MaternityCare Direct Blog

Buzz is Building for WellGift Maternity Health & Loyalty Incentive Mailers

2006-10-22T12:10:00.000-07:00

Our WellGift prenatal direct mailers are receiving great reviews from employers--and expectant moms and dads love them!

These low-cost mailers consolidate the communication of maternity & family benefits information for increased utilization and ROI.

Health plans can’t touch our combination of return-to-work strategies, health education, loyalty incentives, customization and value.

Aaron

Wall Street Journal: "The Mommy Drain"

2006-10-10T12:31:00.000-07:00

In her recent article, The Mommy Drain: Employers Beef Up Perks to Lure Back Moms, Wall Street Journal Work & Family columnists Sue Shellenbarger writes about the efforts of some employers to stem the maternity-driven talent drain. If you haven't read it, please do--it's worth the time.

Sue actually called me when researching this story, and while she didn't quote me--the article is focused on employers rather than vendors--I'm happy to see that much of what we discussed made it to print.

Indeed, Census data shows that "among working mothers who return to work within a year of childbirth, the proportion who go back to the same employer is declining." This is a financially devastating trend for employers, and it is precisely why I am excited about the future of MaternityCare Direct--we are first to market with a range of solutions for this issue.

Aaron

Inside Business Radio Show Appearance

2006-09-26T15:02:00.000-07:00

On September 21, I was a guest on the Inside Business Radio Show, along with our Chief Medical Advisor, Dr. David Harari. Broadcast in San Diego on KCEO AM 1000, Inside Business is hosted by longtime radio personality Bob Ryan and has featured many of San Diego's top executives and entrepreneurs. We are thankful for the opportunity to share our story and appreciate Bob's insightful questions. Stay tuned for a link to the audio file.

Aaron

JobKite Employee Benefits Survey

2006-09-16T02:08:00.000-07:00

In an 8/11/06 post on the JobKite blog (Flashy Employee Perks are out. Work/Life balance benefits are on the rise in 2006.), CEO Heather Galler discusses corporate benefits trends. While work/life benefits are on the rise and foosball table sales continue to plummet, sadly, the only reference I see to maternity is FedEx Custom Critical's "area for nursiung mothers." Come on, employers, let's start taking better care of your new and expectant parents!

MaternityCare Direct Featured in Employee Benefit News

2006-09-16T00:46:00.000-07:00

Check out this great article featuring MCD from the 9/15/06 edition of Employee Benefit News. The story ran in both the print and online editions and included interviews with co-founder Kevin Darr and me.

Aaron

MaternityCare Direct Article in AWLP Newsletter

2006-09-13T15:08:00.000-07:00

In July, the Alliance of Work/Life Professionals graciously invited me to submit an article on MaternityCare Direct's unprecedented business model. The article was published this month in The Alliance, the AWLP's monthly newsletter. Much thanks to Kathie Lingle for taking an interest in our company!

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Did You Know?

The average organization spends more to replace employees who change jobs after maternity leave than to replace employees who opt out of the workforce?

Check out our latest newsletter

2006-08-31T00:26:00.000-07:00

Click here to read the August MCD newsletter. Enjoy!

Aaron

Look for MCD in September's Employee Benefit News

2006-08-31T00:03:00.000-07:00

Employee Benefit News recently interviewed MaternityCare Direct CEO Aaron Crecy for a story on working mothers, which will appear in the magazine’s September 2006 edition. The editors were impressed with MaternityCare Direct’s unique retention and loyalty-focused maternity management initiative.

MaternityCare Direct Featured in San Diego Business Journal

2006-08-31T00:00:00.000-07:00

The July 31, 2006 edition of the San Diego Business Journal featured an in-depth story on MaternityCare Direct and co-founders Aaron Crecy and Kevin Darr. We are really pleased with the article and thank Jessica Long for taking an interest in our business.

