As women face mounting barriers to essential reproductive care, Progyny is tackling health inequities head-on, harnessing wearable tech, and partnering with employers to make healthcare more accessible, chief operating officer Melissa Cummings tells Femtech World.

Many women and their families face barriers when it comes to accessing essential reproductive care. Financial and legislative restrictions often leave women facing high healthcare costs and experiencing poor clinical outcomes.

Founded in 2016, Progyny – a “global leader” in women’s health – recognises the urgent need to remove these barriers, providing personalised clinical solutions for women’s health and fertility-related issues, and is working with employers, patients and providers to improve access and reduce costs.

“Individuals today face an increasingly fragmented landscape when seeking healthcare, which leads to stressful and costly experiences,” Melissa Cummings, COO at Progyny, tells Femtech World.

“We are committed to streamlining access to essential care while reducing costs for everyone involved.”

Progyny solutions include clinical programming and coaching for fertility, one-on-one member support, personalised surrogacy and adoption coaching and support, a network of fertility specialists, along with integrated Rx and access to digital tools.

Supporting healthy families

With one in six families impacted by infertility, Progeny has developed a benefit model that ensures members have their care covered throughout their treatment, to help these families access the vital care they need.

Its support begins before a person is pregnant and continues throughout pregnancy to support positive outcomes and healthy families.

“We’ve been in the market for nearly a decade and have pioneered the delivery of fertility benefits for the nation’s leading employers,” says Cummings.

“We have since built that foundation to offer comprehensive support for women throughout all stages of life, including preconception, fertility and family building, pregnancy, postpartum, parenting, menopause and midlife.

“Our outcomes prove that comprehensive, inclusive, and intentionally-designed solutions simultaneously benefit employers, patients, and physicians.”

Driven by data

These services are now being integrated into wearable technologies to provide more personalised health support and health programmes for specific conditions that are contributing to life-changing outcomes for its members.

“This year, we’ve expanded our offerings through collaborations with Oura Ring, where we incorporate wearable data and insights into our care team decision-support process, as well as with Hinge Health/Origin to offer support for pelvic floor therapy,” says Cummings.

Progyny’s pelvic floor therapy support now provides access to digital care supported by physical therapists specialising in pelvic health and musculoskeletal care through Hinge Health, and access to Origin’s nationwide in-network pelvic floor physical therapy, both in-person and online, along with personalised care plans.

By incorporating this wearable data, Progyny can identify potential risks earlier and support health goals such as optimising conception attempts or making lifestyle changes.

Equally, with the Oura ring tracking key health metrics such as sleep patterns, cycle insights, cardiovascular health and stress levels, the use of this data helps to lay the groundwork for improved pregnancy and fertility outcomes.

The data can also be used to provide insights during perimenopause or menopause and help to guide lifestyle adjustments.

“Our data-driven model is the foundation to improve clinical outcomes through tracking treatment utilisation, clinical performance, and patient outcomes,” she continues.

“As a result, we have superior outcomes – including higher pregnancy rates, fewer miscarriages, and lower rates of multiple births.”

Bridging the gap

With 59 per cent of women missing work due to menopause symptoms, Progyny provides services that support employers to ensure benefit efficiency without compromising on employee care.

This support ensures equitable access to speciality care from Progyny’s network of leading specialists.

Cummings says: “We work with employers to save healthcare dollars by providing employees with a more comprehensive journey that leads to healthier employees and babies.

“For employees, we provide personalised support through our Progyny Care Advocates, access to top fertility clinics that we have thoroughly and rigorously vetted, and bundled benefits so they can make better healthcare decisions based on their needs, not their wallets.

“We support equitable access to care by bridging the gap between employers, patients, and providers. “

Growing demand for whole-person care

This year, the company has expanded its services through the acquisition of BenefitBump, a parental leave benefits navigation programme, along with launching further maternal health support with the addition of doula services.

“In the coming year, we’re focused on expanding our women’s health platform across the full spectrum: from preconception to menopause,” says Cummings.

“Employers see the impact – 40 per cent of new clients have adopted at least one of these newer services, and we’re just getting started.”

Progyny was recently recognised as Company of the Year at the Femtech World Awards, which Cummings says reflects a growing demand for inclusive, whole-person care.