Tell us about your fertility journey:
My husband and I had hoped to start a family back in 2018, but unfortunately didn’t have any luck on our own. We were referred to a fertility specialist and had a couple of unsuccessful IUIs just before COVID hit in early 2020. Because of the pandemic, our journey unfortunately had to take a several month pause since the clinic had stopped performing treatments. Over the summer of 2020 we moved forward with a round of IVF and were excited to have embryos from the process, however, they either did not implant or resulted in early loss. Having an unsuccessful round of IVF and a loss was really devastating, not to mention the financial cost was enormous. My husband found out that Radiology Partners would be starting a new benefit with Kindbody starting in January 2021 that would cover IVF, so we waited until this benefit to kick in to try for another round. On our second round of IVF, we only had one embryo, but sometimes one is all it takes. We were thrilled to find out that our embryo successfully implanted and I am pregnant now and due any day 🙂 Because we had another round of IVF covered through Kindbody, we did another round of IVF before our successful transfer in hopes to bank some embryos and continue building our family in the future.
What did it mean for you to find out that you had access to fertility benefits?
Having access to fertility benefits through Kindbody was a huge relief for us. Since our first round of IVF occurred before we had access to the benefit, we became acutely aware of all of the time and energy it takes to coordinate the IVF medications. We had to make multiple phone calls to various pharmacies to get approvals and coordinate the delivery timing of each to ensure that they would arrive in time to begin the IVF cycle. With the Kindbody benefit, all the medications were delivered via one pharmacy and the representative there took care of all of the logistics to ensure the medications arrived on time. We didn’t have to go back and forth with insurance and were just told the medications would all be covered- it honestly felt like Christmas, it was such a great gift. As a healthcare provider seeing COVID patients myself, I was also worried about getting COVID during an IVF round and having to have the round canceled if I were to get COVID. With the cost covered, this took a lot of pressure off that potential scenario.
Did your husband feel more valued as an employee when he found out about the Kindbody benefit?
Yes, he definitely felt more valued! This was an incredibly generous and timely benefit for us.
If a friend was looking for a new job, would you tell them to ask about fertility benefits?
I absolutely would. I think that more and more employers are starting to cover fertility benefits, but unfortunately these benefits are still lagging for so many employers. Kindbody not only provides easy access to treatment benefits but also provides patients with comprehensive treatments like nutrition counseling, lactation support, mental health counseling, infant sleep coaching etc. I think it’s really great that the Kindbody benefit includes services like these to provide patients with support from so many angles, taking the whole patient experience into account.
What was special about the Kindbody experience?
The Kindbody experience really felt like a concierge service- they connect you with a benefits manager who helps coordinate a contract with your fertility clinic and coordinates each cost to be covered along the way (IVF retrieval, embryo freezing, embryo transfer etc). There is no back and forth with insurance and the benefits manager was incredibly responsive and reliable to ensure that we had everything we needed for each step in the process. With IVF already being an incredibly draining process on it’s own, having Kindbody coordinate these efforts relieved a huge burden. We are incredibly grateful to have had access to the benefit and would highly recommend them to anyone seeking fertility services.
