The employee benefits landscape has evolved rapidly over the past few years, as companies and health plans adjust to economic volatility, a changing work landscape after the pandemic, and shifting employee and member needs. Women’s and family health benefits continue to be a top priority, but benefits leaders can’t just stick with the status quo. Employees, members, and their families need more support—and to stay competitive, employers and health plans need to align their benefits with some of the top trends shaping the industry going into 2024.
Read on for our top predictions of the main trends in women’s and family health benefits in 2024, and what employers and health plans can do to make a difference.
Skip ahead:
- Trend #1: Focusing on managed care to combat rising costs
- Trend #2: Leaning into menopause support
- Trend #3: Redefining fertility benefits
- Trend #4: Broadening the focus on health equity
- Bonus trend: Driving better care with virtual doula support
Reflecting on 2023
Before diving into 2024 trends, let’s start by looking back to 2023 and the successes—and challenges—the year brought.
We saw rising costs across the board, including healthcare, shrinking budgets, and a slate of layoffs across industries. Employees struggled with inflation and burnout as they tried to balance work and family, as well as long waits and limited availability for family healthcare services like fertility care.
In this shifting environment, we saw employees and members turning their company and health plans and asking for more support. In many cases, the status quo simply wasn’t working anymore. In response, some companies stepped up to the plate, offering better care for members as they navigated starting and raising a family in an uncertain environment. Family-building care of some form is now becoming table stakes for many organizations, while a groundswell movement around menopause support started.
But budgets were tight for many companies, and benefits leaders had to make tough decisions in the care they offer to try to balance comprehensive support with limited funds.
Against that landscape, we look forward to 2024. What can we expect from this upcoming year? What trends should HR and plan leaders be aware of as they weigh their benefits offerings?
Key women’s and family health trends in 2024
Healthcare costs are expected to rise significantly in 2024, with forecasts suggesting that employer healthcare costs will increase by 7%. These increased costs will strain already tight budgets facing benefits teams. Because of this, we predict that employers and health plans alike are going to be even more strategic with their benefits investments going into 2024.
Gone are the days of simply covering care, like just offering a stipend to cover fertility treatments. In 2024, we expect to see more employers taking a more active role in empowering employees with the best care.
Link to video clip & full webinar
“Employers, health plan insurers, and providers should all have the best intent of the employee at their core,” said Lara Houseman, Benefit Design Director at Elevance Health, during a recent Maven webinar. “That doesn't mean just throwing money at the problem—instead, it means real solutions and supporting employees to get the best outcomes based on their goals.”
What could this look like? For some companies, it could mean working with a fertility benefits partner that connects employees to comprehensive fertility care that treats lifestyle factors before the clinic, as well as offers a network of high-quality clinics with transparent pricing and reimbursements for employees. For others, it could mean providing menopause support that extends beyond HRT prescriptions and focuses on coaching, mental health care, and treating lifestyle factors that may worsen menopause symptoms.
Menopause, once a taboo subject in the workplace, is now starting to gain the attention it deserves. Companies and health plans are becoming aware of the urgent need to better support people as they navigate menopause.
While many of the headlines focused on the stigma around menopause, we’re still not seeing the necessary shift to actually address the stigma facing menopausal people in the workplace. Many companies have lacked the knowledge or resources necessary to effectively move the needle, which affects companies’ bottom lines. The estimated global productivity losses attributed to menopause top $150 billion a year, and studies show that around 20% of people have quit or considered quitting their jobs because of menopause symptoms.
“I see a lot of parallels between the stigma of menopause and the stigma around behavioral health,” said Houseman. “I think the more we talk about it and the more we embrace menopause as a normal part of our daily lives, the easier it is to break down the taboo.”
I think the more we talk about it and the more we embrace menopause as a normal part of our daily lives, the easier it is to break down the taboo.
In 2024, we expect to see an increased focus on expanding menopause benefits at work. Employers and health plans can no longer offer the bare minimum when it comes to menopause care and combating stigma. Providing employees with comprehensive menopause support can give them essential resources to take charge of their midlife health, significantly changing the trajectory of employees’ long-term health and career success.
The focus on fertility benefits has been growing steadily over the years, and this trend is poised to evolve further in 2024. But we’ve seen a lot of misinformation around fertility treatments. Employees and members are being confronted with misleading information every time they log into social media, which may tell them that egg freezing is a guarantee for fertility preservation, or that they need to start invasive fertility treatments immediately if they’re having trouble conceiving.
We see these viewpoints reflected in some of the fertility benefits solutions available to employers and their employees. Some only offer access to fertility treatments like IUI and IVF, while others simply offer reimbursements for fertility care. While these services are important—and an improvement from where we were a decade ago—they also overlook all of the other factors that affect fertility and those that make fertility benefits genuinely beneficial to employees.
We predict in 2024, the fertility benefits industry will continue to shift and expand to more comprehensive managed care. Companies will invest in benefits that connect employees and members with providers who can help evaluate and address lifestyle factors that may affect fertility before referring patients to treatments. We also expect that employers will focus on providing much-needed access to mental health support for those navigating physical or social infertility.
We also expect that many companies will work to make payment and reimbursement for fertility treatments easier to understand and manage for health plans, employers, and employees & members alike.
“Support is the number one thing employers and plans can do for those seeking fertility treatments,” said Houseman. “Financial assistance can be second, but we don’t necessarily want members to have to seek IVF or any of the more difficult and more expensive treatments as their first step. Why not work on lifestyle first?”
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