You have the anecdotal evidence: your experiences and conversations with women on your team as they navigate maternity, postpartum, raising children, and menopause. You may even have data from your company’s annual benefits surveys that support those experiences.
You’ve also seen the external stats:
- One in six people globally face fertility challenges
- Maternity costs are on the rise, with more women experiencing high-risk pregnancy journeys
- Three out of five women miss work due to menopause symptoms
- Women tend to wait an average of seven months before seeking care for a health issue
Plus, 91% of organizations state they’ll prioritize women’s and family health benefits in 2026. The need for a women’s health benefit seems obvious, so what do you need to do to get your CFO on board?
It can be hard to see the ROI of a women’s health benefit — not because it isn’t there, but because it’s rarely positioned as a financial strategy. And on top of that, the way women’s healthcare has been covered is fundamentally broken, costing employers more than they realize. Take fertility as an example; fertility-related claims are often fragmented across benefit categories, meaning many services involved in fertility treatments (such as lab work, ultrasounds, anesthesia) are coded as general medical, not fertility – making it hard for your CFO to understand the true cost of fertility care.
When the conversation shifts from wellness to business impact, the value becomes much harder to ignore.
Women’s health benefits are a smart financial strategy in a world where healthcare costs are expected to rise 8% this year alone. Women’s benefits have measurable ROI with short- and long-term gains in reducing healthcare costs, boosting productivity, and helping ensure retention.
Here are a few key talking points to consider:
- Your CFO might think fertility benefits equal dollar signs, but it’s important to focus on how the management of such benefit offerings, and the proactive support provided to members, can actually drive increased cost-savings. An unmanaged benefit, i.e., traditional and dollar cap programs, often lead to multiples births, which can cost upwards of four times what a single birth does. Progyny’s effectively managed benefit prioritizes outcome-driven treatments, promoting healthier pregnancies, babies, and families. We also proactively combat high-cost maternity spend by addressing what carriers and digital maternity programs alone miss. Optimizing health before pregnancy. Engaging early to keep low-risk individuals, low risk. Actual expert help that’s more than an app. These are all part of the Progyny solution proven to impact health outcomes, and therefore your healthcare spend.
- Employers face three significant cost drivers in employment burnout, absenteeism, and attrition, all of which are increased by women’s needs at all stages of life. Eighty-three percent of people facing infertility consider leaving their employer because of inadequate benefits. The strain of parenting is real — 18% of mothers change jobs or leave the workforce each year. And 59% of menopausal women report having missed work due to symptoms. Progyny’s comprehensive approach, which centers around member experience and ensuring individuals find the right care at the right time, helps to combat cost drivers associated with productivity and employee burnout.
- An integrated benefits program helps deliver cost control and predictability by reducing barriers for women, encouraging them to seek care early, supporting their benefits navigation, and providing them with proactive coaching. Seeking and receiving care early generally results in superior outcomes, less treatment, and avoidance of downstream risk. Consider that maternity is a top five cost driver, but 80% of maternal morbidity factors are preventable if women have access to early interventions such as preconception care and continuous education. You can also look at midlife care for women – an area that employers are already covering, but not effectively. Often, when seeking care in midlife, women are seeing multiple specialists, accruing urgent care visits, and spinning their wheels researching symptoms, all because there’s a lack of specialized menopause care. This all leads to ineffective use of benefit dollars, whereas an integrated benefit can support members immediately and help them find the care they need, decreasing doctors visits and employee stress.
Let us help you make the financial case.
For more tips, including data, proof points, and essential questions to ask your CFO, download our full business case and guide explaining how a centralized, life-stage approach to women’s health redefines ROI.