Challenge

The number of American families affected by infertility is growing. In 2023, approximately 42% of adults said they had used fertility treatments or personally know someone who had, up from 33% in 2018. While these treatments, such as in vitro fertilization (IVF) and egg freezing, are highly effective, they come with high costs. The national average cost of a single IVF treatment is anywhere from $15,000 to $30,000, with many patients requiring two or three cycles to have one live birth.

“The two questions that most patients ask are, ‘Will I be able to have a baby?’ and ‘How will I pay for treatment?’” said Pilar Castro-Kiltz, founding partner at More Canvas Consulting, a strategic advisor to CNY Fertility. “For those who don’t have insurance to cover IVF in part or in its entirety, paying up front out of pocket can be impossible, even at CNY Fertility’s low prices. Giving patients access to fertility care starts with financing.”

Founded in 1997, CNY Fertility was one of the first fertility clinics to offer customized and flexible in-house financing for fertility. By 2021, as the practice opened more locations and became the sixth largest fertility clinic nationwide, the system for setting up a patient’s payment plan had become a complicated, multistep process.

Due to some limitations in the Electronic Medical Records (EMR) system CNY Fertility used, patients had to download and fill out a manually generated document, then print, sign, scan, and send it back to the company’s finance team to initiate the payment. This presented not only barriers to completion for mobile-only patients, which represent a large portion of CNY Fertility’s patients, but also a wide margin of error for new administrative staff.

To match the increasing demand for affordable fertility care and mobile-first technology, and to create a less stressful experience for patients and staff, CNY Fertility needed a customized payments experience that could tailor payments to each patient’s needs and automate repetitive tasks. This would enable experienced and compassionate financing staff to spend more time counseling patients and less time completing manual processes.

With Stripe, CNY Fertility found a partner that could create a mobile-enabled payment experience for its flexible plans. As a result, the clinic has lowered barriers to much-needed care and made it possible to offer fertility treatments at one-third the national average cost.

Solution

CNY Fertility turned to Echobind, a Stripe partner, to digitize the clinic’s pay-over-time experience through a customized solution based on Stripe’s financial infrastructure. The team created a plan to consolidate CNY Fertility’s disparate solutions by migrating existing payment plans over to Stripe Billing, and to offer patients an easier mobile-friendly interface where they could set their own payment terms. Using Stripe Connect, the team integrated reliable, user-friendly payments into its platform, simplifying the process of settling payments.

“We worked with CNY Fertility to build a billing system that empowers patients to choose their payment terms and takes care of the financing behind those payment options,” said Claire Surma, project manager at Echobind.

By enabling recurring payments, Billing lets patients pay with flexible installments, or through Stripe Payment Links, a no-code solution that allows patients to pay in full in a few clicks. With Echobind’s custom-made app, patients can easily select financing terms and pay from their mobile devices, making fertility care more accessible than ever.

Stripe also opened doors to capabilities that CNY Fertility leadership had long envisioned but couldn’t realize with their EMR alone, such as processing payment plans with Apple Pay or Google Pay, and the ability to productize fertility treatments so even nonpatients can access the care they need. With Stripe’s reporting tools, the team can see how many patients are on payment plans, quantify and more easily follow up on missed payments, automate notifications to patients with expiring credit cards, and visualize projected cash flow—all in one place.

“Echobind was always thinking 12 steps ahead and asked the right questions about how CNY Fertility was handling payments,” said Marc Thrower, director of corporate accounting at CNY Fertility. “CNY didn’t just get a software developer—we got a thought partner and problem solver.”

Results

Enabling mobile-only patients to seamlessly make payments over time

In just two months from project kickoff, Echobind successfully connected the first iteration of a mobile-first customized portal to Stripe, which allowed current CNY patients to make a deposit on their treatment, consent to financial agreements, and set up their own customized payment plan all from their phone or tablet. This led to a better patient experience, saved staff time generating payment plans, and increased ease of access to affordable fertility care.

$8.43M in payments processed through Stripe

The system Echobind built for CNY Fertility allows patients to choose their own payment terms based on their financial situation through an easy-to-use mobile experience. To date, using both this technology and Stripe Payment Links, CNY Fertility has brought in $8.43M in gross payment volume, all processed through Stripe.

Many ask how CNY Fertility can offer such affordable prices. “Offering affordable fertility care is simply a choice. It is why I started CNY Fertility and why we do what we do here today,” said Dr. Robert Kiltz, founder and medical director. Having determined that affordability was the top priority, all other business decisions were made to achieve it, from locations and staffing, to workflows and building layouts.

“CNY Fertility’s prices for IVF and other fertility treatments are already some of the lowest in the nation,” said Castro-Kiltz. “However, by offering payment plans with low administrative fees, flexible terms, and generous payback periods, CNY Fertility can increase access to an even broader population.”

Two Stripe-powered promotions bring in $2.8M and $4.91M respectively

CNY Fertility makes creative use of Payment Links to drive sales during promotions and events. A single promotion from January to March 2023 earned $4.91 million in revenue, while a summer promotion earned $2.8 million. Christina Salzberg, chief operating officer at CNY Fertility, attributed these results to Stripe’s ease of use and convenience. “People could go online at any time of the day, on any device, and lock in the promotional price,” Salzberg said. “Stripe makes it incredibly convenient for patients to purchase the treatments they need.”

Similarly, CNY Fertility has seen a significant increase in purchases during events such as webinars, which the team can track through Stripe’s detailed financial reports. With its previous system, CNY Fertility had difficulty getting a 360-degree view of its newest customers. Now, the team can easily access data, filter out income from various revenue streams, and get better insight into how the platform is meeting patients’ needs.

About Partner

Echobind is a full-service digital agency known for transforming businesses with beautiful apps and bulletproof code. As experts in strategy, design, and engineering, Echobind works with customers from the concept through activation, or can plug in anywhere along the way. Learn more about Echobind.