Improving the Fertility Patient Journey: Founder of Frame Fertility Jessica Bell van der Wal

When, if ever, did you first have a conversation with your primary care physician or OB-GYN about your plans for having a child or children? Timing is everything, as Jessica Bell van der Wal explains. In her own experience, as a conscientious person who dutifully went on yearly well checks with her primary care physician, she realized that "Fertility never came up in any of those (well woman) visits." With that in mind, and after a frustrating fertility journey of her own, she founded Frame Fertility, which aspires to help people start the fertility conversation earlier on to help patients understand their situation before they might get to the point of needing a fertility clinic. Frame Fertility works to provide wrap-around care for patients at any stage of their journey, from those curious about it who might want to learn where to start, to those who are a year or two away from trying to conceive their first child, to those who have been struggling for a long period of time or have complex fertility journeys. The full care team that Frame Fertility provides to its customers can include nurse practitioners, fertility coaches, nutritional coach, wellness coaches, and coordination with the clinics for end-to-end support as they grow their families. Frame Fertility also offers 'planning bundles' where their customers are sent packages with everything they might need from ovulation tracking kits to prenatal vitamins. Frame has developed a detailed, initial questionnaire based on all the available research on what impacts fertility that informs next steps like lab ordering and/or visits, coaching, etc. Once a customer is a patient at a fertility clinic, Frame Fertility's services include preparing patients for meeting with the financial team at the clinic, to helping them get their questions answered in a timely manner, to ensuring they actually understand the answers and information they are given from the clinic. Listen as Elana and Jessica Bell van der Wal chat about Jessica's fertility and maternity journey, how and why she founded Frame Fertility, and the "wonderful world of FemTech"--tech-based companies that provide services that focus on women's health.