Dr. Adamson was featured in a Spotlight Interview by Medical Travel & Digital Health News. Read an excerpt below. A link to the full article follows.
Medical Travel & Digital Health News (MTDHN): Tell us about your background and how you got started with ARC Fertility.
David Adamson (DA): I am a reproductive endocrinologist and surgeon, and my life work as a physician has been to help people form families. I am passionate about and have been committed to increased access to quality fertility care because families are so important to people.
I was doing this in my practice, trying to help patients one at a time and realized that there were three major challenges people faced when trying to receive the care they needed to form families. The first challenge was money. The fertility treatments they needed were not affordable.
The second major issue was the emotional and cultural challenges around fertility care that prevented many people from getting into or continuing with fertility care.
Finally, the third challenge was the lack of education and awareness. When we first started ARC Fertility, we saw that there was a lack of social awareness around infertility.
These three challenges around affordability, emotional and cultural burdens and lack of awareness were the reasons why we founded ARC Fertility in 1997 to address these issues.
MTDHN: What is the significance of incorporating affordable family forming benefits into employer packages? How does this contribute to employee well-being and organizational success?
DA: The importance of integrating family forming benefits into employer packages lies in the profound significance families hold for individuals. If you asked a room full of people if family is the most important aspect of their lives, a majority of them would say, “Yes!”
A significant statistic to consider is that one out of six individuals who aspire to start a family may encounter challenges in doing so at some stage in their lives. This is a very large number of people which does not take into the account additional single women and men as well as those in the LGBTQ+ and other communities who want to form families and may need fertility care to do so. Therefore, when you look at the broader scope, it is evident that a significant number of people, about one out of four, are affected by challenges of starting a family when they want.
In addition, the inability to form a family poses a huge burden, both emotionally and socially, and significantly impacts people’s lives. The number one challenge individuals face in getting the care they need is the lack of affordability, which is most notable in the U.S. but in other countries, as well. Given that much of healthcare in the US is provided through employers, it is pivotal for employers to alleviate this burden by investing in their employees and implementing family-forming benefits.
Addressing this challenge is crucial, especially for employers, as it enhances overall employee well-being and performance at work. Not only does the lack of employer support affect employee work performances but studies have also shown that talented employees who may be going through infertility and want to receive care, but do not have that benefit in their package to do so, will leave the company. Therefore, it is in an employer’s best interest to provide this benefit to foster employee productivity as well as aid in talent retention and attraction.
Further, integrating family-forming benefits into employer packages aligns with goals related to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) and addresses social determinants of health (SDoH). This creates an equitable environment, building company culture and contributing to organizational success.
Despite concerns about costs, surveys have shown the addition of these benefits does not significantly increase the cost of the healthcare plan.