Press Release: Babyproofing the Bottom Line

2006-06-22T15:39:00.000-07:00

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 22, 2006

Babyproofing the Bottom Line

Innovative start-up helps employers reduce maternity-driven turnover, HR costs with health education and loyalty program for new moms and dads

San Diego, CA -- In the midst of Amy Crecy’s first pregnancy in 2004, her husband, Aaron, noticed a building resentment to the sales job at which she had excelled for five years. Working out of a home office located 1,850 miles from her employer’s headquarters, Amy spent countless hours on the phone with human resources representatives trying to determine maternity benefits and leave protocols. The experience left Mrs. Crecy feeling ignored and disenfranchised—when she perceived that her longtime employer, a fast-growing pharmaceutical company known for its benefits, didn’t care about her condition, Amy became detached from both management and colleagues.

“Having to call HR repeatedly became a real frustration for her,” recalls Aaron Crecy, a seasoned entrepreneur. “What really upset Amy was when, late in the second trimester, she asked her manager to split a scheduled eight-hour ride-along in the middle of the summer into two consecutive four-hour days and was basically told to ‘suck it up.’ It’s not that she was trying to shirk her responsibilities, but rather make some accommodation for her condition. At that point, she mentally checked out from a job that she had once loved.”

Aaron was surprised to find that the couple’s health plan, Aetna, didn’t contact his wife to encourage participation in their prenatal program. He and his business partner, Kevin Darr, talked about the issue and began to analyze data on maternity-driven costs to employers, such as turnover, absenteeism, leave time, productivity loss and preventable healthcare claims.

What they discovered was staggering—companies such as Ernst & Young and KPMG admit to spending more than $10 million annually due to maternity-related turnover alone. Experts estimate that corporations lose $100,000 or more when a new mother fails to return to work—law firms spend between $200,000 and $500,000 to replace a single attorney. The U.S. Census Bureau reports that approximately 40 percent of full-time employees fail to return to their pre-pregnancy employer within 12 months of childbirth—the same study found that half of those women actually remained in the workforce, often transitioning laterally to a competitor with similar compensation, hours and responsibilities.

“We spoke with enough health plans to determine that they are primarily focused on reducing their own care costs,” explains Darr. “That means that they actively market their prenatal education programs to employees with high risk characteristics, and then encourage participation in intensive case management programs at substantial cost to the employer. Well, that model excludes more than 90 percent of pregnant women in the corporate environment, and employers are losing valuable retention, education and loyalty opportunities. Health plans are the only vendors we know of that have carte blanche to reduce their own delivery costs while the client continues to hemorrhage money and top talent.”

So, Crecy and Darr founded MaternityCare Direct (http://www.maternitycaredirect.com/) in 2005. It is the nation's first employee retention and loyalty program delivered within the context of a comprehensive health and lifestyle management platform, designed specifically for the general maternity population. The company is focused on helping employers generate return-on-investment by reducing maternity-driven turnover, absenteeism, stress, leave time and healthcare costs while reinforcing an inclusive organizational culture.

MaternityCare Direct promotes early intervention, supporting employees and dependents from confirmation of pregnancy through return-to-work via online, telephonic and direct mail initiatives customized to the specific needs and interests of each enrollee.

Designed to provide recruiting advantages and public relations for employers seeking family-minded prospects, MaternityCare Direct also provides a positive point of contact with employees on maternity leave, an experience historically accompanied by social and professional isolation.

The consumer-directed curriculum, designed by leading San Diego Ob/Gyn and MaternityCare Direct chief medical advisor Dr. David Harari, FACOG, includes a generous selection of books, literature, branded loyalty items, care products, recurring health risk assessments and return-to-work incentives such as a Medela breastpump and a subscription to Working Mother magazine. Alternative return-to-work initiatives in development include cord blood banking subsidies and an employer-sponsored college savings plan with annual contributions on the child’s birthday.

