left many women and families with unmet needs and employers without a clear way to bridge the gap.

That is why we built Apryl in 2019. We believed that global employers would eventually need a better way to support fertility and family forming outside the US – not by copying the US model, but by building something that understands local healthcare systems, laws, costs, and cultural realities. We knew that meaningful support would require deep regional expertise, because what works in one country can be inaccessible, inappropriate, or ineffective in another.

At the time, that required a lot of market education. We were fundraising, building the product, speaking to customers, supporting members, fixing edge cases, writing decks, and doing whatever needed to be done that day. It was intense and scrappy, but the conviction was clear: global companies would eventually need global fertility benefits, and those benefits would have to work locally.

When the buyer conversation changed

When Apryl joined Progyny two years ago, in June of 2024, one of the biggest changes was the buyer conversation.

Suddenly, we were much closer to U.S. decision makers responsible for global workforces. These were benefits leaders who already understood the value of fertility benefits because they had seen the impact in the U.S. Their question was not, “Why should we pay for this?” It was, “How do we make this work for our employees outside the U.S. as well?”

That shift mattered because it moved the conversation from education to execution.

Apryl had built the global-first foundation: the technology, local market knowledge, speed, and willingness to work through complicated country-by-country realities. Progyny brought employer trust, clinical expertise, operational discipline, and experience supporting large, complex clients.

Together, we were able to take something we had believed in for years and build it at a meaningful level of scale.

Why local reality matters

The reason global fertility and women’s health benefits are hard is that the details change everywhere.

By 2024, 55 percent of countries had fertility rates below the replacement level, according to the UN’s World Fertility 2024 report. Demand for fertility support is not a niche or future concern. It is already widespread, and public systems were not built to meet it at scale.

What is covered through public healthcare? Which treatments are legal? Which family structures are recognized? What does access actually look like? How much does care cost locally? How do culture, stigma, language, and regulation influence whether someone even feels comfortable asking for help?

A global benefit cannot answer those questions with one policy and a translated landing page.

That has been one of the biggest lessons from building Progyny Global: care only works when it reflects local reality. What works in Germany may not work in India. What is accessible in the UK may not be available in Brazil. Public healthcare coverage can look strong from the outside and still leave employees with real gaps when they actually need care.

For employers, this means fairness is more complicated than offering the same amount or the same policy everywhere. A meaningful benefit must account for local costs, laws, access, and culture.

For employees, it means they should not have to become experts in healthcare systems, reimbursement rules, treatment pathways, or country-specific regulations just to understand their options.

What changed in two years

Joining Progyny changed the pace immediately. It gave the original Apryl platform access to a much larger client base, deeper operational expertise, and the ability to build for global employers at a level we could not have reached alone.

In a short amount of time, we expanded from a fertility-focused platform into a comprehensive global women’s health offering:

• Support in 120+ countries
  Not as a theoretical global footprint, but as a benefit that works across different healthcare systems, legal frameworks, currencies, cost levels, and cultural expectations.
• 14 languages – growing to 30 by the end of 2026
  We built language support into every layer of the experience, from the platform to live PCA consultations, because understanding your options clearly should never be a barrier to care.
• Three connected programs: fertility and family forming, pregnancy and postpartum, and menopause
  This has been an important evolution. Women’s health does not happen in isolated moments, so the support should not be built that way either.
• The Progyny Card
  One of the biggest barriers in fertility care is the upfront cost. The Progyny Card helps reduce that burden by making it easier for members to access care without paying large amounts out of pocket first.
• Country-specific customizations
  This is probably the least visible work, but some of the most important. Local compliance, cultural sensitivities, benefit design, reimbursement flows, and healthcare realities often determine whether a benefit actually works in practice.

This is where the Apryl-Progyny combination has been most powerful: we were able to move faster and build at greater scale, while staying close to the local details that made the original platform valuable in the first place.

What this means now

What should be clear by now is that global women’s health benefits are no longer an edge case. They are becoming part of how serious employers think about supporting their workforce.

But the answer cannot be a U.S. benefit exported into other markets. And it also cannot be a loose collection of local exceptions that becomes impossible to manage. It has to be something more practical: one global framework, with enough local intelligence to actually work country by country.

That is the space Progyny Global is building in.

What I love is that the original bet behind Apryl still sits at the center of the work. The difference is that it now has the scale, experience, and employer trust of Progyny behind it.

That is what Progyny Global represents today: a new standard for global women’s health benefits. And in many ways, we are still at the beginning.

The post From Startup Vision to Global Scale: Two Years of Progyny Global appeared first on Progyny.

