AT&T expands partnership with Maven Clinic, offering additional fertility support

AT&T is expanding its partnership with Maven Clinic, a virtual care provider for women’s and family health, to offer fertility and family-building benefits to employees.

Since 2021, AT&T has offered postpartum and pregnancy/newborn support to all of its employees through Maven, according to Victoria DeCarmine, corporate communications director, via email. Through this benefit, employees can connect with an ob-gyn virtually in between their prenatal appointments or meet with lactation consultants, for example. Employees who travel for work can also ship their breast milk through Maven.

With this expansion, which started Jan. 1, all of AT&T’s 125,000 employees have access to virtual guidance from Maven when considering reproductive services such as egg freezing, IVF, adoption, and surrogacy, according to DeCarmine. AT&T has covered fertility treatments such as intrauterine insemination and in-vitro fertilization in their medical plans since 2018, but the Maven partnership is intended to provide “wraparound support,” as well as emotional support, for employees at different points in their family-building journeys.

“In expanding our partnership with Maven, we’re proud to offer employees personalized support—no matter where they are or what phase they’re in on their family building journey,” Stacey Marx, AT&T’s head of global benefits, said in a statement.

Fertility benefits remain popular, but costs are a concern. While family-friendly benefits such as parental leave are increasingly popular offerings among employers, fertility services are not yet the norm, according to Mercer’s most recent employer benefits survey. Some 70% of employers surveyed offered paid family leave in 2023, for example, but just 19% offered fertility coverage outside of their health plans.

To address worker demand for certain reproductive benefits in recent years, some employers have turned to so-called “point solutions,” which are typically designed to offer one specific type of care, Isha Vij, VP of employer growth with Maven, told HR Brew.

But a recent survey by Maven indicated some HR and benefits professionals may be looking to move away from point solutions in favor of vendors offering a wider range of reproductive care solutions, from pre-conception all the way through menopause. Some 38% of respondents said they are “consolidating benefits vendors,” while 32% are looking into removing benefits with low or no adoption.

Higher costs of healthcare, coupled with low engagement and adoption of point solutions benefits, are spurring employers to “reconsider their benefits strategy overall,” Vij said. “The framework that they’re looking at now is…what is ultimately going to be the most comprehensive, that meets and addresses the needs of their employees end to end throughout their reproductive health journey?”