Infertility coverage is an increasingly important issue as more and more couples struggle to conceive and carry a pregnancy to term. While employers, governments and private insurance companies are making efforts to make infertility coverage available to more people, access to fertility treatments remains unequally distributed, and even those with access face coverage caps and other limitations. In this article, we’ll examine what infertility coverage is, explore some of the socio-economic factors affecting who receives coverage, and discuss the implications of infertility coverage for those who don’t have access.

Infertility coverage essentially helps couples cover potentially costly and time-consuming fertility treatments — such as in vitro fertilization (IVF) — by providing financial assistance. Coverage for some procedures and medications related to infertility are more popular than others, depending on location and type of insurance. Not all states, for instance, require insurers to cover IVF. Those that do cover it, have a wide range of policies when it comes to the amount of financial support available and what treatments are covered.

The socio-economic landscape plays an important role in who receives access to fertility treatments — privileged patients from higher educational and economic backgrounds often have better coverage and can afford to pay for treatments out-of-pocket, whereas those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds and with lower income are less likely to have coverage and can face financial hardship as a result.

This has been demonstrated in recent research, which found that private health insurance status and household income were both significant predictors of whether couples were likely to receive coverage for fertility treatments.

The lack of accessible infertility coverage has significant implications for those who cannot afford or access the treatments they need to conceive. Furthermore, this situation is perpetuated by the fact that those with access to treatments often use them to conceive more children than they could afford if they paid out-of-pocket.

In conclusion, infertility coverage is not only a medical matter — it also has far-reaching socio-economic implications. Those with better coverage and financial resources have more access to fertility treatments, and this unequal access can exacerbate existing inequality in society. To make matters worse, those with access often use it to conceive more children than they would be able to afford out-of-pocket. Ultimately, for those without fertility coverage, access to these treatments remains an elusive goal.