As employers prepare for 2027 renewals, many will default to another annual cycle without closely examining whether their current programs are actually delivering value. But in a period of rising healthcare costs and increased scrutiny from finance and executive teams, renewal without review has become a growing risk.

For years, many benefits strategies were designed primarily around access and retention. Today, that’s no longer enough. Rising healthcare costs are forcing employers to take a more disciplined approach – one that requires benefits strategies to be measurable, defensible, and actively managed.

The question is no longer, “What do we offer?” it’s, “What is it delivering clinically, operationally, and financially?”

Too many vendors still rely on access metrics, enrollment figures, app downloads, or satisfaction scores that do little to explain whether a program is improving outcomes or reducing costs. In today’s environment, employers need a clear view of performance.

As Progyny’s 2027 benefits guide advises, a strong potential partner should be able to demonstrate:

• Clear attribution of costs savings and avoided high-cost claims
• Measurable improvements in clinical outcomes
• Transparent reporting methods
• A direct connection between care delivery and long-term cost containment

More vendors doesn’t always mean more value

Women’s health benefits that layer fertility, maternity, menopause, and other point solutions may expand access, but it rarely improves coordination, accountability, or cost control.

The women’s health benefits market is increasingly crowded with vendors that address a single issue or life stage, and while each may solve an important problem, together, they often create a fragmented experience for employees and a difficult ecosystem for employers to manage.

Vendor sprawl can lead to:

• Overlapping costs and redundant programs
• Fractured member experience
• Reduced visibility into what is and isn’t working
• Unclear ownership and limited accountability
• Greater administrative burden for HR and benefits teams

The result is often a complex benefits strategy that looks comprehensive on paper but makes it much harder to understand where cost, risk, and performance truly sit.

Ask yourself:

• Is vendor complexity masking underperformance?
• Are multiple solutions working together or against each other?
• Are we managing so many vendors we can’t hold them all fully accountable?
• Are we adding programs without improving outcomes?

Your biggest cost drivers may be hiding in plain sight

Fertility, maternity, and menopause are among the largest and least visible drivers of healthcare costs. When these needs are managed through disconnected vendors, employers often miss opportunities for early intervention, coordinated care, and prevention of avoidable high-cost claims.

An integrated approach can reduce these costs by improving care coordination, surfacing risk earlier, and creating a more connected experience across every stage of women’s health.

Programs that actively coordinate care across fertility, maternity, menopause, and related health needs are better positioned to improve outcomes while reducing long-term cost and operational complexity.

Five questions every employer should ask before renewing

As you prepare for renewal conversations or evaluate new vendors, pressure-test your current strategy with these five questions:

1. What are the greatest sources of cost and risk within this program?
2. How do you attribute ROI and cost savings to measurable clinical outcomes?
3. Are your reported results based on all members, or only a subset of data?
4. How do you coordinate care across fertility maternity, menopause, and related needs to reduce fragmentation?
5. What ongoing reporting, benchmarking, and performance reviews do you provide between renewals?

The strongest partners should be able to answer these questions clearly and confidently.

What accountability should look like

Accountability isn’t a once-a-year conversation. Strong vendor partnerships should include:

• Standardized reporting tied to clear outcomes
• Member-level insights and benchmarking
• Ongoing performance reviews, not just renewal discussions
• Transparency into where costs are rising, risks are emerging, and intervention is working
• A commitment to continuous optimization over time

Employers should expect more than selective reporting and success stories. Strong partners provide transparent, member-level reporting, benchmark performance over time, and demonstrate results across their full population, not just a small sample. Progyny independently validates outcomes across all member data rather than relying on self-reported results or a subset of members. Transparency gives employers confidence that reported outcomes are real, repeatable, and directly connected to value.

Cost management requires active partnership, not passive purchasing

As healthcare costs rise, employers can’t afford a “set it and forget it” approach to benefits. The most effective strategies actively manage care delivery, simplify the vendor ecosystem, and focus on long-term sustainability.

Organizations that take a proactive, integrated approach are better positioned to control costs, improve clinical outcomes, reduce operational complexity, and defend benefits investments to finance and executive teams.

Before your next renewal conversation, ask whether your current partners are helping you control cost, reduce risk, and deliver measurable value – or are they making it harder to see what’s working and what isn’t.

Ready to test your current approach?

Learn how benefits teams are containing costs and transforming women’s health with Progyny’s integrated model.

And, when you’re ready to start evaluating your fertility and women’s health vendors, check out our strategic benefits planning guide.

The post Don’t just renew—review! Key questions for vendor accountability appeared first on Progyny.

One employee is heading into yet another fertility appointment after weeks of medications, side effects, and waiting for answers. Another is newly pregnant after a previous loss, balancing excitement with anxiety. A new parent is returning to work, navigating sleep deprivation and the pressure to perform at home and at the office.

