pgny-20221231
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UNITED STATES
SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20549
FORM 10-K
(Mark One)
For the fiscal year ended December 31, 2022
or
For the transition period from ___________________ to ___________________
Commission File Number: 001-39100
Progyny, Inc.
(Exact name of registrant as specified in its charter)
(Address of principal executive offices) (Zip Code)
(212) 888-3124
(Registrant’s telephone number, including area code)
Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(b) of the Act:
Title of each class Trading Symbol(s) Name of each exchange on which registered
Common Stock,$0.0001 par value per share PGNY The Nasdaq Global Select Market
Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(g) of the Act: None
Indicate by check mark if the registrant is a well-known seasoned issuer, as defined in Rule 405 of the Securities Act. Yes☒ No ☐
Indicate by check mark if the registrant is not required to file reports pursuant to Section 13 or Section 15(d) of the Act. Yes ☐No☒
Indicate by check mark whether the registrant: (1) has filed all reports required to be filed by Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to file such reports), and (2) has been subject to such filing requirements for the past 90 days. Yes☒ No ☐
Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has submitted electronically every Interactive Data File required to be submitted pursuant to Rule 405 of Regulation S-T (§ 232.405 of this chapter) during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to submit such files). Yes☒ No ☐
Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a large accelerated filer, an accelerated filer, a non-accelerated filer, a smaller reporting company, or an emerging growth company. See the definitions of “large accelerated filer,” “accelerated filer,” “smaller reporting company,” and “emerging growth company” in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act.
Large accelerated filer ☒ Accelerated filer ☐
Non-accelerated filer ☐ Smaller reporting company ☐
Emerging growth company ☐
If an emerging growth company, indicate by check mark if the registrant has elected not to use the extended transition period for complying with any new or revised financial accounting standards provided pursuant to Section 13(a) of the Exchange Act. ☐
Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has filed a report on and attestation to its management’s assessment of the effectiveness of its internal control over financial reporting under Section 404(b) of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (15 U.S.C. 7262(b)) by the registered public accounting firm that prepared or issued its audit report.Yes ☒ No ☐
If securities are registered pursuant to Section 12(b) of the Act, indicate by check mark whether the financial statements of the registrant included in the filing reflect the correction of an error to previously issued financial statements. ☐
Indicate by check mark whether any of those error corrections are restatements that required a recovery analysis of incentive-based compensation received by any of the registrant’s executive officers during the relevant recovery period pursuant to §240.10D-1(b). ☐
Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a shell company (as defined in Rule 12b-2 of the Act). Yes ☐ No ☒
The aggregate market value of the voting and non-voting common equity held by non-affiliates of the registrant, based on the closing price of the registrant’s shares of common stock as reported by The Nasdaq Global Select Market on June 30, 2022 (the last business day of the registrant’s second fiscal quarter), was approximately $2.3 billion.
As of January 31, 2023, the registrant had 93,378,243 shares of common stock, $0.0001 par value per share, outstanding.
DOCUMENTS INCORPORATED BY REFERENCE
Portions of the registrant’s Definitive Proxy Statement relating to its 2023 Annual Meeting of Stockholders to be filed within 120 days after the end of the fiscal year ended December 31, 2022 are incorporated by reference into Part III of this Annual Report on Form 10-K.
Table of Contents
PROGYNY, INC.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PART I
Item 1. Business 6
Item 1A. Risk Factors 20
Item 1B. Unresolved Staff Comments 50
Item 2. Properties 50
Item 3. Legal Proceedings 50
Item 4. Mine Safety Disclosures 50
Information About Our Executive Officers and Directors 50
PART II
Item 6. [Reserved] 56
Item 7A. Quantitative and Qualitative Disclosures about Market Risk 68
Item 8. Financial Statements and Supplementary Data 70
Item 9A. Controls and Procedures 98
Item 9B. Other Information 100
Item 9C. Disclosure Regarding Foreign Jurisdictions that Prevent Inspections 100
PART III
Item 10. Directors, Executive Officers and Corporate Governance 100
Item 11. Executive Compensation 100
Item 14. Principal Accountant Fees and Services 101
PART IV
Item 15. Exhibits and Financial Statement Schedules 101
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CAUTIONARY NOTE REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS
This Annual Report on Form 10-K contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. We intend such forward-looking statements to be covered by the safe harbor provisions for forward-looking statements contained in Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, or the Securities Act, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, or the Exchange Act. All statements other than statements of historical fact contained in this Annual Report on Form 10-K are forward-looking statements, including without limitation statements regarding our future results of operations and financial position; our ability to acquire or invest in complementary businesses, products, and technologies; our ability to achieve profitability on an annual basis and sustain such profitability; the sufficiency of our cash and cash equivalents, anticipated sources and uses of cash; our business strategies, plans, objectives and goals; our ability to acquire new clients and successfully engage new and existing clients; our ability to effectively manage our growth; our ability to compete effectively with existing competitors and new market entrants; the impact of recently adopted accounting pronouncements; our ability to attract and retain qualified employees and key personnel; the plans and objectives of management for future operations and capital expenditures; general economic and market trends; the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, including variants, on our business, operations, and the markets and communities in which we and our clients, members and providers operate and the potential impact of evolving laws and regulations, including any laws and regulations restricting reproductive rights. These statements are neither promises nor guarantees, but involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other important factors that may cause our actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements.
In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements by terms such as “may,” “will,” “should,” “expect,” “plan,” “anticipate,” “could,” “intend,” “target,” “project,” “contemplate,” “believe,” “estimate,” “predict,” “potential," “seek," "assume," "future" or “continue” or the negative of these terms or other similar expressions. The forward-looking statements in this Annual Report on Form 10-K are only predictions. We have based these forward-looking statements largely on our current expectations and projections about future events and financial trends that we believe may affect our business, financial condition and results of operations. These forward-looking statements speak only as of the date of this Annual Report on Form 10-K and are subject to a number of important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements, including the factors described under Part I, Item 1A. “Risk Factors” and Part II, Item 7. “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations.” of this Annual Report on Form 10-K.
In addition, statements such as “we believe” and similar statements reflect our beliefs and opinions on the relevant subject. These statements are based upon information available to us as of the filing date of this Annual Report on Form 10-K, and while we believe such information forms a reasonable basis for such statements, such information may be limited or incomplete, and our statements should not be read to indicate that we have conducted an exhaustive inquiry into, or review of, all potentially available relevant information. These statements are inherently uncertain and investors are cautioned not to unduly rely upon these statements.
You should read this Annual Report on Form 10-K and the documents that we reference in this Annual Report on Form 10-K completely and with the understanding that our actual future results may be materially different from what we expect. We qualify all of our forward-looking statements by these cautionary statements. Except as required by applicable law, we do not plan to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements contained herein, whether as a result of any new information, future events, changed circumstances or otherwise.
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SUMMARY OF RISKS AFFECTING OUR BUSINESS
Below is a summary of the principal factors that make an investment in our common stock speculative or risky. This summary does not address all of the risks that we face. Additional discussion of the risks summarized in this risk factor summary, and other risks that we face, can be found under the heading “Risk Factors” in Part I, Item 1.A of this Annual Report on Form 10-K and should be carefully considered, together with other information in this Annual Report on Form 10-K and our other filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, or the SEC, before making an investment decision regarding our common stock.
•We may fail to meet our publicly announced guidance or other expectations about our business and future results of operations, which would cause our stock price to decline.
•The COVID-19 pandemic, including variants and resurgences, has had and is expected to continue to have, and similar health epidemics or pandemics could in the future have, an adverse impact on our business, operations, and the markets and communities in which we and our clients, members and providers operate.
•The fertility market in which we participate is competitive, and if we do not continue to compete effectively, our results of operations could be harmed.
•Unfavorable conditions in the global economy or our industry could limit our ability to grow our business and negatively affect our results of operations.
•Our business depends on our ability to retain our existing clients and increase the adoption of our services within our client base. Any failure to do so would harm our business, financial condition and results of operations.
•Our largest clients account for a significant portion of our revenue and a significant number of our clients are in the technology industry. The loss of one or more of these clients, changes to pricing terms with these clients or changes within the technology industry could negatively impact our business, financial condition and results of operations.
•If we are unable to attract new clients, our business, financial condition and results of operations would be adversely affected.
•A significant change in the level or the mix of the utilization of our solutions could have an adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.
•We have a limited operating history with our current platform of solutions, which makes it difficult to predict our future results of operations.
•Changes or developments in the health insurance markets in the United States, including passage and implementation of a law to create a single-payer or government-run health insurance program, could adversely harm our business, and results of operations.
•The health benefits industry may be subject to negative publicity, which could adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.
•If our information technology systems, or those of our provider clinics, specialty pharmacies or other vendors, lag, fail or suffer security breaches, we may incur a material disruption of our services or suffer a loss or inappropriate disclosure of confidential information, which could materially impact our business and the results of operations.
•Our business depends on our ability to maintain our Center of Excellence network of high-quality fertility specialists and other healthcare providers. If we are unable to do so, our future growth would be limited and our business, financial condition and results of operations would be harmed.
•Our growth depends in part on the success of our strategic relationships with, and monitoring of, third parties, including channel partners, vendors as well as insurance carriers.
•If we fail to maintain an efficient pharmacy distribution network or if there is a disruption to our network of specialty pharmacies or their supply chains, our business, financial condition and results of operations could suffer.
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•We operate in a highly regulated industry and must comply with a significant number of complex and evolving legal and regulatory requirements.
•The healthcare regulatory and political framework is uncertain and evolving. Recent and future developments in the healthcare industry could have an adverse impact on our business, financial condition and results of operations.
GENERAL
Unless the context otherwise indicates, references in this Annual Report on Form 10-K to the terms “Progyny,” “the Company,” “we,” “our” and “us” refer to Progyny, Inc. and its wholly owned subsidiaries.
“Progyny®” and our other registered and common law trade names, trademarks and service marks are the property of Progyny, Inc. Other trade names, trademarks and service marks used in this Annual Report on Form 10-K are the property of their respective owners. Solely for convenience, the trademarks and trade names in this Annual Report on Form 10-K may be referred to without the ® and TM symbols, but such references should not be construed as any indicator that their respective owners will not assert their rights thereto.
MARKET, INDUSTRY AND OTHER DATA
This Annual Report on Form 10-K contains statistical data, estimates and forecasts that are based on independent industry publications, and other publicly available information, as well as other information based on our internal sources. This information involves many assumptions and limitations, and you are cautioned not to give undue weight to these estimates. We have not independently verified the accuracy or completeness of the data contained in these industry publications and other publicly available information. Further, while we believe our internal research is reliable, such research has not been verified by any third party. The industry in which we operate is subject to a high degree of uncertainty and risk due to a variety of factors, including those described under Part I, Item 1A. “Risk Factors,” of this Annual Report on Form 10-K that could cause results to differ materially from those expressed in these publications and other publicly available information.
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PART I
ITEM 1. BUSINESS
Overview
We envision a world where anyone who wants to have a child can do so. Our mission is to make dreams of parenthood come true through healthy, timely and supported fertility journeys. Through our differentiated approach to benefits plan design, patient education and support and active network management, our clients’ employees are able to pursue the most effective treatment from the best physicians and achieve optimal outcomes.
Progyny is a leading benefits management company specializing in fertility and family building benefits solutions in the United States. Our clients include many of the nation’s most prominent employers across a broad array of industries. We launched our fertility benefits solution in 2016 with our first five employer clients, and we have grown our current base of clients to over 370 employers, each with at least 1,000 covered lives. We currently have contracts to provide coverage to approximately 5.4 million employees and their partners (known in our industry as covered lives), whom we refer to as our members. We have achieved this growth by demonstrating that our purpose-built, data-driven and disruptive platform consistently delivers superior clinical outcomes in a cost-efficient manner while driving exceptional client and member satisfaction. We have retained substantially all of our clients since we launched our fertility benefits solution, and our member satisfaction is evidenced by our most recent industry-leading Net Promoter Score, or NPS, of +82 for our fertility benefits solution and +79 for our integrated pharmacy benefits solution, Progyny Rx as of December 31, 2022.
We are redefining fertility and family building benefits, proving that a comprehensive fertility solution can simultaneously benefit employers, patients and physicians. We believe the differentiated value proposition we deliver to all of these constituents is key to our success and growth. By empowering our members with education, guidance and financial support, and enabling high-quality fertility specialists to use the latest science and technologies, our solution leads to the development of customized treatment plans that result in optimal clinical outcomes for our members and cost savings for our clients.
