Recent legislation has created significant obstacles for families in need of in vitro fertilization (IVF) treatment, and the repercussions have rippled across the entirety of the family building benefit landscape.
In February, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos can be considered children under state law, meaning clinics and providers could have been subject to a potential wrongful death of a minor lawsuit if frozen embryos under their care were damaged or destroyed. As a result, several clinics had opted to halt their IVF treatment plans before the state's Republican governor signed a subsequent bill into law March 7 that protects IVF patients and providers from legal liability.
"In some ways the recent actions in Alabama only reinforced the importance of family building and fertility benefits for employers," says Dr. Roger Shedlin, president and CEO of WIN. "[In the aftermath], we saw that protecting these benefits was very important to people, and employers decided to react to that thoughtfully."
Read more: What Alabama's IVF ruling will mean for employees seeking fertility care
The updated ruling still doesn't address the issue of the embryo's "personhood," which is what had caused the initial controversy, prompting certain providers in Alabama to continue to keep their services paused until the court gives further clarification. A few clinics, however, have resumed some of their IVF services after they were issued additional protections. This legislative back-and-forth has had an impact on the public, Shedlin says.
"When more than half of the clinics in Alabama ceased providing suspended IVF services, it created significant implications for patients who were in the middle of a cycle and those who had stored embryos," he says. "In turn that created benefit implications for the employers, who had to quickly become very open to expanding their existing coverage."
Whether they had employees in Alabama or not, Shedlin says employers began very seriously considering adding things like travel and lodging coverage, as well as creating exemptions for employees who needed to change providers in order to access fertility services or medications. He also saw an increased interest in investing in benefit administrators that could better dictate what benefits would best support employees seeking fertility care.
Read more: These Alabama clinics are still offering IVF treatments
"The legal and political landscape is a little more complex in Alabama than other states, but we're seeing the risks that are associated with all these different regulatory environments," he says. "It's so important to be monitoring these situations across all 50 states."
Fortunately the outlook on fertility benefits and IVF is still overwhelmingly positive, according to Shedlin. In fact, a recent poll from market research company YouGov found that 86% of Americans support keeping IVF legal for women. But he still urges employers to continue to push the boundaries of their benefits packages to suit the needs of their workforce.
"The lessons learned from the events in Alabama, both from the initial ruling to the new legislation, shows how quickly the situation can change," he says. "[It also shows] the importance of having advocates who can help these patients in real time to navigate these changes."