These experiences are common, and they expose a critical gap in how most family building benefits are designed.

Benefits often focus on procedures, providers, and outcomes, but family building isn’t just a clinical experience. It’s one of the most emotionally demanding periods in an employee’s life, where true resiliency and compensatory strategies are required as they navigate a complex medical process, sometimes for the first time in a member’s life. When that reality is overlooked, the gap between what employees need and what benefits provide becomes hard to ignore.

Family building is more than a clinical journey

Fertility treatment, pregnancy, postpartum recovery, and early parenthood can come with intense emotional highs and lows. At the same time, employees are managing work responsibilities while navigating infertility, pregnancy complications, loss, complex decisions, changes to their relationship dynamics, and financial strain.

In a recent Progyny member survey, 75% reported they experienced increased stress during the family building journey without benefit support. The most common stressors included work-life balance, cost of care, the complexity of the healthcare system, personal health concerns, and finding the right provider.

Despite this, traditional benefits models often leave employees to manage the emotional side of the experience on their own.

Mental health affects outcomes, not just experience

Mental health support is often treated as an add-on. In reality, it plays a direct role in whether employees stay engaged in care and achieve successful outcomes.

Stress, anxiety, and emotional fatigue are often cited as the primary reason employees delay treatment, disengage from benefits, struggle with decisions, or drop out of care entirely.

At the same time, the mental load affects workplace performance. Employees are often managing complex treatment schedules, financial uncertainty, and shifting responsibilities – while coping with fear, disappointment, and constant uncertainty. The result is reduced focus, lower productivity, and decreased engagement at work.

Forward-thinking employers are starting to recognize that mental health isn’t separate from family building outcomes – it’s a key driver of them.

What whole-person care actually requires

This is where many benefits fall short. Support is often fragmented, reactive, or disconnected from care. The most effective family building benefits take a different approach – integrating emotional support into every stage of the journey, from preconception through early parenthood.

That means:

• Embedding emotional support alongside clinical care
• Providing continuous, proactive guidance, not only episodic interactions
• Identifying stress, anxiety, or depression early
• Helping employees navigate uncertainty and complex decisions in real time
• Connecting members to higher levels of care, e.g., EAPs and other Behavioral Health Solutions proactively

The impact of continuous, personalized support

Progyny’s model is built around this kind of whole-person care. Each member is paired with a dedicated Progyny Care Advocate (PCA) – a consistent guide who supports both the clinical and emotional aspects of the journey.

Unlike traditional models where support is fragmented, the PCA relationship is continuous and personal.

“Some members may not have a community, family, or friends to talk to,” says PCA Vanessa L. “When a member calls in to complete onboarding, their PCA helps them feel comfortable, confident, supported, and seen. That one-on-one connection can make a meaningful difference in their overall experience.”

PCAs go beyond logistics. They help members process decisions, understand what to expect, and stay engaged in care – even during the most uncertain moments.

“They’re managing medications, waiting for results, and trying to plan around an unpredictable timeline all at once,” explains PCA Corin T. “There’s a lot of uncertainty, and it can be mentally exhausting. We help ease that stress by talking through their worries, giving clear next steps, and being a steady source of support throughout the process.”

Just as important, support is proactive – not something members have to seek out on their own.

PCA Ashely D. explains, “Taking the responsibility of reaching out off of their shoulders helps members have a better experience. Even small moments of support can reduce stress and help them feel more confident.”

That support has measurable impact on Progyny members:

Closing the gap for employers

Employers have an opportunity to rethink how family building benefits are designed. When mental health is treated as separate, employees are left to carry a significant burden on their own, and that can lead to lower engagement, poorer outcomes, and higher drop-off from care. When it’s integrated into the experience, employees are more likely to:

• Stay engaged in treatment
• Make informed decisions
• Feel supported and confident throughout the journey
• Achieve better clinical and emotional outcomes

For employers, that translates into stronger retention, greater trust, and a more meaningful benefits experience. Progyny members report this kind of support changes how they experience care: 75% say they wish every healthcare experience came with a knowledgeable, trusted advocate like a PCA.

The benefits that matter most

The most effective family building benefits don’t treat mental health as an add-on, they build it into the foundation of care. When employees feel supported, seen, and confident during one of the most personal and uncertain times in their lives, they don’t just remember the outcome; they remember who supported them along the way.

If your current approach separates clinical care from emotional support, it may be leaving both outcomes and employee trust on the table. Learn how you can empower your employees with a seamless experience at scale, with empathy and measurable impact.

The post Why mental health is the missing piece in family building benefits appeared first on Progyny.