“The contemporary healthcare structure almost precludes physicians from providing sufficient prenatal education,” comments Dr. Harari. “Today’s managed care environment and high caseloads limit the physician-patient interaction, and existing health plan programs are simply inadequate. A brochure and access to online medical reference material just doesn’t meet the existing need. I tell my patients that pregnancy is like college—you have to study in order to be successful. With MaternityCare Direct, we’ve created a HIPAA-compliant environment for employers to comprehensively educate and support pregnant employees and their families.”

Now, Crecy and MaternityCare Direct must convince employers to embrace the concept of supporting prenatal employees and facilitating their return to work. Currently priced at less that $1000 per enrollee, MaternityCare Direct is often evaluated alongside health plan-delivered prenatal education programs. Because such programs fail to address turnover, absenteeism, leave time or productivity loss while offering little incentive to participate. Crecy is comfortable with the comparison.

“When it comes to maternity-related retention and support, employers really do get what they pay for,” Crecy states. “We’ve created a retention initiative that costs employers less than one percent of what they will pay to replace that employee. Corporate employers typically address retention with benefits such as flexible scheduling and onsite childcare, and while we applaud those programs, they don’t prevent the employee who has had a neutral or negative experience during pregnancy from moving to a competitor with the same or similar benefits. In contrast, MaternityCare Direct engages employees from early in pregnancy and guides them through the journey.“

“MaternityCare Direct helps build strong emotional relationships with pregnant employees that engender ongoing loyalty,” explains Crecy. “We certainly believe employers will recognize the significant value of our business model.”

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For information about MaternityCare Direct product and services, please call (866) 594-0064 or visit us online at http://www.maternitycaredirect.com/. A subsidiary of WellGift Corporation, MaternityCare Direct is a certified woman-owned, minority-owned small disadvantaged business based in San Diego, CA.

Media Contact

Aaron Crecy, CEO
Direct: (619) 594-0064
info@maternitycaredirect.com

Introducing our Chief Medical Advisor

2006-04-22T01:04:00.000-07:00

Dr. David Harari, M.D., F.A.C.O.G., heads the MaternityCare Direct Medical Advisory Board. In this capacity, he facilitates strategic partnerships, writes and updates health risk assessment protocols, reviews program materials and delivery, participates in sales calls and supports public relations initiatives.

The former president of the San Diego Surgical Society, Dr. Harari is a board-certified physician who was voted one of the county’s top obstetricians in a poll of medical doctors. He participates in clinical trials on women’s healthcare pharmaceutical products for the California Research Foundation, and previously served as the principal investigator for FDA clinical trials of the GYNECARE THERMACHOICE® Uterine Balloon Therapy System.

Dr. Harari has been on speaker bureaus for several pharmaceutical companies including Berlex, Park Davis, Pfizer, Wyeth and Johnson & Johnson. He also served as the Medical Director of the ObGyn Network for FPA Medical Management.

A partner in the Hillcrest ObGyn Medical Group in San Diego, California since 1985, Dr. Harari has privileges at both Scripps Mercy Medical Center and Sharp Mary Birch Hospital for Women. He is an active member of the American College of ObGyn, the North American Menopause Society and American Association of Gynecologic Laparoscopy. Dr. Harari frequently serves as an expert witness and medical reviewer in legal medical issues.

His published work includes articles on a transdermal estrogen patch for the relief of premenstrual migraines (The Female Patient, April 2003) and stem cell donation from cord blood (E Pregnancy, December 2005). His professional interests include minimally invasive surgical technologies, perimenopause and menopause management.

Dr. Harari graduated from the Medical College of Georgia in 1981 and subsequently completed his residency in Obstetrics and Gynecology at Scripps Mercy Medical Center in San Diego. He was first certified by the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology in 1986, re-certified in 1996 and holds current ABOG certification.

Why Do Health Plans Offer Free Prenatal Programs? So They Can Justify Charging Thousands for High Risk Cases & Ignoring Everyone Else!