In order to simplify the process for our members, we position the benefit to them using our proprietary Smart Cycle approach. Smart Cycles are designed by us to include the medical services required for a member’s full course of treatment, including all necessary diagnostic testing and access to the latest technology. In conjunction with the Smart Cycle plan design, each of our members who utilizes our benefit has a dedicated Patient Care Advocate, or PCA, who has fertility expertise and provides end-to-end concierge support, including logistical support (i.e., fertility specialist selection, appointment scheduling, treatment authorization and treatment payment), clinical guidance (i.e., treatment options, outcomes statistics and what to expect) and emotional support during the often challenging and unpredictable fertility journey. Additionally, all Progyny members have access to our selective network of high-quality fertility specialists who we equip with a benefits design that enables them to pursue the best treatment pathways, providing our members with tailored treatments that result in optimal clinical outcomes.
In addition to our fertility benefits solution, we offer an integrated pharmacy benefits solution, Progyny Rx, which can be added by our clients. Progyny Rx provides our members with access to the medications needed during their fertility treatment. As part of this solution, we provide care management services, which include our formulary plan design, simplified authorization, assistance with prescription fulfillment and timely delivery of the medications by our network of specialty pharmacies, as well as medication administration training, pharmacy support services and continuing PCA support.
We have demonstrated our ability to drive better outcomes for our clients, members and provider clinics across multiple metrics. Provider clinics within our network produce outcomes that surpass their own reported practice averages when treating Progyny members because of our differentiated solution. Additionally, across our membership, our outcomes compared to national averages have been consistently superior to date.
Industry Background
The prevalence of infertility is high, affecting one in five heterosexual women aged 15 to 49 years with no prior births in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or the CDC, and infertility is gaining attention as individuals are more openly discussing their struggles with fertility. As transparency and dialogue around infertility have increased, there has been a de-stigmatization of the disease. Despite this change in perception of infertility and its high prevalence, it is one of the only high-prevalence medical conditions with limited or non-existent medical insurance. By comparison, medical conditions with a similar prevalence, such as diabetes and asthma, are
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comprehensively covered by conventional health insurance carriers and employers. Due to the high prevalence of infertility, its high costs of treatment and the limited insurance coverage provided for the disease, there is a significant unmet need for fertility services in the United States and several macro trends are driving that need for fertility treatments and propelling the overall size of the fertility market higher.
While fertility treatments have been available for over 40 years to help individuals suffering from infertility build their families, access to these treatments has been limited due to the lack of comprehensive coverage and the prohibitive costs. Only a small percentage of employers provide a benefits plan that addresses these costs. As a result, the vast majority of patients who undergo fertility treatment must pay for most or all of their care out-of-pocket, which is cost-prohibitive for many families and individuals.
We believe that the lack of adequate coverage has been the result of both broader public policy issues, as well as conventional health insurance carrier-specific policies. For example, it was not until 2017 that infertility was first recognized as a disease by the American Medical Association and, as of June 2022, only 20 states have mandated insurance coverage for infertility. For the states that do mandate coverage, the mandates vary greatly and may leave patients with inadequate coverage or unable to pursue care at all. When conventional health insurance carriers have chosen to structure fertility coverage for their employer clients, that coverage often has limited lifetime dollar maximums and clinically antiquated "one size fits all" clinical protocols, such as mandated step therapy protocols.
Major cultural shifts and the evolving demographics of the workforce in the United States are driving demand for fertility treatments and adequate coverage to support them. More individuals than ever are making the choice to start their families later in life, increasing the biological likelihood of infertility as an individual's fertility declines with age. Additionally, the increased acceptance of non-traditional paths to parenthood has created an increased need for access to fertility treatments. As employees are demanding more robust fertility benefits coverage, employers are increasingly focused on providing a comprehensive fertility benefits plan that supports an inclusive and diverse workplace in order to attract and retain top employees. Because employers in the same industry are competing for employee talent, once the availability of fertility benefits begins to penetrate a particular industry, a demonstrable network effect occurs in which employees within that industry begin to expect the benefit from their employers, which can cause an employer to adopt the benefit to remain competitive and bolster employee satisfaction.
Driven by these market dynamics, the market for fertility treatments has grown as more individuals pursue treatment. Given this increasing demand coupled with inadequate existing coverage, there is a greater need than ever before for a fertility benefits manager who can provide comprehensive and effective benefits to the employer market.
Industry Challenges
We believe employers are faced with three major challenges relating to providing fertility benefits to their employee bases:
•the lack of a comprehensive fertility benefits solution that optimizes their fertility treatment expenditures;
•the need to reduce the significant maternity and neonatal intensive care unit, or NICU, expenses, and the workplace impact, resulting from multiple births caused by fertility treatments; and
•the desire to find innovative ways to attract and retain highly sought-after talent.
Employers are seeing an increasing demand for fertility and family building benefits solutions from their employees, yet the programs offered by their conventional health insurance carriers do not successfully address these core challenges.
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Lack of Effective Fertility Benefits Solutions
The conventional fertility benefits options available to employers have been designed to control the utilization of services (and expenditures) by employees rather than to optimize outcomes. As such, their plan designs have included restrictive features, such as lifetime dollar maximums, mandated step therapy protocols and limited or no coverage for advanced diagnostics and procedures. In addition, these plan designs have failed to provide access to premier fertility specialists, robust patient support and the ability to dispense fertility medication in a timely manner.
When conventional fertility benefits coverage is restrictively structured with a lifetime dollar maximum, the patient often makes poor clinical decisions that ultimately result in greater costs for the employer. Because the dollar maximum can easily be exhausted in the midst of a fertility treatment cycle, patients may elect to transfer multiple embryos because they are under financial pressure and mistakenly believe that it will optimize their chance of becoming pregnant. The common use of multiple embryo transfer belies the fact that this procedure greatly increases the risk of multiple births and health complications among the mother and babies. One of the most common complications associated with multiples is preterm births, which significantly escalates healthcare costs, including maternity care, labor and delivery costs and NICU expenses. Conventional health insurance carriers also often mandate step therapy protocols and restrict access to use of advanced diagnostics and procedures, which exacerbates the inefficient utilization of dollars available under the lifetime dollar maximum and wastes valuable time on less effective treatments.
The fertility process is a long, rigorous journey, both emotionally and physically. Conventional benefits programs lack any meaningful care coordination, education or patient support. Patients and their dependents have no help in understanding the complex choices they are faced with and discerning between treatment alternatives. There is also limited emotional support when patients face setbacks or unexpected outcomes as the current system ignores the emotional burden of patients embarking on the path to pregnancy through assisted reproductive technology, or ART, treatments and the impact that burden has on employee productivity and the workplace.
The conventional pharmacy delivery infrastructure is not designed to address the uniqueness of fertility treatment, which requires highly coordinated and timely delivery of medications. Conventional benefits managers require extensive and multiple authorizations and have inconsistent approval processes, which can complicate and delay the provision of medications that are essential to fertility treatment. We believe that with conventional benefits programs, authorization and delivery times of one to two weeks are typical. If medications are not received on time, patients may have to wait a month or longer to commence another round of fertility treatment, wasting valuable time and money. In addition, the storage, preparation and administration of fertility medication is complex and requires extensive self-administered injections, yet most fertility benefits programs offer limited guidance and clinical support to patients around these issues. Additionally, fertility medications are often self-administered injectable drugs, and the effectiveness of a patient’s treatment may be compromised by improper storage and/or incorrect administration of their medications if the patient is not provided access to education and support.
Because of the unique challenges of infertility, including the high costs and complexity of treatment and the variability of outcomes across fertility specialists, conventional benefits solutions have been unable to optimize outcomes and efficiently utilize employers’ dollars committed to fertility. As a result, employers are facing increased demand for an expensive benefits program without the availability of an effective solution in the conventional managed care environment.
Costs Associated with Multiple Births and Poor Fertility Treatment Outcomes
Regardless of whether an employer chooses to cover fertility treatments, they end up bearing the significant medical costs associated with unanticipated multiple births and miscarriages, as well as the associated impacts on the workplace. The high number of multiple embryo transfers that conventionally occurs during IVF leads to a significant number of multiple births, which in turn is a primary cause of dangerous and expensive preterm births, the most common complication resulting from multiple births, which lead to extensive maternity and NICU costs. In addition to multiple birth rates, the relatively higher miscarriage rate associated with IVF treatment also results in significant additional medical costs for employers and their employees, as well as emotional and physical strain on patients. As a result of these suboptimal treatment outcomes, employers also bear the related costs of increased employee absenteeism at the workplace, which is common with instances of multiples births. Employers may not be fully aware of the causal effect and ultimate impact of suboptimal fertility care under the current solutions offered by the conventional benefits programs since these programs do not collect outcomes data from their fertility specialists and therefore cannot accurately report on their program’s performance in a timely manner.
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Ability to Attract and Retain Talent
Employers are facing increasing competition to attract and retain talent. As a result, we believe that employers are enhancing their value proposition to employees by evaluating and providing benefits that are most in demand. Family building solutions are an increasing area of focus for employees, and in turn, employers.
Our Market Opportunity
We believe we have a significant opportunity to provide employers with a superior comprehensive solution that addresses the unique challenges and complexities of fertility treatment and related fertility pharmacy services. We estimate that the market for fertility treatments in the United States will continue to grow, especially as current estimates of the market exclude those individuals who do not have access to a comprehensive family building benefit and, as a result, do not seek treatment for infertility. Furthermore, when comparing the United States to other countries, the percentage of babies born utilizing ART is materially lower, at less than 2% in the United States (where fertility treatment is not adequately covered), compared to approximately 10% in Denmark and 6% in Japan (where there is more public health funding for fertility treatment).
We contract with employers to provide fertility and family building benefits to their employees and covered dependents. We believe our initial addressable market consists of the approximately 8,000 self-insured employers in the United States (excluding but not limited to quasi-governmental entities, such as universities, school systems, and labor unions). These 8,000 employers have a minimum of 1,000 employees, representing approximately 75 million potential covered lives in total. As such, we estimate that our current member base of 5.4 million covered lives under contract represents a mid-single digit percent of our initial market opportunity. If we were to include quasi-governmental entities in our potential addressable market, we believe our market penetration is even lower.
Regardless of whether or not these self-insured employers currently provide a fertility benefit, we believe they are prospective clients of Progyny. Further, 37% of our current clients had no prior fertility coverage before adopting Progyny and 88% of our current clients enhanced their coverage when they switched to Progyny. Overall, we believe our market opportunity is substantial and is continuing to grow as a result of the rising demand for fertility benefits solutions, the lack of adequate offerings in the market today and the increasing awareness of the challenges of infertility we are driving.
Our Solutions
We are redefining effective fertility and family building benefits through our purpose-built, data-driven and disruptive platform through which we offer our fertility benefits and Progyny Rx solutions. Our innovative and comprehensive fertility solution has proven to be simultaneously beneficial for our clients, our members and our network of fertility specialists. Through our differentiated approach to benefits plan design, patient education and support and active network management, our clients’ employees are able to pursue the most effective treatment from the best fertility specialists and achieve optimal outcomes in a cost-efficient manner, while our clients and members achieve savings in upfront treatment costs as well as reduced maternity and NICU expenses.
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Fertility Benefits Solution
Differentiated Benefits Plan Design
The innovative Smart Cycle is our easy-to-understand fertility benefits design. Our Smart Cycle plan design allows members equitable access to the treatment they need and is designed to drive superior outcomes and reduce both upfront treatment expenses and subsequent costs. Everything needed for a comprehensive fertility treatment is contained within a Smart Cycle treatment bundle, including all necessary diagnostic testing and access to the latest technology (e.g., in the case of IVF treatment, preimplantation genetic testing). We currently offer 19 different Smart Cycle treatment bundles, which may be used independently or in combination depending on the member’s need. Each Smart Cycle has a separate unit value (i.e., some have fractional values and some have whole values). Our clients contract to purchase a cumulative Smart Cycle unit value per eligible member. These can range from one to unlimited cumulative Smart Cycles units. Members can choose their preferred provider clinics within our network and utilize their Smart Cycles for whichever treatments they and their fertility specialists determine to be necessary throughout their fertility journey.
The Smart Cycle structure allows our members, together with the advice of their fertility specialists and the support of their PCAs, to select the Smart Cycle treatment bundles that align with their unique treatment needs and their intended family building pathway, without having to follow the “one size fits all” protocols common to conventional health insurance carriers, and without the worry that their desired treatment approach will not be authorized or covered for the full treatment cycle. Our comprehensive Smart Cycles, which are our proprietary treatment bundles, are assessed regularly by our Medical Advisory Board, and include access to the latest science and technologies, enabling our network of fertility specialists to utilize best practices. Our superior clinical outcomes driven by our Smart Cycle plan design include higher rates of pregnancy and live births, as well as lower miscarriage rates and fewer multiple births.
Personalized Concierge-Style Member Support Services
Our fertility benefits solution provides members with access to significant support services that are crucial to the success of the fertility and family building journey. Before the fertility treatment process begins, and throughout every step of the fertility journey, we deliver high-touch member support services through a dedicated PCA, who is paired to a member and interacts with them an average of 15 times over the course of their treatment. Our PCAs have deep fertility expertise and provide extensive clinical education, guidance and emotional support to our members. Additionally, we have an in-house clinical staff, comprised of professionals with substantial expertise in reproductive endocrinology, fertility nursing, clinical psychology and social work that design our PCA training curriculum and direct our comprehensive member experience.
