Walmart Insurance Plan to include fertility treatments

Walmart is partnering with a fertility startup named Kindbody in order to include benefits in its insurance plan that would aid employees’ family expansion.

The partnership with Kindbody was announced by Walmart on Tuesday. Benefits to be provided include in vitro fertilization in addition to fertility testing irrespective of gender, marital status, or sexual orientation.

The plan will enable the employees to access over 30 fertility clinics as well as in vitro fertilization laboratories in the United States. Eligible employees will be able to access Kindbody’s adoption and surrogacy benefits too.

Walmart’s new model called Center of Excellence paved way for these new offerings to the employees starting 1st November. These new offerings also include joint, spine, and heart surgeries as well as cancer treatments in collaboration with numerous healthcare facilities like the Mayo Clinic and the Cleveland Clinic, among others.

Kim Lupo, the SVP of Walmart Global Total Rewards said, “Providing access to high-quality health care is very important to us, and we’ve heard from our associates that improved access to fertility, surrogacy, and adoption support is a priority for them and their families.”

Amazon is among the other major employers that provide extensive coverage for fertility treatments and adoptions. Many companies are following in their footsteps and adding such benefits to their plans to attract employees.

These benefits have influenced the job market in a manner that could increase access to fertility treatments making them more affordable in the process. According to Gina Bartasi, the chairwoman and founder of the New-York based company Kindbody, this is a sign that fertility benefits are becoming a standard benefit in the workplace much like medical and dental.

After the Supreme Court ruled against the nationwide right to abortion, Walmart announced the expansion of its abortion coverage, and now soon after that, fertility benefits have also been offered.

LGBTQ employees, who may feel marginalized, can benefit from family planning services and may find them attractive. Talking about family planning benefits, Lisa Woods, the VP of benefits at Walmart said that the road to parenthood is not the same for all families.

An annual employer survey by Mercer has noted a huge increase in the number of companies that offer fertility benefits and in vitro fertilization. The consultant reported an increase in the number of companies that provide the benefit of in vitro fertilization from 27% in 2020 to 36% in 2021.

Beth Umland, a director at Mercer noted that in comparison, very less employees would use the adoption benefits of the coverage, but the importance of the offering would be a lot for those who will end up using it. This would make Walmart an employer of choice for such employees.

A maximum of $20,000 worth of fertility treatment benefits each are provided to Walmart employees, their spouse/partner and any enrolled dependent children in a lifetime. Walmart Inc. is headquartered in Bentonville, Arkansas, and has nearly 1.6M employees in the United States. It is still unknown how many of those employees are entitled to the latest fertility benefit.