2006-04-19T18:59:00.000-07:00

One of the most frequent responses we receive from prospects is that they already have a prenatal program through their healthcare provider. Well, let me provide a little insight into health plan-delivered prenatal care--quite bluntly, it is inadequate and in most cases, a complete misnomer.

Ultimately, your health plan wants to reduce its care costs--that's the rationale behind prenatal programs. It's not an altruistic endeavor, it's a financial strategy. However, rather that address the entire maternity population, health plans choose to focus on recruiting enrollees who exhibit or are susceptible to developing high-risk criteria.

The goal is to prevent preterm births, low birth weight babies and the onset of conditions such as gestational diabetes that require costly, long-term care and maintenance. When an enrollee demonstrates high-risk characteristics, the full court press is on--the health plan will call that mom repeatedly to encourage her enrollment in the high-risk prenatal program. Then, they'll charge the employer a premium for the high-risk case management--in most cases, amounting to thousands of dollars per individual for that service.

But what if an employee does not meet high-risk criteria? Well, that's where things become interesting. Typically, the health plan will do nothing--no phone calls, no e-mail, no invitation to enroll in the prenatal program. In many cases, it is up to the enrollee to proactively research the availability of a prenatal program. For that, they will receive some brochures, perhaps a book, and access to a Web site with an encyclopedic catalog of medical information.

At the end of the day, the vast majority of pregnant employees within the corporate environment are ignored by their health plan--many are altogether unaware of the existence of a prenatal program, and those that do encounter health plan-delivered programs find them woefully inadequate. And don't count on a physician for prenatal health education--they are overbooked, overworked, undermotivated and unable to provide little more than a brief check-up.

Yet, published studies show that prenatal health education within the general maternity population can deliver a significant ROI--a savings of $3-$5 for every dollar spent. While your health plan might have bigger fish to fry, that’s a significant ROI for employers, for whom maternity-driven expenses can account for as much as 49 percent of total healthcare costs.

MaternityCare Direct Blog is Born

2006-04-19T14:56:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the MaternityCare Direct blog, where we will discuss our retention-focused maternity management program, as well as general benefits industry information with specific applications to the corporate maternity experience. Insights from a start-up company that is challenging social and the cultural indifference to maternity in the corporate setting.

MCD is a woman-owned, minority-owned small business founded in 2005 by Aaron Crecy, Amy Crecy and Kevin Darr. We created MCD to provide comprehensive employer-delivered support for new and expectant parents to achieve a healthier, more productive workforce while accomplishing substantial fiscal savings. In addition, it it is a program designed to positively affect corporate culture by eliminating the fear and stress that often accompany pregnancy.

There is a distinct indifference to maternity within the corporate environment, accounting for huge expenses--we see it again and again each day as we interface with employers. Yet, on average, about 40 percent of full-time mothers fail to return to their pre-pregnancy employer within 12 months of childbirth, at a cost of approximately 200 percent of the departing salary. However, only 50 percent of new moms actually exit the workforce--the other half return to work for a different employer, oftentimes with identical or similar pay, benefits, schedules and responsibilities. Why do they leave? Because they became detached while on maternity leave, or perhaps had a negative or even neutral experience during pregnancy.

MCD is nation's first maternity management program to incorporate the employers' perspective while delivering comprehensive support. We utilize pregnancy as an opportunity to encourage loyalty, maximize retention and reduce expenses resulting from absenteeism, productivity loss, stress, leave time and preventable, high-cost healthcare claims. Ultimately, MCD is designed to generate significant ROI while reinforcing an inclusive organizational culture.

Our program supports employees and dependents from confirmation of pregnancy through one year post birth via online, telephonic and in-hand health education and return-to-work interventions customized to specific needs and interests. The doctor-designed curriculum includes books, literature, participation incentives, return-to-work incentives and 24/7 RN-staffed call center support.

We look forward to your questions and comments!

Aaron Crecy
CEO