Our comprehensive member portal, accessible via any desktop or mobile device, further supports the member experience by providing key educational resources and easy-to-access benefits information to our members. Our members can use the portal to securely message their PCA or access a curated library of videos, articles, podcasts and webinars on fertility and family building. The portal also offers digital solutions that help our members address the emotional effects that are often associated with infertility, including loss, self-blame, anxiety and depression. Additionally, the portal can be used to review plan coverage, benefit utilization, claim details and account balances. We believe our platform provides our members with best-in-class support services to help them navigate their fertility and family building journeys. In November 2022, we updated our member portal by including a mobile application, that allows for members to view their benefit details, communicate with their Progyny Care Team, pay bills and access fertility and family building education.
Selective Network of High-Quality Fertility Specialists
We have utilized our deep industry knowledge and the insights derived from our data analytics platform to establish and actively manage a national network of the leading fertility specialists in the country. Our members receive access to our selective Center of Excellence network of high-quality providers that includes over 950 fertility specialists who practice at over 650 provider clinic locations throughout the United States. Our network includes 45 of the top 50 fertility practice groups by volume in the United States according to 2020 CDC data, which was published in 2022 and is the most recent data available. Fertility specialists who are invited to join our network must meet and maintain rigorous credentialing standards and quality thresholds that we set for inclusion in our network to ensure that our members receive the highest quality of care. Our national network serves members in virtually every state, providing extensive geographic coverage to our national employers.
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Progyny Rx, an Integrated Pharmacy Benefits Solution
Progyny Rx is our integrated pharmacy benefits solution that can be added by clients that utilize our fertility benefits solution. This solution provides our members with access to the medications needed during their treatment. As part of this solution, we provide care management services, which include our formulary plan design, simplified authorization, assistance with prescription fulfillment and timely delivery of the medications by our network of specialty pharmacies, as well as medication administration training, pharmacy support services and continuing PCA support. Our single treatment and medication authorization process reduces the administrative burden, creating an efficient pharmacy solution for our members and their fertility specialists. Progyny Rx reduces dispensing and delivery time to two days to eliminate the risk of missed treatment cycles. Our single medication authorization and delivery process ensures that our members will not miss or delay cycles. We provide access to phone-based, clinical education and support seven days a week to ensure that our members understand any necessary medication storage requirements and administration techniques, including injection training. To further support those members that require additional education, we also offer a library of on-demand videos. Given the importance of the timely use of medication to the success of fertility treatments, and the complexity involved in administering the medications, we believe Progyny Rx provides a differentiated and effective pharmacy solution for our clients and their employees.
Robust Data Collection Process
We believe that we are the only fertility and family building benefits company to collect data in a timely manner directly from providers on adherence to treatment protocols and clinical outcomes, including single embryo transfer rates, pregnancy rates, miscarriage rates, live birth rates, multiple birth rates, practice patterns, treatment timelines and costs per birth. Our data is used to understand the utilization of our benefits, our provider clinics’ adherence to best practices and the outcomes produced by each clinic and across our network. This data informs decisions across our platform, from services covered to our fertility network standards. The insights from our data also enable us to actively manage our fertility specialist network and ensure that our fertility specialists are utilizing best practices and optimizing outcomes. The data collection process also includes extensive member surveys, which allow us to understand and improve our member satisfaction. Finally, our data allows us to provide our clients with unique and detailed quarterly reports in order to provide full transparency into the utilization of their benefit program, their expenditures and the outcomes delivered and value created. We believe that we effectively utilize our thorough data collection and analysis process and our unique and robust data set to continuously improve the client and member experience across our platform.
Prestigious Medical Advisory Board
Our Medical Advisory Board is comprised of nationally recognized fertility specialists who are advancing fertility science and research. They are responsible for oversight of key clinical issues, including evaluating new fertility treatment diagnostics and procedures to ensure that our benefits design and overall program is comprehensive and designed to drive to the best outcomes. This review ensures that we are evaluating and covering the latest and most effective fertility treatments and identifying opportunities to improve our plan design, member experience and fertility specialists network standards.
Full Service Client Account Management
We provide a dedicated account management team to ensure that we are delivering superior service. Our account managers support our clients’ day-to-day needs and resolve issues that arise. For example, to help our clients ensure that their employees are fully aware of the Progyny program, our account management teams work with our clients to create co-branded materials to support health fairs, open enrollment events and other employee communications. The account management team also attends open enrollment benefits fairs and other health fairs throughout the year and hosts virtual open enrollment webinars for members to attend live or on-demand. Our account management team also reviews all quarterly and annual program reports with our clients to reinforce the transparency we provide to clients into their expenditures and outcomes and to review and quantify the value created by our solutions. We believe our account management services, including our detailed client reporting, play an important role in helping us maintain and strengthen our client relationships.
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Ease of Integration for Our Clients
Once we are selected by an employer to manage their fertility and family building benefit, our solution is easy to implement as part of their broader pre-tax medical benefits package. Integrating our solution involves only a small commitment of our client's time (typically only six to ten hours over the course of six weeks). Facilitating the ease of integration is the fact that we have developed multiple integration solutions that allow us to integrate with any health plan or health insurance carrier, reducing significant time and expense for our clients. Our ability to integrate our solution with our clients' health insurance coverage allows our benefit to be offered to employees on a pre-tax basis, providing our members with significant savings in comparison to a post-tax reimbursement. We believe our ability to integrate our benefits solutions with all of the large national health insurance carriers is a differentiating factor within the industry.
Surrogacy and Adoption Reimbursement Program
We also offer a surrogacy and adoption reimbursement program. We can manage the reimbursement of surrogacy and adoption expenses for those clients who offer such reimbursement benefits. For these programs, employers designate a specific lifetime dollar amount toward surrogacy and/or adoption services for their employees. We then administer the expense reimbursement to employees up to this dollar amount. We work with our clients to determine what expenses related to adoption and/or surrogacy will be covered under their plan, thereby alleviating their administrative burden. Examples of reimbursement expenses typically include agency fees, surrogacy fees, travel expenses and healthcare expenses for the surrogate.
Our Value Proposition
We believe that our competitive success is a function of our ability to concurrently: (1) provide tangible financial value to our clients; (2) deliver a better and more supported fertility journey to our members; and (3) provide value to, and work collaboratively with, the nation’s finest fertility specialists.
We Provide Measurable Value to Our Employer Clients
•Substantial and Measurable Financial Value. Our superior clinical outcomes drive savings in both upfront fertility treatment costs (due to our higher live birth rates) as well as subsequent maternity and NICU expenses for our clients (due to our lower multiple birth rates).
•Progyny Rx Savings. Progyny Rx delivers unit cost savings to our clients based on a reduction in unnecessary quantities of medication dispensed.
•Employee Productivity and Retention. Our solution addresses employee absenteeism, poor productivity, and the lack of employee retention driven by the stress of suffering from infertility (and undergoing fertility treatment) as well as the back-to-work issues related to multiple births. Our members are able to receive the most effective treatments more quickly and have access to high-touch member support services through our PCAs, thereby reducing the physical and emotional rigors of infertility and its treatment.
•Appeal to Existing and Prospective Employees. Better fertility benefits programs can be a key component of enhancing a company’s overall benefits and an important tool in its recruiting efforts and in helping retain key talent. An appealing feature of the Progyny benefit from an employee retention perspective is that the benefit is both comprehensive and is accessible by all groups across an employee population. The level of employee satisfaction we provide is important for any employer focused on employee retention.
We Provide Meaningful Value to Our Members
•Superior Clinical Outcomes. Our members experience healthier pregnancies (with significantly increased utilization of single embryo transfer) and superior rates of pregnancy and live births, as well as reduced rates of miscarriages and multiple births, saving valuable time and money and limiting personal and professional disruption.
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Single embryo transfer rate(1) 72.5 % 75.6 % 91.0 %
Pregnancy rate per IVF transfer(1) 54.1 % 55.5 % 63.0 %
IVF multiples rate(2) 7.4 % 6.5 % 2.5 %
(1)Calculated based on the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology, or SART, 2019 National Summary Report, finalized in 2022.
(2)Calculated based on CDC, 2020 National Summary and Clinic Data Sets, published in 2022.
(3)Calculated based on the 12-month period ended December 31, 2021.
•Comprehensive Coverage. We provide all individuals with access to comprehensive coverage. Our Smart Cycle design ensures that members always have coverage for a full treatment cycle as their access to treatment is not limited by a dollar maximum that could be exhausted mid-treatment. Additionally, members have access to the latest technologies and procedures, which are reviewed and approved by our Medical Advisory Board.
•Access for All Members and Dependents. Smart Cycles are available to be utilized across all employee groups, including populations not typically covered, such as LGBTQ+ individuals and single mothers by choice.
•Equitable Access to Care. Our Smart Cycle design ensures members receive fair and balanced access to care that is not dependent on where members live, how expensive a fertility specialist is or which specific treatments are required.
•High-Touch Concierge Member Experience. We provide our members with high-touch, end-to-end concierge support, including logistical assistance, clinical guidance and emotional support through our PCAs and our in-house clinical staff.
•Access to Selective, Premier Fertility Specialist Network. Our solution provides members with access to the nation’s most desired fertility providers, including over 950 fertility specialists who practice at over 650 provider clinic locations throughout the United States. Our network includes 45 of the top 50 fertility practice groups by volume in the United States according to 2020 CDC data.
•Integrated Pharmacy Benefits Solution. Progyny Rx provides members with a simplified authorization process, timely medication delivery and member support from pharmacy clinicians seven days a week.
We Provide Meaningful Value to Our Fertility Specialists
•Members Supported With a Comprehensive Benefit. Our solutions allow our members to arrive at their fertility specialist with a fully-covered course of treatment and the flexibility to utilize the latest approved technologies and best practices via our comprehensive Smart Cycle benefits plan design. These members are also educated on the use of best practices and are supported by PCAs along their fertility journey.
•Eliminate Step Therapy Protocols. Our network of fertility specialists have access to the latest science and technologies through our innovative Smart Cycles, which free our fertility specialists from having to follow the ineffective protocols common to conventional coverage and allow them to pursue the most effective treatments first, thereby saving time and money.
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•Simplified Administration. Once a Smart Cycle treatment is authorized, fertility specialists within our network are able to prescribe the optimal treatment plan without any need for pre-certification or pre-authorization.
•Superior Clinical Outcomes. Outcomes for Progyny members across our fertility specialist network are superior to the average outcomes that the same provider clinics report to the CDC for all of their patients. Specifically, as shown in the table above, the in-network average live birth rate for Progyny members is 54.3%, as compared to the 44.1% average live birth rate for all of the patients at those same clinics.
•Eliminating Financial Risk Associated With Collections. We assume full responsibility for the collection of all members’ deductibles and coinsurance, thereby eliminating the burden and cost of collection (and bad debt expense) for member payments that our provider clinics otherwise would experience.
•Data Sharing and Reporting. We produce clinic scorecards quarterly with key performance indicators that allow fertility specialists to compare their results with peer averages.
•Higher Volumes and Improved Financial Performance. Fertility specialists in our network often experience an increase in patient volume, and because of our comprehensive benefits design, an increase in the number of patients who progress from consultation to treatment.
Our Growth Strategy
Expand Our Client Base
We intend to continue increasing our client base of self-insured employers throughout the United States by leveraging our experienced sales force and strong relationships with benefits consultants. We believe we have an initial addressable market of approximately 8,000 potential self-insured employer clients in the United States (excluding but not limited to quasi-governmental entities, such as universities, school systems, and labor unions), who have a minimum of 1,000 employees and, with our base of over 370 clients under contract, are still in the early stages of our growth trajectory. Importantly, as we have continued to grow, we have meaningfully diversified our client base across an array of different industries. We believe that our employer clients are thought leaders in their respective industries and are creating a network effect that is helping to drive more widespread adoption of fertility benefits in their specific industries. We are expanding our client base within each industry that we serve, and have an industry-specific strategy, which enables us to most effectively target our addressable market. Additionally, we believe that our expanding presence has resulted in a heightened awareness of fertility benefits and has informed the market of the value we provide to our employer clients and our members, which we believe also helps facilitate growth.
Capitalize on Embedded Growth Potential within Our Existing Client Base
Because of how our revenue model is structured, we believe we are positioned to realize organic revenue growth as our clients and their respective employee bases grow and utilize more fertility treatment services as a result. A meaningful portion of our clients have grown, and we believe many of them will continue to grow. In addition, we have historically realized similar utilization trends of fertility services for new members compared with existing members on a same client basis. We believe the combination of these factors results in meaningful and sustainable embedded growth potential well into the future.