Each year, The Conference Board’s Employee Health Care Conferences bring together a wide range of perspectives from across the employer health landscape. What stood out this year wasn’t just what’s changing, but how quickly expectations are shifting. Across sessions and conversations in New York and San Diego, a few themes came through clearly.

Here are three takeaways that stood out to me.

1. Employers are shifting toward greater accountability

For years, the focus was on adding more. More programs. More vendors. More solutions intended to support an increasingly complex workforce. That approach is evolving.

Employers are still investing, but with a more disciplined lens. The conversation is shifting from adding solutions based on perceived gaps to selecting partners that can demonstrate clear value.

As a result, employers are asking a different set of questions. Not just what else can we offer, but what is actually working? Where are we seeing measurable outcomes? How are we managing total cost of care?

There is growing pressure to ensure that every dollar spent is tied to impact. That means moving beyond utilization as a proxy for success and focusing on clinical outcomes, employee experience, and long-term cost management.

This isn’t about doing less. It’s about doing what works and holding every part of the ecosystem accountable for results.

2. Fragmentation is becoming a liability

Benefits ecosystems have grown increasingly complex. What started as targeted solutions to address specific needs has, in many cases, turned into a fragmented experience for employees and an operational challenge for employers. That fragmentation is no longer sustainable.

Employers are reaching a point where disconnected programs create more friction than value. Employees are left to navigate multiple entry points, inconsistent experiences, and unclear care pathways. The shift now is toward integration.

Organizations are looking for ways to connect data, navigation, and care delivery into a more unified model. One that feels seamless to the employee and is measurable from a business perspective. Because when systems are connected, access improves. Decisions are made earlier. And outcomes follow.

3. AI is only as valuable as the care model it supports

There’s no question that AI is reshaping the conversation, but the most grounded discussions were not about replacing care. They were about improving it.

The real opportunity is in how AI is applied. When used responsibly, it can help identify risk earlier, guide employees to the right care at the right time, and support more personalized decision-making.

At the same time, there was clear recognition that healthcare is deeply human. Moments like navigating fertility, pregnancy, loss, the NICU, or managing chronic conditions require more than technology.

The organizations seeing the most impact are not choosing between technology and human support. They’re combining both. AI can strengthen the system, but it’s the care model around it that ultimately determines the outcome.

What this means moving forward

The throughline across these conversations is a clear shift in mindset. Benefits are no longer being evaluated as a collection of programs. They’re being evaluated as a strategy. One that must balance cost, outcomes, and experience. One that must work across the full employee lifecycle. And one that must stand up to increasing scrutiny from both leadership and the workforce.

What stood out at The Conference Board’s Employee Health Care Conferences this year is how aligned employers are on the need for change. The question now is how quickly organizations move from recognizing these shifts to operationalizing them.

Employers have an opportunity to move beyond fragmented, episodic approaches and build models that are integrated, outcomes-driven, and designed around how people actually experience care.

That shift is not just operational — it’s strategic. For organizations that get it right, the impact is measurable. Better outcomes. More predictable costs. And a workforce that feels supported in moments that matter. That’s where the conversation is going, and where the real opportunity is ahead.

The post 3 Takeaways from The Conference Board’s 2026 Employee Health Care Conferences appeared first on Progyny.

The estimated prevalence of infertility worldwide is a staggering one in six. 

On paper, that’s a shocking number — but when you look around and realize that the one in six people are in your neighborhood and at your workplace, it’s heartbreaking.  

As an employer, you can offer a powerful display of support when you acknowledge how commonplace infertility is, as well as the physical and emotional toll it takes on those trying to build their families. Whether your organization offers a comprehensive women’s health and family building benefit or not, National Infertility Awareness Week (NIAW), April 19–25, 2026, provides a natural entry point for important conversations that will send the strong cultural message that you support your employees’ whole-being. 

Preparing for a NIAW workplace campaign doesn’t have to be time-consuming either. Small acts go a long way when someone is navigating a challenging life experience, and taking the time to support them this week is an easy way to make them feel seen and heard. You could:     

1. Learn something new about infertility. Did you know 30 – 40% of infertility cases are attributed to the male partner? Or that fertility preservation may be the only way someone recently diagnosed with cancer can ever have a family? From debilitating pain to intense financial pressure, there are a myriad of obstacles those experiencing infertility may be navigating. The more aware you are of what goes into the infertility journey, the easier it is to know where you can step in and help.  

