Is fertility coverage a mandatory subject of bargaining?

Health benefits are generally a mandatory subject of bargaining, and fertility coverage is a design choice within them. How that applies to your unit depends on your contract, your fund structure, and applicable law — confirm with your own counsel rather than with us.

How does a Taft-Hartley fund differ from an employer plan?

A multiemployer fund is typically self-funded and jointly trusteed, which usually places it outside state insurance mandates and puts the design decision squarely with the trustees. That is a constraint and an opportunity: there is no state floor, but there is also nobody else to persuade.

What does adding fertility coverage cost a fund?

It depends on covered lives, utilization, and design. A navigation-only design costs a fraction of funded treatment coverage. Model your own numbers with the calculator before anyone quotes you.

Why does shift work matter so much here?

Cycle monitoring means six to ten early-morning appointments booked at short notice. For members on rotating shifts, night work, or job sites far from a fertility centre, scheduling — not coverage — is what makes treatment impossible. A benefit that ignores this is paid for and not used.

Do you need member health information?

No. Covered lives, geography, and plan design are enough. We never ask for member health information, and a fund should be wary of any vendor that does at this stage.

For labor unions and funds

A benefit members can actually use on a rotating shift.

Fertility coverage is increasingly bargained for. The mistake funds make is costing the coverage and ignoring the schedule — then discovering members could not attend monitoring and never used what was paid for.

Start a conversation Model the cost

What makes this different from a corporate plan

No state floor

Multiemployer funds are typically self-funded, which generally puts them outside state infertility mandates. Whatever members get is what the trustees decide to provide.

Shift work is the binding constraint

Monitoring is early, frequent, and scheduled the day before. Rotating shifts and remote job sites collide with that far harder than they collide with most benefits.

Geography is unforgiving

Trades and transport work is often far from the nearest fertility centre. Distance to monitoring is the difference between coverage used and coverage wasted.

Member trust is earned differently

Members will not use a benefit they think reports back. Confidentiality needs to be stated plainly, in writing, in language members actually read.

Cost must survive the trustees

A design has to be defensible on numbers. Model utilization and lifetime maximums explicitly rather than accepting a vendor's assumptions.

Equity across the membership

Infertility definitions written around married heterosexual couples exclude members who are single or LGBTQ+. That is a fixable drafting problem, and worth fixing at the table.

Before it reaches the table

Covered lives, and where members actually live and work
Distance from those locations to the nearest fertility centre
Current plan language on infertility, if any
Whether the infertility definition excludes single or LGBTQ+ members
Utilization data from the fund or its administrator
A modelled annual cost and per-member-per-month figure
What reporting the trustees will receive, and what they will not

Model annual and PMPM cost ›

Designs that get used

A lifetime maximum measured against the real cost of a cycle, not a round number
Medication included — Cleveland Clinic puts it at about $5,000 per cycle
An inclusive infertility definition that every member can satisfy
Monitoring access near job sites, not only near headquarters
Clear written confidentiality, communicated in plain language
Navigation support, so members do not burn cycles on avoidable mistakes

The monitoring argument, in one line

A fund can pay for a cycle a member cannot attend. Monitoring access is where that happens, and it is the part of fertility benefit design that almost nobody costs. It is also the specific problem we plan to build a network to solve.

How the monitoring network works ›

Common questions

Is fertility coverage a mandatory subject of bargaining?: Health benefits are generally a mandatory subject of bargaining, and fertility coverage is a design choice within them. How that applies to your unit depends on your contract, your fund structure, and applicable law — confirm with your own counsel rather than with us.
How does a Taft-Hartley fund differ from an employer plan?: A multiemployer fund is typically self-funded and jointly trusteed, which usually places it outside state insurance mandates and puts the design decision squarely with the trustees. That is a constraint and an opportunity: there is no state floor, but there is also nobody else to persuade.
What does adding fertility coverage cost a fund?: It depends on covered lives, utilization, and design. A navigation-only design costs a fraction of funded treatment coverage. Model your own numbers with the calculator before anyone quotes you.
Why does shift work matter so much here?: Cycle monitoring means six to ten early-morning appointments booked at short notice. For members on rotating shifts, night work, or job sites far from a fertility centre, scheduling — not coverage — is what makes treatment impossible. A benefit that ignores this is paid for and not used.
Do you need member health information?: No. Covered lives, geography, and plan design are enough. We never ask for member health information, and a fund should be wary of any vendor that does at this stage.

Bring us the map, not the member list.

Covered lives, geography, and current plan language are enough to have a useful first conversation.

Start a conversation