Expansion of Progyny Benefits Solutions within Our Existing Client Base
We expect to see further growth from existing clients that add incremental services to their fertility benefits program. For example, a client can expand the fertility benefits they offer to their employees by increasing the number of Smart Cycles they contract for. In addition, our fertility benefits solution clients can purchase our add-on Progyny Rx solution. We introduced Progyny Rx in the third quarter of 2017 and went live with a select number of clients in January 2018. Currently, 90% of our clients under contract are utilizing this solution, including 97% of the clients we signed in fiscal year 2022. We believe our sales and marketing capabilities play an important role in informing and educating clients about the additional value and impact we can provide to them and their members by enhancing their benefit program.
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New Services and Addressable Markets to Enhance the Depth and Breadth of Our Comprehensive Family Building Offering
As we continue to grow and expand our client base, we are continuously evaluating the latest evolving trends to find ways we can better serve the needs of existing and new potential clients and their employees. We believe we are uniquely positioned to do this for several reasons. First, we believe the combination of our Medical Advisory Board and our selective network of high-quality fertility specialists, as well as the data we collect and analyze, provides us with differentiated insights into fertility care delivery and support. In addition, we believe we have positive and collaborative relationships with our clients that offer us additional insights into their needs. We believe the combination of these factors, coupled with our demonstrated track record of adding more services to our benefits design, highlights that we are well positioned to do so in the future. To date, we have identified several ways we believe we can potentially expand our comprehensive family building offering, our addressable market, and our client base in the future. We will continue to evaluate opportunities as our platform continues to expand.
Our Clients
We currently have contracts to serve over 370 employers in the United States across more than 40 industries. Our current clients, who are industry leaders across both high-growth and mature industries and range in size from at least 1,000 to 600,000 employees, represent approximately 5.4 millioncovered lives under contract.
We have clients in the technology, consumer retail, e-commerce, industrial, healthcare, media, insurance, legal, food and beverage, financial services, life sciences, professional services, government services, union, energy, manufacturing, logistics, transportation, aerospace, real estate, nonprofit and hospitality sectors.
Substantially all of our clients have renewed their benefits management contracts since our initial benefits offerings launched in 2016. The majority of our clients have signed multi-year contracts or contracts that renew automatically on an annual basis.
Given that the majority of our clients contract with us for a January 1st benefits plan start date, our sales cycle follows the conventional healthcare benefits cycle, which largely concludes by the end of October of the prior year to allow for benefits education and annual open enrollment to occur. In the 2022 sales cycle, more clients, with benefits going live in 2023, have opted for comprehensive coverage, with substantially all of our new clients electing for Progyny Rx, multiple Smart Cycles and/or egg-freezing.
Our Competitive Landscape
We believe we are the leader in the market for employer-sponsored fertility benefits and family building solutions.
We believe we compete favorably based on the following competitive factors:
•the value and comprehensiveness of the benefits solution and superior outcomes for employees;
•benefits plan design;
•access for all employees and their covered dependents, including LGBTQ+ and single mothers by choice;
•equitable access to care across geographies;
•treatment plans that maximize effectiveness and achieve desired outcomes;
•member experience, including unlimited dedicated patient education, clinical guidance and emotional support;
•access to a network of high-quality fertility specialists;
•data reporting and sharing; and
•access to an integrated pharmacy solution.
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While we do not believe any single competitor offers a comparably robust, integrated fertility and family building benefits solution, as to what we provide, there are alternative solutions in the market such as the health insurance companies who are able to provide fertility benefits management services as part of their overall administration of a company's health plan and who are our primary competition. In addition, other competitors include specialty fertility-focused solutions owned or sponsored by the health insurance companies to provide more comprehensive support to fertility patients than their general medical coverage provides, such as case management or educational support, and the venture capital or private equity-backed companies who focus on maternity and reproductive health services more broadly, or who provide fertility-specific benefits solutions.
Our solutions are structured as a pre-tax benefit program integrated into employers’ overall employee medical insurance, which is unique compared to the offerings of benefits managers new to the industry that do not have integrated health insurance carrier solutions. In addition to our unique plan design, member support and fertility specialist network, one of the key structural differences between our pre-tax benefit and their post-tax reimbursement programs is that the individual receiving reimbursement for fertility treatments must pay income taxes on the amount of that reimbursement for the post-tax programs.
Sales and Marketing
We sell our solutions through our sales organization and, in many cases, we leverage our relationships with top benefits consultants to establish relationships with potential clients. Our sales team has broad experience in health benefits management and extensive long-term relationships with industry participants and benefits executives at large employers. Our sales team is organized principally by geography and account size and is responsible for identifying potential clients and managing the overall sales process. The success and effectiveness of our sales team is evidenced by the over 105 new clients that we added in 2022, and the fact that a majority of our current clients terminated their existing fertility coverage to switch to Progyny.
We generate client leads, accelerate sales opportunities and build brand awareness through our marketing programs. Our marketing programs target human resource, benefits and finance executives in addition to health professionals and senior business leaders. Our principal marketing programs include learning opportunities for potential members, demand generation, field marketing events, integrated marketing campaigns (including direct email and online advertising) and participation in industry events, trade shows and conferences. We also benefit from strong referrals as several of our prominent clients have publicly endorsed Progyny and discussed the value they and their members receive.
Government Regulation
As a participant in the healthcare industry, we are required to comply with extensive and complex U.S. laws and regulations at the federal and state levels. Although many regulatory and governmental requirements do not directly apply to our business, our clients are required to comply with a variety of U.S. laws, and we may be affected by these laws as a result of our contractual obligations. We have attempted to structure our operations to comply with laws, regulations and other requirements applicable to us directly and to our clients, members, fertility specialists and specialty pharmacies, but there can be no assurance that our operations will not be challenged or impacted by enforcement initiatives.
Healthcare Reform
It is uncertain how our operations will be affected by the changing political, legislative, and regulatory landscapes, as well as other influences impacting the healthcare industry. While the most salient vehicle for healthcare reform, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, as amended by the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act, or collectively the ACA, does not directly regulate our business, it does affect the coverage and plan designs that are or will be provided by certain insurance carriers and certain of our clients, as well as the overall reimbursement environment for healthcare providers. Since its enactment in 2010, there have been judicial, executive and Congressional challenges to certain aspects of the ACA, and in June 2021, the U.S. Supreme Court dismissed the most recent judicial challenge to the ACA brought by several states without specifically ruling on the constitutionality of the ACA.
Other health reform efforts have been proposed by members of Congress, such as measures that would expand the role of government-sponsored coverage, including further reform to the ACA, which could have far-reaching implications for the healthcare industry if enacted. On January 28, 2021, President Joe Biden issued an Executive Order directing federal agencies to examine all existing regulations, orders, guidance documents, policies and similar agency actions to determine if any such actions are inconsistent with the policy set forth in the Executive Order to protect and strengthen the ACA and make high-quality healthcare accessible and affordable for every American. Most recently, on August 16, 2022, President Joe Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, or IRA, into law. The health reform measures included in
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the IRA largely focus on pharmaceutical manufacturers, but are likely to impact the reimbursement and drug pricing environment for healthcare providers and insurers more broadly, in ways that cannot yet be fully determined. As another example of recent healthcare legislative changes, the Consolidated Appropriations Act, or CAA, effective as of December 27, 2021, contains provisions impacting group health plans, including protections for plan participants from surprise medical bills and ensuring health plan price transparency.
The CAA prohibits plans from entering into services agreements that directly or indirectly restrict the plans from disclosing provider-specific costs and quality of care information. It also requires disclosure by health insurance brokers and consultants to plan sponsors regarding reasonably expected direct and indirect compensation for referral of services to group health plans. Additionally, the CAA requires plans to submit reports to the Department of Labor, or DOL, or HHS and the Internal Revenue Services, or the IRS, with certain information on pharmacy benefits and drug costs for participants and beneficiaries and the application of in-network rates to out of network services. The CAA also requires certain service providers for health plans to comply with certain ERISA fee disclosure rules. In addition, effective January 1, 2022, the No Surprises Act (enacted as part of the CAA) provides protection against surprise medical bills by prohibiting plans and providers from balance billing patients for emergency care performed by out-of-network providers as well as non-emergency and ancillary services performed by out-of-network providers at in-network facilities, subject to certain notice and consent exceptions for non-emergency and ancillary services. The new law also grants additional patient protections, including requiring providers to send a good faith estimate of the expected charges for furnishing items or services to an insured patient’s health plan (or directly to an uninsured patient) before such items or services are delivered (including items or services reasonably expected to be provided in conjunction with scheduled items or services or that are reasonably expected to be delivered by another provider). The No Surprises Act also provides a dispute resolution process in the event the actual charges for such items and services are substantially higher than the plan’s estimate, and will prohibit providers from charging patients an amount beyond the in-network cost sharing amount for services rendered by out-of-network providers, subject to certain exceptions. Several states have also enacted comprehensive balance billing or surprise billing laws and the CAA defers to existing state requirements with respect to state-established payment amounts. Such state laws vary in their approach, resulting in different impacts on the healthcare system as a whole.
We are unable to predict how other healthcare reform initiatives from new legislation, regulation, judicial action and/or executive action, including the CAA and No Surprises Act and state laws, will ultimately impact the healthcare industry and what the potential impact may be on our business and on our relationships with current and future clients, insurance carriers, and healthcare providers.
Licensing and Other Legal Requirements
Many states have licensure or registration requirements for entities providing third-party administrator, or TPA, or pharmacy benefit management, or PBM, services. Given the nature and scope of the solutions and services that we provide, we are required to maintain TPA and/or PBM licenses and registrations in certain jurisdictions and to ensure that such licenses and registrations are in good standing on an annual basis. These licenses require us to comply with the rules and regulations of the governmental bodies that issued such licenses, including maintaining certain solvency or bond requirements. Our failure to comply with such rules and regulations could result in administrative penalties, the suspension of a license, or the loss of a license, all of which could negatively impact our business.
Separately, states impose licensing requirements on insurers, risk-bearing entities, and insurance agents, as well as those entities that provide utilization review services. We do not believe that our services require us to be licensed under these state laws. We are unable to predict, however, how our services may be viewed by regulators over time, how these laws and regulations will be interpreted, or the full extent of their application. If a regulatory authority in any state determines that the nature of our business requires that we be licensed under such state laws, we may need to restructure our business to comply with any related requirements.
Fraud and Abuse Laws. Many of our clients, insurance carriers, and network healthcare providers are impacted directly and indirectly by certain fraud and abuse laws, including the federal anti-kickback and false claims laws. Because the solutions we provide are not reimbursed by government healthcare payors, such fraud and abuse laws generally do not directly apply to our business. However, many states have similar laws and regulations that may differ from each other and federal law in significant ways, thus complicating compliance efforts. For example, certain states have anti-kickback and false claims laws that may be broader in scope than analogous federal laws and may apply regardless of payor.
ERISA. The Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, or ERISA, regulates certain aspects of employee health benefits plans, which includes both insured and self-funded health plans sponsored by our clients, with which we have agreements to provide TPA services. Although health plans and their fiduciaries are subject to the fiduciary obligations of ERISA, we believe that we are not fiduciaries in the conduct of our business vis-a-vis these plans. However,
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there can be no assurance the DOL, which is the agency that enforces ERISA, would not in the future assert that the fiduciary obligations imposed by ERISA apply to certain aspects of our operations or courts would not reach such a ruling in private ERISA litigation.
ERISA also imposes civil and criminal liability on service providers and certain other persons with relationships to health plans subject to ERISA if certain forms of illegal or prohibited remuneration are made or received by such service providers or other persons. These provisions of ERISA are similar, but not identical, to the healthcare anti-kickback laws described above, although ERISA lacks the statutory and regulatory “safe harbor” exceptions incorporated into the healthcare anti-kickback laws. Like the healthcare anti-kickback laws, the corresponding provisions of ERISA are broadly written and their application to particular cases can be uncertain.
Employee benefits plans subject to ERISA are subject to certain rules, published by the DOL, including certain reporting requirements for direct and indirect compensation received by plan service providers. Finally, although ERISA has broad preemptive effect with respect to certain state laws that “relate” to benefit plans, it does not preempt state laws imposing transparency requirements on PBMs.
Prompt Pay Laws. Certain states have laws regulating the amount of time that may elapse from when a third-party payor receives a claim for services rendered to when those services are paid. Many of these state laws do not apply to our business as these laws are preempted by ERISA or otherwise exempt entities like us that provide TPA-only services.
Network Adequacy and Access. Certain states and government programs have laws regulating healthcare provider networks in order to ensure adequacy and access for beneficiaries and providers. These laws may affect us and our payor clients in network design and management. If we do not comply, we could face enforcement action or other penalties.