2. Listen to the stories of those who’ve experienced infertility. Infertility can be an isolating and vulnerable experience, making it hard for friends, family, and colleagues to open up. But that doesn’t have to stop you. Below are a few stories from people with completely different infertility journeys. Each is about 20 minutes long — you may be surprised how much you can relate, and how much hearing their stories can shape your next conversation with someone navigating their own family building journey. 
   • Episode 164: Endometriosis, Male-Factor Infertility, and the Waiting Game | Progyny
   • Episode 187: A Decade with Whitney: Freezing her Eggs, Winning the Bachelor, and Becoming a Mom | Progyny 
   • Episode 217: Redefining Family: Choosing to Move on After Recurrent Loss
   • Episode 218: Building Family After Breast Cancer: A Broken Brown Egg AHA Grant Winner’s Story
   • Episode 219: Building Military Families: Julie’s Journey from Loss to Community   

3. Promote infertility awareness. Getting a diagnosis of infertility can be earth-shattering — and the stigma around it often leaves people feeling isolated and ashamed. If you’re not sure how to support someone experiencing infertility, start by normalizing the disease. Speak openly about the stories you’ve heard and the knowledge you’ve gained. Raise awareness in your community and show those who feel alone in their journey that you support them, whether they feel comfortable talking about it or not. Organizations like RESOLVE: The National Infertility and Family Building Association (which founded NIAW in 1989) offer helpful resources for those looking to learn more.  

This NIAW, let’s work together to raise awareness about infertility and support those around us — at home and at work — as they pursue their family building dreams. 

If you’re interested in exploring how organizations can better support employees through infertility and family building, our team can help.

The post 3 Ways to support your team during National Infertility Awareness Week appeared first on Progyny.

The women’s health benefits market has expanded rapidly and become increasingly fragmented. As workforce needs have evolved, many benefits leaders have found themselves caught in a cycle of adding new vendors in an effort to keep up. 

While well-intentioned, this approach has created new challenges. Vendor management has become complex, and the impact of these solutions is difficult to measure due to siloed platforms and a lack of member-specific outcomes data. 

This challenge is especially pronounced in women’s health — a complex, longitudinal area of care that spans multiple life stages, conditions, and care settings. Without a more integrated approach, it becomes even harder to deliver meaningful outcomes or understand what’s truly working. 

Why fragmented women’s health benefits are falling short 

While many vendors have expanded to offer broader solutions, most still operate within disconnected systems and experiences. The result is a fragmented ecosystem that places the burden of coordination on both employees and benefits leaders. 

For employers, managing these solutions can be complex: 

• Multiple vendor relationships, contracts, eligibility rules, and claims processes

• Limited visibility into outcomes and siloed data, making it difficult to assess value and ROI

• Increased administrative burden from managing disconnected experiences

For employees, fragmentation can make an already emotional and complex experience feel even more challenging. According to Progyny research, many report spending more time than expected trying to understand costs and coverage, navigate authorization requirements, and manage treatment logistics, all while facing the stress of potentially spending money on ineffective treatments or medications.  

Increased costs and reduced outcomes 

When care isn’t coordinated, employees are more likely to delay treatment, disengage from available resources, or miss opportunities for earlier intervention. Disconnected fertility and maternity support can contribute to higher-risk pregnancies, more avoidable complications, and increased medical spend.  

These poorer outcomes drive higher costs for both employees and employers. At the same time, siloed programs make it difficult for employers to identify trends, intervene earlier, and understand what is driving costs across their population. 

Integrated care models create a different dynamic. With connected care journeys, employers gain a more complete view of member needs and can better support earlier, more proactive care. 

The future is coordinated, outcomes-driven care

A unified women’s health benefit influences employee satisfaction, productivity, retention, and workforce participation. It also shapes how employees perceive their employer and whether they feel supported during critical life moments.  

The most effective models share several characteristics: comprehensive care across life stages, human-led support, transparent reporting, and accountability for outcomes. 

Progyny’s integrated solution delivers this through: 

• One trusted partner across fertility, maternity, menopause, and related care needs

• Access to specialized, high quality provider networks

• Human-led care, navigation, and coaching

• Technology-enabled navigation and insights 

• Robust, transparent data, reporting, and performance measurement 

• Accountability for both member experience and clinical outcomes 

Progyny members work with a dedicated Progyny Care Advocate who understands their history, helps them navigate care, and connects them to the right providers and support at the right time. 

The result is a better member experience and stronger outcomes. Progyny members experience: 

The future of women’s health benefits is not a collection of disconnected programs. It’s an integrated strategy designed to improve employee experience, strengthen outcomes, and deliver measurable business value. Employers that make the shift now will be better positioned to support their workforce — and compete for talent — in the years ahead.  

The post The future of women’s health benefits is integrated care appeared first on Progyny.

