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The global fertility services industry was worth $29.9 billion in 2021, and with recent data from the World Health Organization showing that one in six people globally experience infertility, it’s likely to continue growing.
But fertility services—like in vitro fertilization (IVF) and egg freezing—can be very costly, and many employers don’t offer coverage.
In 2020, about 61% of large employers offered some sort of fertility coverage, though just 27% covered IVF, according to 2021 data from consulting firm Mercer. Among small employers (with 50–499 employees), about 32% offered some sort of fertility coverage in 2020, and 14% covered IVF.
Employers that do offer fertility benefits allocate $36,000 per employee on average, according to data from FertilityIQ, an online fertility data platform. But the average cost of one IVF cycle is more than $23,000, and it takes an average of 2.3–2.7 cycles to get pregnant. That means the average person would need around $50,000 to cover the cost.
“Often, in the absence of having a fertility benefit, people end up spending tens of thousands, and sometimes even upwards of hundreds of thousands out of pocket,” Neel Shah, CMO at virtual care platform Maven Clinic, told Healthcare Brew.
There’s a “clear business case” for employers and payers to cover fertility services, Kate Ryder, founder and CEO of Maven Clinic, said in a news release.
Maven, along with polling agency Wakefield Research, conducted an online survey of 500 people who sought fertility care and found that 97% of respondents said they’d have more desire to work for a company if it offered fertility benefits. (The respondents were surveyed between March 31 and April 12, 2023, and the study had a margin of error of +/- 4.4 percentage points).
The survey also highlighted the financial burden seeking fertility treatment can have; 89% of respondents said they’d have to cut back on other expenses—like groceries, transportation, and other medical services—to afford fertility services.
“This is one of the areas in healthcare that’s underinvested,” Shah said. “We should be spending more on helping people.”