Requirements Regarding the Privacy and Security of Personal Information
Numerousstate, federal and foreign laws, regulations and standards govern the collection, use, access to, confidentiality and security of health-related and other personal information, and could apply now or in the future to our operations or the operations of our partners. In the United States, numerous federal and state laws and regulations, including data breach notification laws, health information privacy and security laws and consumer protection laws and regulations govern the collection, use, disclosure, and protection of health-related and other personal information. In addition, certain foreign laws govern the privacy and security of personal data, including health-related data. Privacy and security laws, regulations, and other obligations are constantly evolving, may conflict with each other to complicate compliance efforts, and can result in investigations, proceedings, or actions that lead to significant civil and/or criminal penalties and restrictions on data processing.
Cybersecurity
In the normal course of business, we may collect and store personal information and other sensitive information, including proprietary and confidential business information, trade secrets, intellectual property, information regarding trial participants in connection with clinical trials, sensitive third-party information and employee information. To protect this information, our existing cybersecurity policies require monitoring and detection programs, network security measures, encryption of critical data, and security assessment of vendors. We maintain various protections designed to safeguard against cyberattacks, including firewalls and virus detection software. We have established and test our disaster recovery plan and we protect against business interruption by backing up our major systems. In addition, we periodically scan our environment for any vulnerabilities, perform penetration testing and engage third parties to assess effectiveness of our data security practices. A third party security consultant conducts regular network security reviews, scans and audits. In addition, we maintain insurance that includes cybersecurity coverage.
Our cybersecurity program is led by our chief information security officer and a team of highly skilled cybersecurity professionals. The program incorporates industry-standard frameworks, policies and practices designed to protect the privacy and security of our sensitive information. As needed, our cybersecurity team reports to the Audit Committee of our Board of Directors on information security and cybersecurity matters. The Audit Committee has oversight responsibility for our information security policies and practices.
Despite the implementation of our cybersecurity program, our security measures cannot guarantee that a significant cyberattack will not occur. A successful attack on our information technology systems could have significant consequences to the business. While we devote resources to our security measures to protect our systems and information, these measures cannot provide absolute security. See “Risk Factors – Risks Related to Our Business and Industry” for
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additional information about the risks to our business associated with a breach or compromise to our information technology systems.
Intellectual Property
We rely on trademarks, copyrights, trade secrets, intellectual property assignment agreements, confidentiality procedures, non-disclosure agreements, and employee non-disclosure and invention assignment agreements to establish and protect our proprietary rights. Though we rely in part upon these legal and contractual protections, we believe that factors such as our relationships with providers and clients, unique benefits model, ability to track outcomes and creation of resources for all constituents, along with the skills and ingenuity of our employees, are larger contributors to our success our company. Other than the trademark Progyny (and design), Smart Cycle and UnPack It, which are not subject to any known rights of others, including any impairments, assignments or pledges, we do not believe our business is dependent to a material degree on trademarks, patents, copyrights or trade secrets.
Seasonality
Our business experiences moderate seasonality in revenue with a slightly higher proportion of revenue during the second half of the year as compared with the first half. Given that the majority of our clients contract with us for a January 1st benefits plan start date and that the average cost of treatments earlier in the overall treatment process is somewhat lower than the average cost as treatment progresses, our revenue from treatment services tend to grow as the year continues, particularly for new clients. In addition, as with most medical benefits plans, members will typically seek to maximize the use of their benefits once they have reached their annual deductible and/or annual out-of-pocket maximums, thereby increasing treatments in the latter part of the year. For additional information, see Part I, Item 1A. “Risk Factors—Risks Related to Our Business and Industry—Our business experiences seasonality, which may cause fluctuations in our sales and results of operations” of this Annual Report on Form 10-K.
Employees and Human Capital
As of December 31, 2022, we had 400 employees, of which 393 were full-time. Ouremployees are our most important asset and our culture is a key to our success.
We are united around our mission and committed to our shared values of Passion, Collaboration, Innovation, Integrity and Growth. Our people strategy is focused on employee culture and engagement, competitive compensation and development, diversity, equity and inclusion, and community outreach and support.
•Culture and Engagement. Our benefits are designed to help employees and their families stay healthy, meet their financial goals, protect their income and help them balance their work and personal lives. These benefits include access to mental health services, life and financial planning workshops, wellness initiatives, employee assistance programs, and new parent and return to work benefits, in addition to the same type of benefits we offer our clients. We also measure employee engagement on an ongoing basis, including through broad employee satisfaction surveys and pulse surveys on specific issues, intended to assess our success in promoting an environment where employees are engaged, satisfied, productive and possess a strong understanding of our business goals. The results from engagement surveys are used to implement programs and processes designed to enhance employee engagement and improve the employee experience or modify existing programs and benefits offerings.
•Competitive Compensation and Development. We invest in our workforce by offering competitive salaries, attractive incentives and innovative benefits. We focus on creating opportunities for employee growth, development and training, including opportunities to cultivate talent and identify candidates for new roles from within the Company, management and leadership development programs, technical skill building initiatives and mentoring programs. We include the Progyny benefit in our own health plan, allowing Progyny employees to realize their dreams of parenthood. We offer paid parental leave for new parents and offer a pregnancy loss leave benefit as an enhancement to our bereavement leave policy, explicitly recognizing the physical, emotional, and mental health impact of a pregnancy loss, or failed adoption or surrogacy, for any employee. We also offer additional paid leave to all employees to support other family health and care challenges. Additionally, we expanded our mental health resources to further support our employees.
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•Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. We believe diversity, equity and inclusion results in business growth and encourages increased innovation, retention of talent and a more engaged workforce. We strive to create a workplace where all individuals feel valued, empowered and welcomed. Our key initiatives focus on recruiting outreach, internal resource groups representing employees and allies from historically underrepresented and/or marginalized communities, mentoring programs and career development ladders. We are in the process of updating our corporate sustainability report on our website, which highlights our approach to diversity and inclusion, and we also publish EEO-1 reports on our website. Our employees participate in pulse surveys that have deepened our perception of the workforce. We staffed a Vice President whose responsibility is to develop, enhance, and communicate our DEI Initiatives throughout the organization. For example, we highlight aspects of DEI, such as key events, celebrations, memorials and holidays, through recurring company wide communications. Nothing on our website shall be deemed incorporated by reference into this Annual Report on Form 10-K.
•Community Outreach and Support. We believe it is important to give back and promote community outreach and support through corporate giving, charitable matching, and employee volunteerism in the communities in which we live and work. We allow flexible work hours to accommodate employee volunteer opportunities, provide corporate sponsored charitable events and have designed initiatives in the fertility and maternal health space to include corporate matching of employee charitable donations.
Our Corporate Information
We were incorporated in Delaware in 2008 under the name Auxogen Bioscience, Inc. In 2010, we changed our name to Auxogen, Inc. and in 2015 we changed our name to Progyny, Inc. Our principal executive offices are located at 1359 Broadway, New York, New York 10018, and our telephone number is (212) 888-3124. Our website address is www.progyny.com and we also maintain a mobile application for our members. Information contained on, or that can be accessed through, our website and mobile application is not incorporated by reference into this Annual Report on Form 10-K, and should not consider information on our website and mobile application to be part of this Annual Report on Form 10-K.
Available Information
We file electronically with the SEC, our annual reports on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, current reports on Form 8-K (including amendments to those reports), proxy statements, and other information. Our SEC filings are available to the public over the Internet at the SEC’s website at http://www.sec.gov. We make available on our website at investors.progyny.com, under “Financials—SEC Filings,” free of charge, copies of these reports as soon as reasonably practicable after filing or furnishing these reports with the SEC. The information contained on the websites referenced in this Annual Report on Form 10-K is not incorporated by reference into this Annual Report on Form 10-K. Further, our references to website URLs are intended to be inactive textual references only.
We announce material information to the public through filings with the SEC, our investor relations website at investors.progyny.com, press releases, public conference calls, and webcasts to achieve broad, non-exclusionary distribution of information. We therefore encourage investors and others interested in Progyny to review the information disclosed through such channels. Any updates to the list of disclosure channels through which we will announce information will be posted on the investor relations page on our website.
ITEM 1A. RISK FACTORS
Investing in our common stock involves a high degree of risk. You should carefully consider all of the information contained in this Annual Report on Form 10-K, including the sections titled “Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements,” and Part II, Item 7 “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operation” and our consolidated financial statements and the accompanying notes included elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K. The risks described below are not the only ones we face. Any of the following risks could materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations, the actual outcome of matters as to which forward-looking statements are made in this Annual Report on Form 10-K and could cause the trading price of our common stock to decline, which would cause you to lose all or part of your investment. Our business, financial condition and results of operations could also be harmed by risks and uncertainties not currently known to us or that we currently do not believe are material.
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Risks Related to Our Business and Industry
We may fail to meet our publicly announced guidance or other expectations about our business and future results of operations, which would cause our stock price to decline.
We have provided and may continue to provide guidance about our business and future results of operations. On February 27, 2023, we issued guidance for the first quarter of 2023 and full year 2023. This guidance, which consists of forward-looking statements, is qualified by, and subject to, such assumptions, estimates and expectations as of the date such guidance is given and may be revised at a later time, solely in our discretion, as we learn more information. Such forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other important factors that may cause our actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance, or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. In developing this guidance, our management must make certain assumptions and judgments, including but not limited to, our business strategy, plans, goals, expectations concerning our market position, future operations and other financial and operating information, as well as the impact of events outside of our control (such as the COVID-19 pandemic or shortages of fertility medications) that are or were at this time inherently difficult to predict. While the guidance may be presented with numerical specificity, it is necessarily speculative in nature. Accordingly, our guidance is only an estimate of what management believes is realizable as of the date of release of such guidance. Furthermore, analysts and investors may develop and publish their own projections of our business, which may form a consensus about our future performance. Our actual business results may vary significantly from such guidance or that consensus due to a number of factors, many of which are outside of our control, and which could adversely affect our business and future results of operations. Furthermore, if we make downward revisions of our previously announced guidance, or if our publicly announced guidance of our future results of operations fails to meet expectations of securities analysts, investors or other interested parties, the price of our common stock would decline.
The COVID-19 pandemic, including variants and resurgences, has had and is expected to continue to have, and similar health epidemics or pandemics could in the future have, an adverse impact on our business, operations, and the markets and communities in which we and our clients, members and providers operate.
The COVID-19 pandemic continues to evolve, with pockets of resurgence and the emergence of variant strains contributing to continued uncertainty about its scope, duration, severity, trajectory and lasting impact. The pandemic has adversely impacted, and may continue to adversely impact, many aspects of our business. Our revenue growth for the twelve months ended December 31, 2022 and 2021 was negatively impacted by COVID-19, including variants, and our revenue growth in future periods may continue to be adversely impacted by COVID-19. Our providers have delayed and may in the future delay new fertility cycles because they operate in areas acutely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Many of our members live in communities that have been acutely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and have delayed and may not want to continue or begin new fertility cycles during the pandemic, including due to resurgences in and the emergence of variant strains. Emerging research and the limited consumer information on the impact of COVID-19 vaccines on pregnancy may also affect member behavior and utilization. Furthermore, as certain of our potential clients experience downturns or uncertainty in their own business operations and revenue because of the economic effects resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, they have and may continue to decrease their spending on health benefits, which may disproportionately impact fertility benefits, and delay or cancel implementation of fertility benefits. Each of these factors could affect member behavior, our utilization rates and the number of members enrolled in our clients’ benefit plans.
In addition to the direct and indirect impacts to our business, the economy may continue to be impacted as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, including any resurgences in infections, and actions taken in response to it. To the extent a weakened economy impacts clients’ or members’ ability or willingness to pay for our benefit, or our vendors’, including any pharmacy program partners’, ability to provide services to us, we could see our business and results of operations negatively impacted.
Our corporate offices are open to employees on a hybrid basis, while implementing additional health and safety measures and protocols in response to the pandemic. We may take further actions that alter our operations as may be required by federal, state, or local authorities, or which we determine are in the best interests of our business, our employees and the communities we serve. Working remotely could increase our cybersecurity risk and make us more susceptible to communication disruptions, which could adversely impact our business operations or delay necessary interactions with our clients, members, providers and other third parties. Furthermore, we may decide to postpone or cancel planned investments in our business in response to changes in our business as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, which may impact our member utilization and rate of growth, either of which could seriously harm our business.
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In addition, the pandemic has resulted in, and may continue to result in, significant disruption of global financial markets, which could reduce our ability to access capital and could negatively affect our liquidity in the future. Moreover, to the extent the COVID-19 pandemic adversely affects our business, financial condition and results of operations, it may also have the effect of heightening many of the other risks described in this “Risk Factors” section, including but not limited to, those related to our ability to expand our customer base and develop and expand our sales and marketing capabilities.