I’ve worked in digital health long enough to have witnessed how positively transformative technology can be — when it’s done right. I’ve also seen just as many times how sideways things can go when innovation is rushed, untethered from purpose, and disconnected from the people it should serve.

Nowhere is this tension more visible than in today’s race to bring AI solutions to market. No company sets out to build AI that makes healthcare less human. No executive stands up in a boardroom and says, “Let’s dilute empathy. Let’s make this journey feel more transactional.” And yet, that’s what I see happening far too often. Chat-only front doors replacing relationship-based care. IVRs optimized for speed and deflection rather than continuity. Patients reaching out in vulnerable moments, only to start over with someone new every time.

But the issue isn’t the AI itself. It’s the absence of a North Star.

When technology is deployed without a guiding purpose, efficiency quietly overtakes empathy. What’s pitched as a pursuit of convenience and efficiency ends up eroding quality of care and member trust.

Progyny’s North Star: Member First, Always

For the past decade, every technology decision at Progyny has been run through the same lens: does this enable a more human experience and a better outcome?

We’ve been unwavering in our belief that all healthcare experiences require empathy and deep-seated trust. That trust has two dimensions: the human connection members feel with their care team, and the confidence that their most sensitive data is always protected. We view security, privacy, and thoughtful compliance as core to our member-first commitment — not just legal obligations. And nowhere is that more important than in women’s health and family building, where member experiences are deeply personal journeys requiring a trusted, relationship-based approach to care.

Mark Weiser, longtime head of Xerox PARC, captured something essential about technology that I’ve returned to often throughout my career. He said, “The most profound technologies are those that disappear, weaving themselves into the fabric of everyday life until they are indistinguishable from it.” Technology, he insisted, “should create calm, not demand our focus.”

Today, AI that disappears — that doesn’t demand our focus — is almost hard to imagine. But that’s precisely what we’re building toward at Progyny: a platform where AI is woven into the fabric of care, bringing more empathy, clarity, and calm to every member interaction.

Too often in our industry, AI efforts fall for the allure of scale and speed, prioritizing what’s easy to measure over what actually matters. Automation rates become a core KPI. The result, ironically, is a model that moves us backward not forward: fragmented, low-touch, impersonal experiences that may appear to be modern but feel disappointingly familiar.

That’s not the experience women deserve. Or the kind of healthcare experience any of us want.

AI in Service to Relationship-Based Care

If we want healthcare to feel more human, can AI really help? Can we design it to bring people closer rather than push us apart? At Progyny, we believe we can – and must.

The beating heart of our care model is the Progyny Care Advocate, or PCA — a dedicated care partner who guides members through every step of their journey. Our investments in AI are squarely focused on enabling them to deliver the most human, most impactful care experience possible.

We’re currently pursuing that goal across three categories:

1. Alleviating administrative burden. Healthcare is mired in administrative work — authorizations, lab orders, leave policies. When AI supports those processes, the member experience improves and costs come down. We recently showed a large client that their utilization with Progyny increased while costs went down — not through revenue cycle machinations, but through a system that simply helps more people access the right care at the right time.
2. Making every conversation smarter. Our challenge in today’s data-rich environment isn’t access to information — it’s making it useful in the moment. AI can surface what’s relevant so our PCAs have a complete, timely picture of a member’s journey before a call even starts. The result: PCAs enter every conversation fully informed and prepared to help. We’ve talked forever in healthcare about enabling providers to work “at the top of their license.” This may be the moment when we move past talk and finally make it happen.
3. Reaching new levels of quality and accountability. Most so-called quality assurance is little more than a sampling exercise — a handful of calls reviewed weeks after the fact. AI enables clinical and service quality reviews across every interaction, in near real-time. That’s a radically different kind of feedback model for driving continuous improvement.

When you remove administrative noise, surface the right information, and create time and space for care partners to be fully present, something remarkable happens: real conversations, real moments of connection, real relationships built on trust.

Consider this story of a Progyny member who entered care with a history of pregnancy-related trauma. When her baby arrived early at 34 and a half weeks due to an infection and spent 2 weeks in the NICU, her PCA was there to guide and assure her. During a postpartum check-in, when her PCA took the time the moment called for — asking questions, empathizing, and offering thoughts, the member broke down — realizing for the first time that she’d been in denial about experiencing postpartum depression. Her PCA was again there for her, connecting her to resources and support. The member later wrote to the PCA to say she’s not sure how she would have made it through those dark days without her support.

That breakthrough moment would never have happened with a chatbot. And it didn’t happen because of AI. But it was made possible by everything AI was quietly doing in the background: clearing distractions, providing context, and “creating calm” and space for human connection.

