The case study methodology has been validated by a global leader in actuarial services.
Stork Club has released a new Outcomes Case Study, which demonstrates its effectiveness in outperforming national averages on all six key industry metrics. Based on the study, Stork Club program results in more healthy births and babies born with fewer IVF cycles and healthier pregnancies.
Stork Club engaged an independent global leader in actuarial services, to evaluate its approach for comparing its results against national benchmarks. In its evaluation, the actuaries concluded that Stork Club’s methodology is appropriate and reasonable for estimating clinical performance differences between the national population and individuals who received care under Stork Club’s coverage across all six key performance metrics.
Clinical Outcomes
Stork Club's care model delivers superior clinical outcomes compared to the national average. Specifically, the Stork Club program results in more births with fewer IVF cycles and healthier births and babies born via IVF.
More births with fewer IVF cycles
- Higher Pregnancy Rate: The Stork Club Centers of Excellence network shows a 22% higher pregnancy rate, with a success rate of 67.1% compared to the national average of 55.2%. This significant increase underscores the network's efficacy in assisting members on their journey to parenthood.
- Lower Miscarriage Rate: A 38% lower miscarriage rate is a testament to the quality of care, decreasing the rate to 9.3% against a 15.1% national average. This highlights our commitment to supporting sustainable pregnancies.
- Higher Live Birth Rate: Stork Club's live birth rate shows the number of babies born per IVF transefer — 60.7% , with a significant increase over the national average by 37%. This result translates in fewer IVF cycles needed for a baby born with Stork Club and lower cost of fertility care for employers and covered patients.
- Increased Efficiency with Fewer IVF Transfers: Stork Club achieves 27% fewer IVF transfers per live birth, requiring only 1.65 transfers on average versus the national benchmark of 2.25. This is another metric to showcase consistently fewer IVF treatments needed for a baby born with Stork Club.
Healthier births and babies
While Single Embryo Transfer (SET) is considered best practice in the Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) industry, not all providers are motivated to consistently choose SET. This oversight can lead to an increase in multiple births (e.g., twins, triplets), which, in turn, can lead to higher-risk pregnancies and births. This ultimately causes an increase in employer costs.
At Stork Club, we have designed our care to optimize the improvement of clinical outcomes for mothers and their babies by utilizing the best practices in ART. As a result, we see a significant reduction in risk, leading to healthier births, mothers, and babies, as well as lower maternity costs for employers.
- Commitment to Safer Practices with Higher SET Rate: An 89.9% rate of single embryo transfers reflects Stork Club commitment to safer fertility practices, a full 14% higher than the national rate of 78.9%, thus reducing the likelihood of complications associated with multiple births.
- Reduction in Multiple Births Rate: Stork Club's approach has led to an 83% reduction in the multiple births rate, now at an exceedingly low 0.5% compared to the national rate of 2.9%, emphasizing our dedication to the health of mothers and babies by minimizing the inherent risks of multiparty.
Stork Club’s Care Model
Stork Club attributes its excellent performance to its care model — managed care via Centers of Excellence (COE). The model consists of two main components:
Centers of Excellence Network: Stork Club enables its members to receive care from over 1,6000 providers in the US that meet rigorous performance criteria. Stork Club helps steer patients to fertility clinics that drive better outcomes while still giving patients the flexibility to select a provider of their choice.
Clinically designed pre-packaged care: When receiving care at those clinics, Stork Club patients have all the necessary elements of care to conceive a child covered and pre-negotiated for them in advance, so patients don’t skip critical services based on their out-of-pocket cost and instead can focus on what matters — their health.
As a result, employers get the highest quality care for the best price, while covered employees achieve their family-building goals faster and with a lower out-of-pocket cost — a win-win for everyone. The model has been proven to drive better outcomes and reduce the cost in other high-cost areas of care, such as spine, joint replacement, and bariatric surgical care.
“Stork Club leverages evidence-based practices to offer its members the highest quality of reproductive care, ensuring an inclusive approach that caters to the diverse needs of all patients," said Glenn Schattman, MD, Clinical Director of Fertility Care at Stork Club. "Stork Club’s care model is optimized for effectiveness, enabling members to reach their parenthood goals through the most efficient pathways, supported by our commitment to clinical excellence and patient-centered outcomes.”
Stork Club collects outcomes data directly from its providers via proprietary software to enable real-time proactive care management for its patients. Such direct access to clinical outcomes closes a large gap for employers — with Stork Club, they now have access to detailed reports, including anonymized customer-specific data on clinical outcomes across the whole care case and ROI.
For a more detailed look at our validated outcomes and to learn more about how Stork Club is revolutionizing all aspects of reproductive healthcare, get in touch with one of our experts.
Additionally, you can see the full Milliman report on the methodology evaluation here.