The global impact of COVID-19, due to variants and resurgences of infections, continues to rapidly evolve, and we will continue to monitor the situation closely. We do not yet know the full extent of potential delays or impacts on our business, operations, or the global economy as a whole. The ultimate impact of the COVID-19 pandemic or a similar health epidemic or pandemic is highly uncertain and subject to change; and will depend on numerous evolving factors that we may not be able to accurately predict, including without limitation: the trajectory, duration, scope, severity, and any resurgences of the COVID-19 pandemic; any mandates, in particular as new variants emerge; the public’s perception of the safety of the vaccines and other treatments and their willingness to take the vaccines or other treatments; the existence and prevalence of new variants of the virus; the continued impact on worldwide macroeconomic conditions, including interest rates, employment rates and consumer confidence; governmental, business, and individuals' actions that have been, and continue to be, taken in response to the pandemic; the effect on our providers, clients and members; changes in demand for our services; our ability to sell and provide our services; the ability of our clients and members to pay for our services; the health of, and the effect on, our workforce; and the potential effects on our internal controls, including our internal control over financial reporting, as a result of changes in working environments for our employees and business partners. While the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic may eventually be contained or mitigated, there is no guarantee that any future resurgences or future outbreaks of this or any other widespread epidemics or pandemics will not occur, or that the global economy will recover, either of which could seriously harm our business.
The fertility market in which we participate is competitive, and if we do not continue to compete effectively, our results of operations could be harmed.
The market for our solutions is competitive and is likely to attract increased competition, which could make it hard for us to succeed. We compete on the basis of several factors, including the comprehensiveness of our benefits solutions and the Smart Cycle (our unique approach to benefits plan design which ensures that members always have coverage for a full treatment cycle as their access to treatment is not limited by a dollar maximum that could be exhausted mid-treatment), superior clinical outcomes, access for all employee groups (including LGBTQ+ and single mothers by choice), equitable access to care across geographies, quality of the member experience and comprehensive member support, access to our selective Center of Excellence (our proprietary, credentialed network of high-quality fertility specialists), data reporting and sharing and access to an integrated pharmacy solution. While we do not believe any single competitor offers a similarly robust and integrated fertility and family building benefits solution as to what we provide, there are alternative solutions in the market such as the health insurance companies who are able to provide fertility benefits management services as part of their overall administration of a company's health plan and who are our primary competition. In addition, other competitors include specialty fertility-focused solutions owned or sponsored by the health insurance companies to provide more comprehensive support to fertility patients than their general medical coverage provides, such as case management or educational support, and the venture capital or private equity-backed companies who focus on maternity and reproductive health services more broadly, or who provide fertility-specific benefits solutions.
As we market our solutions to potential clients that currently utilize other vendors to manage their employees’ fertility benefits, we may fail to convince their internal stakeholders that our offerings and our model are superior to their current solutions. Some of our competitors are more established, benefit from greater brand recognition and have substantially greater financial, technical and marketing resources. Our competitors may seek to develop or integrate solutions and services that may become more efficient or appealing to our existing and potential clients. For example, fertility-focused pharmacy benefits managers, or PBMs, could emerge that would compete with Progyny Rx. In addition, we believe one of our key competitive advantages is our purpose-built, data-driven platform. While we do not believe any competitors have developed a similarly robust data collection, analysis and reporting process at this time, current or future competitors may be successful in doing so in the future.
In addition, as the fertility benefits field gains more attention, more competitors may be drawn into the market. We also could be adversely affected if we fail to identify or effectively respond to changes in market dynamics. As a result of any of these factors, we may not be able to continue to compete successfully against our current or future competitors, and this competition could result in the failure of our platform to continue to maintain market acceptance, which would harm our business, financial condition and results of operations.
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Many healthcare industry participants are consolidating to create larger and more integrated healthcare delivery systems with greater market power and we expect regulatory and economic conditions to result in additional consolidation in the healthcare industry. Additionally, financial investors are acquiring fertility practices and this may accelerate consolidation within the industry. Although comprehensive, our solution is a standalone fertility benefit. Clients may prefer a single healthcare solution, which could adversely affect our ability to retain existing clients or grow our client base. In addition, we work with partner organizations to market our benefit to potential clients. As consolidation accelerates, the economies of scale of our partners’ organizations may grow. If a partner experiences sizable growth following consolidation, it may determine that it no longer needs to rely on us and may reduce its demand for our services. Furthermore, as healthcare providers consolidate to create larger and more integrated healthcare delivery systems with greater market power, these providers may try to use their market power to negotiate fee increases for their services. Finally, consolidation may also result in the acquisition of our partners by competitors or development by our partners of products and services that compete with our products and services. Any of these potential results of consolidation could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.
Unfavorable conditions in the global economy or our industry could limit our ability to grow our business and negatively affect our results of operations.
Market volatility and uncertainty related to general economic conditions remain widespread, making it very difficult for our clients and us to accurately forecast and plan future business activities. Negative conditions in the general economy in the United States, including conditions resulting from changes in gross domestic product growth, financial and credit market fluctuations, inflation, consumer confidence, international trade relations, political turmoil, natural catastrophes, resurgences or outbreaks of contagious diseases or the worsening thereof, including the COVID-19 pandemic, warfare and terrorist attacks on the United States, could cause a decrease in business investments, including spending on employee benefits, and negatively affect the growth of our business. Economic conditions including inflation, interest rate fluctuations, changes in capital market conditions and regulatory changes, such as the taxability of medical benefits like ours, may affect our ability to obtain necessary financing on acceptable terms.
Unfavorable changes in our industry, including reductions in general healthcare spending, or in the United States economy could have a negative effect on our and our clients’ and potential clients’ results of operations. This could result in the delay or cancellation by certain clients, including if purchases of our solution are perceived by clients and potential clients to be discretionary, if they experience a reduction in their employee headcounts, whether due to reductions in force or turnover, or are unable to grow employee headcounts or there are material defaults by members on past amounts due. An increase in the cost of obtaining fertility medication or general medical cost inflation could also negatively impact our results of operation. In addition, the increased pace of consolidation in the healthcare industry may result in competitors with greater market power. We cannot predict the timing, strength, or duration of any economic slowdown, instability, or recovery, generally or within any particular industry, nor its impact on us or our clients.
Our business depends on our ability to retain our existing clients and increase the adoption of our services within our client base. Any failure to do so would harm our business, financial condition and results of operations.
As part of our growth strategy, we are focused on retaining and expanding our services within our existing client base. A client can expand the fertility benefits they offer to their employees a number of ways, including by adding egg freezing or increasing the number of Smart Cycle units under their benefits plan (i.e., from two to three Smart Cycles per household). In addition, our fertility benefits solution clients can purchase our add-on Progyny Rx solution. We went live with Progyny Rx in 2018 and 90% of our current clients under contract have now launched this solution, including approximately 97% of the clients we signed in 2022.
Factors that may affect our ability to retain our existing clients and sell additional solutions to them include, but are not limited to, the following:
•the price, timeliness and outcomes of our solutions;
•the availability, price, timeliness, outcome, performance and functionality of competing solutions;
•our ability to maintain and appropriately expand our Center of Excellence network of high-quality fertility specialists;
•our ability to offer complementary solutions and services that will enhance our comprehensive family building offering;
•changes in healthcare laws, regulations or the enforcement of such laws and regulations, or trends;
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•any material increase in unemployment rate;
•global economic conditions and the business environment of our clients and, in particular, slowing growth or reduction in our clients’ headcount; and
•consolidation of our clients, resulting in a change to their benefits program or a shift to one of our competitors.
Any of the above factors, alone or together, could negatively affect our ability to retain existing clients and sell additional solutions to them, which would have an adverse effect on our business, revenue growth and results of operations.
Our largest clients account for a significant portion of our revenue and a significant number of our clients are in the technology industry. The loss of one or more of these clients, changes to pricing terms with these clients or changes within the technology industry could negatively impact our business, financial condition and results of operations.
We currently serve over 370 employers with at least 1,000 covered lives in the United States across more than 40 industries. For the year ended December 31, 2022, two of our clients accounted for 16% and 10%, or a combined 26%, of our total revenue. For the year ended December 31, 2021, two clients accounted for 19% and 15%, or a combined 34%, of our total revenue. No other clients accounted for more than 10% of our total revenue for the years ended December 31, 2022 and 2021. Engagement with these clients is generally covered through contracts that are multi-year in duration. One or both of these clients may terminate early or decline to renew their existing contracts with us upon expiration and any such termination or failure to renew could have a negative impact on our revenue and compromise our growth strategy. Our clients could also renegotiate pricing terms at the time of renewal, which could have a negative impact on our revenue. In addition, we generate a significant portion of our revenue from clients in the technology industry. Any of a variety of changes in that industry, including reductions in workforce or heightened employee attrition, changes in economic conditions, mergers or consolidations, reduced spending on benefits programs and other factors, could adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.
If we are unable to attract new clients, our business, financial condition and results of operations would be adversely affected.
To increase our revenue, we must continue to attract new clients. Our ability to do so depends in large part on the success of our sales and marketing efforts, and the success of attracting industry leaders in diversified sectors, which could prompt others in the same sectors to follow suit to remain competitive. Potential clients may seek out other options; therefore, we must demonstrate that our solutions are valuable and superior to alternatives. If we fail to provide high-quality solutions and convince clients of the benefits of our model and value proposition, we may not be able to attract new clients. The market for our solutions could decline or grow more slowly than we expect, including due to general economic conditions, and high unemployment rates, reductions in workforce or employee attrition, impacts related to outbreaks and resurgences of contagious diseases or worsening thereof, including the COVID-19 pandemic, a decrease in business investments, including spending on employee benefits, and other factors. If the markets for our solutions decline or grow more slowly than we expect, or if the number of clients that contract with us for our solutions declines or fails to increase as we expect, our financial results could be harmed. As the markets in which we participate mature, fertility solutions and services evolve and competitors begin to enter into the market and introduce differentiated solutions or services that are perceived to compete with our solutions, particularly if such competing solutions are adopted by an industry leader in a particular sector, our ability to sell our solutions could be impaired. As a result of these and other factors, we may be unable to attract new clients, which would have an adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.
A significant change in the level or the mix of the utilization of our solutions could have an adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.
We do not control nor can we impact the level of utilization of our solutions or the mix of utilization of our solutions for each of our clients, in particular for newer clients. A significant reduction in the number of members using our solutions could adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations. Factors that have and could continue to contribute to a reduction in the use of our solutions include: reductions in workforce by existing clients; general economic downturn that results in business failures and high unemployment rates; impacts related to outbreaks and resurgence of contagious diseases and or the worsening thereof, including the COVID-19 pandemic; employers no longer offering comprehensive health coverage or offering alternative solutions such as coverage on a voluntary, employee-funded basis; labor shortages at our clinics; federal and state legal and/or regulatory changes; changes to taxability of medical benefits; failure to adapt and respond effectively to the changing medical landscape, changing laws, regulations and government enforcement priorities, changing client needs, requirements or preferences; premium increases and benefits changes; negative publicity, through social media or otherwise and news coverage.
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It is also difficult for us to predict the level or mix of utilization of our services at the member level nor do we have any control over the level or mix of utilization of our services. If the actual utilization of our services by members is significantly greater than budgeted, the client may be responsible for corresponding costs that exceed its planned expenditure. If we cannot help our clients accurately predict the level of utilization by their employees, our clients may turn to alternative solutions, and our business and profitability would be adversely impacted.
We have a limited operating history with our current platform of solutions, which makes it difficult to predict our future results of operations.
We went live with our fertility benefits solution in 2016 and Progyny Rx in 2018. As a result of our limited operating history with the current platform of solutions, as well as a limited amount of time serving a majority of our client base, our ability to accurately forecast our future results of operations is limited and subject to a number of uncertainties, including our ability to plan for and model future growth. Our historical revenue growth should not be considered indicative of our future performance. Further, in future periods, our revenue growth could slow or decline for a number of reasons, including slowing demand for our solutions and fertility benefits in general, change in utilization trends by our members, general economic slowdown, an increase in unemployment, an increase in competition, changes to healthcare trends and regulations, changes to science relating to the fertility market, a decrease in the growth of the fertility market, or our failure, for any reason, to continue to take advantage of growth opportunities. If our assumptions regarding these risks and uncertainties and our future revenue growth are incorrect or change, or if we do not address these risks successfully, our operating and financial results could differ materially from our expectations, and our business could suffer.
We have a history of operating losses and may not sustain profitability in the future.
We experienced net losses from 2015 to 2019. For example, our net loss was $8.6 million for the year ended December 31, 2019. While we have experienced significant revenue growth since 2016, achieved profitability starting in 2020 and currently project future profitability, we cannot guarantee whether we will obtain sufficient levels of sales to sustain our growth or maintain profitability in the future. We also expect our costs and expenses to increase in future periods, which could negatively affect our future results of operations if our revenue does not increase. In particular, we intend to continue to incrementally expand our sales and client account management teams to educate potential clients and drive new client adoption, as well as enhance the scope of Progyny benefits within our existing client base. We also expect to incur additional costs as we introduce new solutions and services to enhance our comprehensive family building offering. We will also face increased compliance costs associated with our growth, and the expansion of our client base. In addition, we incur significant legal, accounting and other expenses related to being a public company. Our efforts to grow our business may be costlier than we expect, and we may not be able to increase our revenue enough to offset our increased operating expenses. We may incur significant losses in the future for a number of reasons, including the other risks described herein, and unforeseen expenses, difficulties, complications and delays, and other unknown events. If we are unable to sustain profitability, the value of our business and common stock may significantly decrease.