Humanity: The True Competitive Edge

This is an exciting moment for women’s health and family building. We’re finally seeing the kind of investment, innovation, and healthy competition this critical space deserves. Across the industry, companies are moving fast to stake out their AI story with new copilots, chat interfaces, and automation layers.

This is great news — we’ll all be lifted by this rising tide of competition and investment. But without a North Star, I fear much of that innovation will yield more of what we don’t want and can’t afford: care that’s impersonal, transactional, and less effective. Impressive technology that, by removing the human connection we all crave, fails the people it is meant to serve .

The future of women’s health won’t be won by whoever automates the fastest or launches the most features. It will be won by whoever stays most relentlessly focused on the member — applying every technological innovation in service of moments like the one above: a member, at her most vulnerable, finally feeling seen and supported.

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Healthcare is getting smarter.

AI is transforming how care is delivered, helping analyze data, identify patterns, and guide decision-making in ways that weren’t possible just a few years ago. In women’s and family health, these technologies promise earlier insights, more personalized recommendations, and more connected experiences across fertility, pregnancy, parenting, and menopause.

That progress is meaningful. But it also raises an important question: as healthcare becomes more intelligent, is it also becoming more effective for the people it serves?

Because in women’s and family health, tech alone isn’t enough. It doesn’t account for what it feels like to navigate a pregnancy loss, to have symptoms dismissed for years, or to face the uncertainty and isolation when trying to conceive shifts from something expected to something uncertain.

Women’s health isn’t a point solution

Women’s and family health spans years, often decades, of evolving needs. From fertility and pregnancy to parenting and menopause, these aren’t isolated clinical events. They’re interconnected experiences that require coordination, continuity, and support over time.

For example, a fertility journey doesn’t end with a positive pregnancy test. It can carry into high-risk pregnancy care, postpartum recovery, and even long-term health considerations. Similarly, symptoms dismissed earlier in life can resurface later as more complex conditions, requiring a deeper understanding of a person’s history.

The complexity behind the clinical and emotional decisions people are making at each stage is best met with both tech and human-centered support.

When benefits treat these stages as separate events rather than a continuous journey, it can lead to missed risk signals, more reactive care, and a more fragmented member experience.

Where AI excels—and where human-centered care matters most

AI is improving access to information and helping streamline care. It can surface insights, identify patterns, and suggest the next best actions grounded in clinical guidelines and member-specific context. And while it certainly unlocks meaningful new capabilities and reach, it’s best done in connection with human expertise, care, and support.

1. Context

AI is great at recommending next steps based on data, surfacing signals, and suggesting the next best actions grounded in clinical guidelines and member-specific context. These recommendations are most effective when they’re interpreted and applied within the context of each individual’s needs.

Human expertise is critical to fully extend support and understand context—why someone may hesitate, what constraints they’re facing, or how personal, financial, and cultural factors shape decisions.

In women’s and family health, context directly impacts outcomes, and translating insights into the right action requires both technology and expert guidance.

2. Trust

Decisions across fertility, pregnancy, and menopause are complex and deeply personal. Trust isn’t built through recommendations alone. It’s built through consistent, informed guidance and the ability to ask questions, validate concerns, and make decisions with confidence.

3. Advocacy

AI is able to guide someone through options and surface the right next steps, and translating those insights into the right decisions and actions often requires an additional layer of advocacy and support.

In high-stakes moments, support is best when it can extend beyond direction to active guidance and advocacy.

Navigation is only part of the solution

AI has made it easier to navigate healthcare, helping people find providers, understand options, and move through the system more efficiently. That matters. But navigation alone doesn’t ensure better outcomes or better experiences.

Knowing where to go doesn’t mean someone feels confident in what to do next, especially when decisions are complex or emotionally charged. That’s where human support becomes essential—bridging the gap between insight and action.

The limitations of a purely digital model

As healthcare becomes more technology-driven, care is often treated as a coordination problem. How does women’s and family health best fit into these workflows? How are we creating the right workflows and environments for women’s health to thrive?

When care becomes too transactional, context can be overlooked, decisions can become oversimplified, and member experience can suffer.

Engagement alone isn’t a proxy for outcomes. Care models need to be designed to support both. Because no model can predict what matters most to a person in that moment.

AI works best when it supports care

AI has a clear role to play in improving women’s and family health. It can help identify risks earlier, streamline access to care, and surface insights that improve decision-making. Used well, it can make care more efficient, more personalized, and more scalable.

When applied thoughtfully, AI is able to surface signals earlier and anticipate member needs, enabling more proactive, anticipatory, and personalized care across the member journey. This creates an opportunity not just for better coordination, but for earlier intervention and stronger outcomes.

This also reduces the inefficiencies and added costs that often come from fragmented, point-solution approaches. Its value is maximized when it supports a broader care model, not when it replaces it.