Changes or developments in the health insurance markets in the United States, including passage and implementation of a law to create a single-payer or government-run health insurance program, could adversely harm our business and results of operations.
Our business operates within the public and private sectors of the U.S. health insurance system, which are evolving quickly and subject to a changing regulatory environment, and our future financial performance will depend in part on growth in the market for private health insurance, as our solutions are integrated with health insurance plans offered by insurance carriers for our clients or our clients’ self-insured plans, as well as our ability to adapt to regulatory developments. Changes and developments in the health insurance system in the United States could reduce demand for our services and harm our business. For example, there has been an ongoing national debate relating to the health insurance system in the United States. Certain elected officials have introduced proposals that would create a new single-payer national health insurance program for all United States residents, replacing virtually all other sources of public and private insurance, to more incremental approaches, or creating a new public health insurance option that would compete with private insurers. Additionally, proposals to establish a single-payer or government-run healthcare system at the state level are regularly introduced, such as in New York and California. At the federal level, President Biden and Congress may consider other legislation and/or executive orders to change elements of the ACA. In June 2021, the U.S. Supreme Court dismissed the most recent judicial challenge to the ACA brought by several states and ruled that the plaintiffs lacked standing to challenge the individual mandate provision, thus leaving the ACA in effect without ruling on the constitutionality of the individual mandate.
On January 28, 2021, President Biden issued an Executive Order that iterates the policy of the Administration to protect and strengthen the ACA, making high-quality healthcare accessible and affordable to all Americans. The Executive
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Order directed federal agencies to examine agency actions to determine whether they are consistent with the Administration’s commitment regarding the ACA, and begin rulemaking to suspend, revise, or rescind any inconsistent actions. Areas of focus include policies or practices that may reduce affordability of coverage, present unnecessary barriers to coverage, or undermine protections for people with preexisting conditions. We continue to evaluate the effect that the ACA and its possible modifications, repeal and replacement has on our business. We cannot predict the timing or impact of any future rulemaking, court decisions or other changes in the law.
In the event that laws, regulations or rules that eliminate or reduce private sources of health insurance or require such benefits to be taxable are adopted, the subsequent impact on the insurance carriers and/or self-insured plans may in turn adversely impact our ability to accurately forecast future results and harm our business, financial condition and results of operations.
The health benefits industry may be subject to negative publicity, which could adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.
The health benefits industry may be subject to negative publicity, which can arise from, among other things, increases in premium rates, industry consolidation, cost of care initiatives, drug prices and the ongoing debate over the ACA. In addition, negative publicity may result in increased regulation and legislative review of industry practices, which may further increase our costs of doing business and adversely affect our profitability. For example, PBM programs and drug rebates have been criticized as leading to a lack of transparency about the true cost of a drug, and certain members of Congress as well as HHS’s Office of Inspector General, or OIG, have proposed regulatory changes that could potentially affect our business and operations. Negative public perception or publicity of the health benefits industry in general, the insurance carriers with whom we integrate our solutions, our self-insured employer clients, or us could adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.
If our information technology systems, or those of our provider clinics, specialty pharmacies or other vendors lag, fail or suffer security breaches, we may incur a material disruption of our services or suffer a loss or inappropriate disclosure of confidential information, which could materially impact our business and the results of operations.
Our business is increasingly dependent on critical, complex and interdependent information technology systems, including cloud-based systems, to support business processes as well as internal and external communications. Our success therefore is dependent in part on our ability to secure, integrate, develop, redesign and enhance our (or contract with vendors to provide) information technology systems that support our business strategy initiatives and processes in a compliant, secure, and cost and resource efficient manner. If we or our provider clinics, specialty pharmacies or other vendors have an issue with our or their respective information technology systems, it may result in a disruption to our operations or downstream disruption to our relationships with our clients or our selective network of high-quality fertility specialists. Additionally, if we choose to in source any of the services currently handled by a third party, it may result in technological or operational disruptions.
In the current environment, there are numerous and evolving risks to cybersecurity and privacy, including criminal hackers, hacktivists, state-sponsored intrusions, industrial espionage, employee malfeasance and human or technological error. High-profile security breaches at other companies and in government agencies have increased in recent years. There is the possibility of targeted cyberattacks by foreign countries or entities that could impact United States government and private companies’ technological infrastructures, some of which we utilize to provide our services. The healthcare industry has seen a shift to an accelerated use of digital and technological platforms, especially due to the COVID-19 pandemic, including its variants. As a result of such shift, there have been and may continue to be more targeted cybersecurity attacks and threats on us, our vendors, provider clinics and specialty pharmacies. Despite the implementation of security measures, including steps designed to secure our technology infrastructure and sensitive data, we can provide no assurance that our current information technology system or any updates or upgrades thereto, the current or future information technology systems of our provider clinics, specialty pharmacies or other vendors, are fully protected against malicious intrusion, malware, computer viruses, unauthorized access, natural disasters, terrorism, war, telecommunication and electrical failures, information or data theft or other similar risks. Furthermore, because the techniques used to obtain unauthorized access to, or to sabotage, systems change frequently and often are not recognized until launched against a target, we may be unable to anticipate these techniques or implement adequate preventative measures. We may also experience security breaches that may remain undetected for an extended period. Even if identified, we may be unable to adequately investigate or remediate incidents or breaches due to attackers increasingly using tools and techniques that are designed to circumvent controls, to avoid detection, and to remove or obfuscate forensic evidence.
We have experienced in the past and expect to continue to experience actual and attempted cyber-attacks of our information technology systems, such as through email phishing scams, spoofing attempts and malicious attachments.
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Although none of these actual or attempted cyber-attacks has had a material adverse impact on our operations or financial condition, we cannot guarantee that such incidents will not have such an impact in the future. In addition, to the extent that any disruption or security breach were to result in a loss or inappropriate disclosure of confidential information, we could incur liability. We have access to sensitive information relating to members, our employees and our business partners in the ordinary course of our business. Any failure or perceived failure by us, or our third-party contractors on our behalf, to comply with local and foreign laws regarding privacy and data security, as well as contractual commitments in this respect, may result in governmental enforcement claims, fines, or litigation, which could have an adverse effect on our reputation and business. If a significant data breach occurred, our reputation could be materially and adversely affected, confidence among our clients and members may be diminished, or we may be subject to legal claims, any of which may contribute to the loss of customers and have a material adverse effect on us. We maintain cyber liability insurance however, this insurance may not be sufficient to cover the financial, legal, business or reputational losses that may result from an interruption or breach of our systems. To the extent such disruptions or uncertainties result in the theft, destruction, loss or misappropriation or release of our confidential data or our intellectual property, our business and results of operations could be materially and adversely affected. See “—Risks Related to Government Regulation—We operate in a highly regulated industry and must comply with a significant number of complex and evolving legal and regulatory requirements—Data Protection and Breaches.”
If we fail to offer high-quality support, our reputation could suffer.
Our clients rely on our client account management personnel and our members rely on our PCAs to resolve issues and realize the full benefits that our solutions and services provide. High-quality support is also important for the renewal and expansion of our services to existing clients. The importance of our support functions will increase as we expand our business and pursue new clients. If we do not help our clients quickly resolve issues and provide effective ongoing support, our ability to maintain and expand our offerings to existing and new clients could suffer, and our reputation with existing or potential clients could suffer. Further, to the extent that we are unsuccessful in hiring, training and retaining adequate PCAs and client account management personnel, our ability to provide adequate and timely support to our members and clients would be negatively impacted, and our members’ and clients’ satisfaction with our solutions and services would be adversely affected.
Our marketing efforts depend significantly on our ability to receive positive references from our existing clients, channel partners and benefit consultants.
Our marketing efforts depend significantly on our ability to call on our current clients, channel partners and benefit consultants to provide positive references to new, potential clients. Given our limited number of long-term clients, the loss or dissatisfaction of any client, channel partnership or benefit consulting relationship could substantially harm our brand and reputation, inhibit the market adoption of our offering and impair our ability to attract new clients and maintain existing clients. Any of these consequences could have an adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.
Failure to effectively develop and expand our marketing and sales capabilities could harm our ability to increase our client base and achieve broader market acceptance of solutions we provide.
Our ability to increase our client base and achieve broader market acceptance of solutions we provide will depend to a significant extent on our ability to expand our marketing and sales capabilities. We plan to continue expanding our direct sales force and to dedicate significant resources to sales and marketing programs, including direct sales, inside sales, targeted direct marketing, advertising, digital marketing, e-newsletter and conference sponsorships. All of these efforts will require us to invest significant financial and other resources. Our business and results of operations could be harmed if our sales and marketing efforts do not generate significant increases in revenue. We may not achieve anticipated revenue growth from expanding our sales and marketing efforts if we are unable to hire, develop, integrate and retain talented and effective sales personnel, if our new and existing sales personnel, on the whole, are unable to achieve desired productivity levels in a reasonable period of time, or if our sales and marketing programs are not effective.
Our future revenue may not grow at the rates they historically have, or at all.
We have experienced significant growth since the launch of our fertility benefits solution in 2016. Revenue and our client base may not grow at the same rates they historically have, or they may decline in the future. Our future growth will depend, in part, on our ability to:
•continue to attract new clients and maintain existing clients;
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•price our solutions and services effectively so that we are able to attract new clients, expand sales to our existing clients and maintain profitability;
•provide our clients and members with client support that meets their needs, including through dedicated PCAs;
•maintain successful collection of member cost shares and other applicable receivable balances directly from members;
•retain and maintain relationships with high-quality and respected fertility specialists;
•attract and retain highly qualified personnel to support all clients and members;
•maintain satisfactory relationships with insurance carriers; and
•increase awareness of our brand and successfully compete with other companies.
We may not successfully accomplish all or any of these objectives, which may affect our future revenue, and which makes it difficult for us to forecast our future results of operations. In addition, if the assumptions that we use to plan our business are incorrect or change in reaction to changes in our market, it may be difficult for us to maintain profitability. You should not rely on our revenue for any prior quarterly or annual periods as any indication of our future revenue or revenue growth.
In addition, we expect to continue to expend substantial financial and other resources on:
•sales and marketing;
•our technology infrastructure, including systems architecture, scalability, availability, performance and security; and
•general administration, including increased legal and accounting expenses associated with being a public company.
These investments may not result in increased revenue growth in our business. If we are unable to increase our revenue at a rate sufficient to offset the expected increase in our costs, our business, financial position, and results of operations will be harmed, and we may not be able to maintain profitability over the long term. Additionally, we may encounter unforeseen operating expenses, difficulties, complications, delays and other unknown factors that may result in losses in future periods.
If our revenue growth does not meet our expectations in future periods, we may not maintain profitability in the future, our business, financial position and results of operations may be harmed.
If the estimates and assumptions we use to determine the size of the target markets for our services are inaccurate, our future growth rate may be impacted and our business would be harmed.
Market opportunity estimates and growth forecasts, including those we have generated ourselves, are subject to significant uncertainty and are based on assumptions and estimates that may not prove to be accurate, including the risks described herein. Even if the markets in which we compete achieve the forecasted growth, our business could fail to grow at similar rates, if at all.
Our estimates of the market opportunity for our services are based on the assumption that the purpose-built, data-driven and disruptive fertility benefits platform with the Smart Cycle plan design we offer will be attractive to employers. Employers may pursue alternatives or may not see the value in providing enhanced fertility-related coverage and services to their employees. In addition, we believe we are helping to expand the size of the fertility market as we enhance demand and increase awareness for fertility benefits. If these assumptions prove inaccurate, or if the increase in awareness of fertility benefits attracts potential competitors to enter the market and results in greater competition, our business, financial condition and results of operations could be adversely affected.
Furthermore, the healthcare industry is rapidly evolving and the markets for fertility benefits management and the related fertility pharmacy benefits management are relatively immature. It is difficult to predict member utilization rates and demand for our solutions, the entry of competitive solutions or the future growth rate and size of the fertility market, and more specifically the fertility benefits management market and the pharmacy benefits management market. The
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expansion of the fertility market depends on a number of factors, including, but not limited to: the continued trend of individuals starting families later in life, increase in number of single mothers by choice, adoption of non-traditional paths to parenthood and continued de-stigmatization of infertility. Further, the expansion of the fertility benefits management market and the pharmacy benefits market both depend on a number of factors, including, but not limited to: the continued trends of a competitive workforce with employers competing for talent based on benefits that they provide and employers’ focus on benefits to attract and retain top talent.
Additionally, in June 2022 the U.S. Supreme Court in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization reversed Roe v. Wade by holding that there is no constitutional right to abortion. Consequently, certain states have enacted or proposed restrictive abortion laws that may also implicate fertility procedures and travel reimbursement programs, which may decrease the demand for, or availability of, certain fertility services. Although President Biden issued executive orders and federal agencies have issued guidance intended to protect access to reproductive healthcare services, the enactment of certain state laws restricting abortion care may conflict with, and ultimately limit, the covered benefits offered by a company to its employees and the types of fertility treatment services available at provider clinics. We cannot predict the timing or impact of any future rulemaking, executive orders, court decisions or other changes in the law, or in how such laws, once enacted, would be interpreted and enforced.
If fertility benefits management or pharmacy benefits management do not continue to achieve market acceptance, or if there is a reduction in demand caused by a lack of client or member acceptance, a reduction in employers’ focus on enhancing benefits to employees, weakening economic conditions, data security or privacy concerns, governmental regulation, competing offerings or otherwise, the market for our solutions and services might not continue to develop or might develop more slowly than we expect, which would adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations. Any losses, costs or liabilities may not be covered by, or may exceed the coverage limits of, any or all applicable insurance policies.
We may not be able to successfully manage our growth, and if we are not able to grow efficiently, our business, financial condition and results of operations could be harmed.
As usage of our solutions grows, we will need to devote additional resources to improving and maintaining our infrastructure. In addition, we will need to appropriately scale our internal business systems and our client account management and member services personnel to serve our growing client base. Any failure of or delay in these efforts could result in reduced client and member satisfaction, resulting in decreased sales to new clients and lower renewal and utilization rates by existing clients, which could hurt our revenue growth and our reputation. Even if we are successful in these efforts, they will require the dedication of management time and attention. We could also face inefficiencies or service disruptions as a result of our efforts to scale our internal infrastructure. We cannot be sure that the expansion and improvements to our internal infrastructure will be effectively implemented on a timely basis, and such failures could harm our business, financial condition and results of operations.
Our business experiences seasonality, which may cause fluctuations in our sales and results of operations.
Our business experiences moderate seasonality in revenue with a slightly higher proportion of revenue during the second half of the year as compared with the first half. Given that the majority of our clients contract with us for a January 1st benefits plan start date and that the average cost of treatments earlier in the overall treatment process is somewhat lower than the average cost as treatment progresses, our revenue from treatment services tend to grow as the year continues, particularly for new clients. In addition, as with most medical benefits plans, members will typically seek to maximize the use of their benefits once they have reached their annual deductible and/or annual out-of-pocket maximums, thereby increasing treatments in the latter part of the year. We expect that this seasonality will continue to affect our revenue and results of operations in the future as we continue to target larger enterprise clients.
In addition, the seasonality of our businesses could create cash flow management risks if we do not adequately anticipate and plan for periods of comparatively decreased cash flow, which could negatively impact our ability to execute on our strategy, which in turn could harm our results of operations. Accordingly, our results for any particular quarter may vary for a number of reasons, and we caution investors to evaluate our quarterly results in light of these factors.
If our new solutions and services are not adopted by our clients or members, or if we fail to innovate and develop new offerings that are adopted by our clients, our revenue and results of operations may be adversely affected.
To date, we have derived a substantial majority of our revenue from sales of our fertility benefits and Progyny Rx solutions. As we operate in an evolving industry and new markets, our long-term results of operations and continued growth will depend on our ability to successfully develop and market new successful solutions and services to our clients.
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If our existing clients and members do not value and/or are not willing to make additional payments for such new solutions or services, it could adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations. If we are unable to predict clients’ or members’ preferences, if the markets in which we participate change, including in response to government regulation, or if we are unable to modify our solutions and services on a timely basis, we may lose clients. Our results of operations would also suffer if our innovations are not responsive to the needs of the members, appropriately timed with market opportunity or effectively brought to market.
If we fail to adapt and respond effectively to the changing medical landscape, changing laws, regulations and government enforcement priorities, changing client needs, requirements or preferences, our offerings may become less competitive.
The market in which we compete is subject to a changing medical landscape and changing laws, regulations and government enforcement priorities, as well as changing client needs, requirements and preferences. The success of our business will depend, in part, on our ability to adapt and respond effectively to these changes on a timely basis. Our business strategy may not effectively respond to these changes, and we may fail to recognize and position ourselves to capitalize upon market opportunities. We may not have sufficient advance notice and resources to develop and effectively implement an alternative strategy. There may be scientific or clinical changes that require us to change our solutions or that make our solutions, including the Smart Cycles, less competitive in the marketplace. If there are sensitivities to our model or our existing competitors and new entrants create new disruptive business models and/or develop new solutions that clients and members prefer to our solutions, we may lose clients and members, and our results of operations, cash flows and/or prospects may be adversely affected. The future performance of our business will depend in large part on our ability to design and implement market appropriate strategic initiatives, some of which will occur over several years in a dynamic industry. If these initiatives do not achieve their objectives, our results of operations could be adversely affected.
If we fail to maintain and enhance our brand, our ability to expand our client base will be impaired and our business, financial condition and results of operations may suffer.
We believe that maintaining and enhancing the Progyny brand is important to support the marketing and sale of our existing and future solutions to new clients and expand sales of our solutions to existing clients. We also believe that the importance of brand recognition will increase as competition in our market increases. Successfully maintaining and enhancing our brand will depend largely on the effectiveness of our marketing efforts, our ability to provide reliable services that continue to meet the needs of our clients at competitive prices, our ability to maintain our clients’ trust, our ability to continue to develop new solutions, and our ability to successfully differentiate our platform from competitive solutions and services. Our brand promotion activities may not generate client awareness or yield increased revenue, and even if they do, any increased revenue may not offset the expenses we incur in building our brand. If we fail to successfully promote and maintain our brand, our business, financial condition and results of operations may suffer.
If we fail to retain and motivate members of our management team or other key employees, or fail to attract additional qualified personnel to support our operations, our business and future growth prospects could be harmed.
Our success and future growth depend largely upon the continued services of our management team and our other key employees, and on our ability to continue to identify, attract, develop, integrate and retain them. From time to time, there are changes in our executive management team or other key employees. Our executive officers and other key employees are employed on an at-will basis, which means that these personnel could terminate their employment with us at any time. The loss of one or more of our executive officers or other key employees, or the failure by our executive team to effectively work with our employees and lead our company could in the future harm our business.
In addition, to execute our growth plan, we must attract and retain highly qualified personnel. Competition for these personnel is intense, especially for experienced sales and client account management personnel. There is no guarantee we will be able to attract such personnel or that competition among potential employers will not result in us being required to offer increased salaries or other benefits. From time to time, we have experienced, and we expect to continue to experience, difficulty in hiring and retaining employees with appropriate qualifications. Many of the companies with which we compete for experienced personnel have greater resources than we have. If we hire employees from competitors or other companies, their former employers may attempt to assert that these employees or we have breached their legal obligations, resulting in a diversion of our time and resources. In addition, prospective and existing employees often consider the value of the equity awards they receive in connection with their employment. If the perceived value of our equity awards declines, experiences significant volatility, or increases such that prospective employees believe there is limited upside to the value of our equity awards, it may adversely affect our ability to recruit and retain key employees.
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Additionally, our performance also depends in part on the successful integration of newly hired executive officers or other key employees into their roles. If we fail to attract new personnel or fail to retain and motivate our current personnel, our business and future growth prospects could be harmed. Further, if members of our management and other key personnel in critical functions across our organization are unable to perform their duties or have limited availability, we may not be able to execute on our business strategy and/or our operations may be negatively impacted.
If we cannot maintain our company culture as we grow, our success and our business and competitive position may be harmed.
We believe our culture has been a key contributor to our success to date and that the critical nature of the mission we are pursuing promotes a sense of greater purpose and fulfillment in our employees. We have invested substantial time and resources in building our culture, and any failure to preserve our culture could negatively affect our ability to retain and recruit personnel, which is critical to our growth, and to effectively focus on and pursue our corporate objectives. As we grow and develop the infrastructure of a public company, we may find it difficult to maintain these important aspects of our culture. If we fail to maintain our company culture, our business and competitive position may be harmed.
Any litigation against us could be costly and time-consuming to defend and could harm our business, financial condition and results of operations.
We have in the past and may in the future become subject to legal proceedings and claims that arise in the ordinary course of business, such as claims brought by our clients or vendors in connection with commercial disputes or employment claims made by our current or former employees. We are unable to predict the outcome of any legal proceedings. Such proceedings might result in substantial costs, regardless of the outcome, and may divert management’s attention and resources, which might seriously harm our business, financial condition and results of operations. Insurance might not cover litigation claims, might not provide sufficient payments to cover all the costs to resolve one or more such claims, and might not continue to be available on terms acceptable to us. A claim brought against us that is uninsured or underinsured could result in unanticipated costs, potentially harming our business, financial condition and results of operations.
Risks Related to Our Relationships with Third Parties
Our business depends on our ability to maintain our Center of Excellence network of high-quality fertility specialists and other healthcare providers. If we are unable to do so, our future growth would be limited and our business, financial condition and results of operations would be harmed.
Our success is dependent upon our continued ability to maintain a selective Center of Excellence, our proprietary, credentialed network of high-quality fertility specialists. Fertility specialists and our other network providers could refuse to contract, demand higher payments or take other actions that could result in higher medical costs, less attractive service for our members or difficulty meeting regulatory or accreditation requirements. Identifying high-quality fertility specialists and other healthcare providers, credentialing and negotiating contracts with them and evaluating, monitoring and maintaining our network, requires significant time and resources. Our network provider arrangements generally may be terminated or not renewed by either party without cause upon prior written notice. We cannot provide any assurance that we will be able to continue to renew our existing contracts or enter into new contracts on a timely basis or under favorable terms enabling us to service our members profitably. If we are not successful in maintaining our relationships with top fertility specialists, these fertility specialists may refuse to renew their contracts with us, and potential competitors may be effective in onboarding these or other high-quality fertility specialists to create a similarly high-quality network. Any of these events could have a material adverse effect on the provision of services to our members and our operations.
There may be additional shifts in the fertility specialty provider space as the fertility market matures, and high-quality fertility specialists may become more demanding in re-negotiating to remain in our network. Our ability to develop and maintain satisfactory relationships with high-quality fertility specialists and other healthcare providers also may be negatively impacted by other factors not associated with us, such as legal and regulatory changes, including changes in government enforcement priorities, impacting providers or consolidation activity among hospitals, physician groups and healthcare providers. In addition, in some markets and geographies, certain organizations of physicians or healthcare providers, such as practice management companies (which group together physician practices for administrative efficiency and marketing leverage), accountable care organizations, clinically integrated networks, independent practice associations, and other organizational structures that physicians and other healthcare providers choose may change the way in which these providers do business with us, and may change the competitive landscape. Such organizations or groups of healthcare providers may compete directly with us, which could adversely affect our operations, and our results of operations, financial position, and cash flows by impacting our relationships with these providers or affecting the way that we price our
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products and estimate our costs, which might require us to incur costs to change our operations. Healthcare providers in our network may consolidate or merge into other groups or healthcare systems, resulting in a reduction of providers in our network and in the competitive environment. In addition, if these providers refuse to contract with us, use their market position to negotiate contracts unfavorable to us or place us at a competitive disadvantage, our ability to market our solutions or to be profitable in those areas could be materially and adversely affected.
From time to time, our network providers may assert, or threaten to assert, claims seeking to terminate our contractual arrangements. If enough provider agreements were terminated, such termination could adversely impact the adequacy of our network to service our members, and may put us at risk of non-compliance with applicable federal and state laws. If we are unable to retain our current provider contract terms or enter into new provider contracts timely or on favorable terms, our profitability may be harmed. In addition, from time to time, we may in the future be subject to class action or other lawsuits by healthcare providers with respect to claims payment procedures, reimbursement policies, network participation, or similar matters. In addition, regardless of whether any such lawsuits brought against us are successful or have merit, they will be time-consuming and costly, and could have an adverse impact on our reputation. As a result, under such circumstances, we may be unable to operate our business effectively.
In addition, the perceived value of our solutions and our reputation may be negatively impacted if the services provided by one or more of our fertility specialists or another network healthcare provider are not satisfactory to our members, including as a result of provider error that could result in litigation. For example, if a provider within our network experiences an issue with their cryopreservation techniques or releases sensitive information of our members, it could result in us incurring substantial additional expenses, expose us to public scrutiny, adversely affect our brand and reputation, expose us to litigation and/or regulatory action, and otherwise make our operations vulnerable. Further, if a fertility specialist provides services that result in less than favorable outcomes, this could cause us to fail to meet our contractually guaranteed specified service metrics, and we could be obligated to provide the client with a fee reduction. The failure to maintain our selective network of high-quality fertility specialists and other healthcare providers or the failure of those providers to meet and exceed our members’ expectations, may result in a loss of or inability to grow or maintain our client base, which could adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.
Our growth depends in part on the success of our strategic relationships with, and monitoring of, third parties, including channel partners, vendors, as well as insurance carriers.