The most effective approach combines technology with human-centered care:

• Continuous relationships: Dedicated support that understands the full member journey and provides continuity across life stages
• Integrated guidance: Clinical, emotional, and practical needs addressed together, not in isolation
• Active support and advocacy: Helping members navigate decisions, interpret care, and access the right resources at the right time

This allows care teams to focus on higher-value, human-led support—guiding decisions, building trust, and supporting members through complex moments.

In this model, technology enhances care delivery and frees clinical experts and care advocates to focus on what matters most: supporting the person behind the data.

The bottom line

AI will continue to play a growing role in healthcare, and in women’s and family health, better technology works best when paired with the right support. Because the most important question isn’t just, “What’s the next step?” It’s also, “Is there the right support in place to help someone take it?”

At Progyny, we believe the future of women’s and family health is both intelligent and deeply human, where technology helps anticipate needs, and people provide the context, trust, and advocacy that turn insight into meaningful outcomes.  

To learn more about how Progyny supports women’s and family health, connect with our team.

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When I started working at Progyny in 2016 as a human resource director, employer fertility support across the U.S. was scarce, at best. Fortunately, I knew that I was hired by a truly special company that was at the forefront of fertility benefits, providing remarkable opportunities for women and families. Progyny’s comprehensive benefits approach would not only change the entire industry; it would change my life—and my dreams.

Fast forward to ten years later, and now as Progyny’s chief human resource officer for more than 800 employees, I marvel at both the clinical care advancements and widespread expansion of benefits coverage we’ve seen. With a dedication to outcomes that matter so much, Progyny has been a passionate champion and leader in the fertility industry and for its clients and members. It’s been a privilege to be a part of building something so meaningful. At the same time, it’s been personally rewarding as I marvel at my two sons, deeply grateful for them and the unwavering support I’ve received in growing our family.

A journey of support

For those on the path to family building, each journey is unique, and many come with a mix of celebrations and setbacks. While our fertility story began with enthusiasm for our egg retrievals, we also experienced unsuccessful treatment rounds and loss. In those years, I sought different providers and strategies, and various mediations and treatments including preimplantation genetic testing. I was “all in.” While in some respects, 10 years seems not that long ago; in the world of fertility, so much has changed in terms of availably of access, information, and treatment advances.

When the quest for optimal fertility care led me across the country to a clinic in California, I was fortunate to have a built-in support system – including an understanding employer and manager. Working for Progyny also gave me the unique access to Dr. Georgia Witkin, a clinical psychologist and infertility expert, who I’m now happy to call a treasured confidant and friend. For anyone on the fertility journey, having your team of people is so critical in both making confident, informed decisions and staying grounded through uncertainty.

With the advanced fertility support and services my company provides, I experienced the joy of having my son, Emmett, the first ever Progyny employee baby, in 2019. His brother, Hudson, joined our family in 2021.

A decade down, forever to go

Over the past decade, employer-provided fertility coverage has evolved significantly. When I joined Progyny, the benefit was just emerging—only about 25% of large employers offered IVF coverage, and just 5-6% covered egg freezing. Even then, Progyny stood apart, leading with comprehensive, evidence-based benefits for both members and employees well before the support became mainstream.

Ten years later, Progyny has grown to over 800 employees serving more than 600 clients, providing family building and women’s health benefits through a managed network of top fertility specialists, member coaching and support, digital tools, prescriptions, and more. Others have followed suit. According to the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans’ Employee Benefits Survey: 2024 Report, 42% of U.S. organizations now offer fertility benefits—up significantly from 30% in 2020.

While we have traditionally worked with large, self-insured employers, today we’re expanding into the fully insured market, allowing fertility benefits to reach a much broader group of employers through standard insurance plans. It’s an exciting time to be in benefits. As fertility coverage has expanded, clinical care options have also significantly advanced with better techniques, more clinics, and stronger outcomes.

Facilitating lasting support

As the expanding fertility industry reaches more women on their journeys, we must continue to support whole-person health. Fertility efforts are most successful when care begins before conception and considers physical, hormonal, and emotional health. Despite this, only about 20% of women have a dedicated preconception visit before pregnancy. Overall wellness requires appropriate screenings, chronic condition monitoring, and mental health management through child-baring years, menopause, and beyond. Comprehensive, personalized, continuous support is the key to healthier women and thriving families.

When women have access to the right care at the right time, outcomes improve. Along members’ fertility journeys, we celebrate their success stories with “Yeah Baby Day” on March 25^th. We hope you’ll share your baby story, and how trusted support has made a difference in your family’s life—this decade, and beyond.

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