Best Practices: Trellis
CMO Jennifer Huang on New York City’s new fertility studio.
Boutique fertility studio Trellis, open in New York since November 2018 in a 5,500 square foot location in Flatiron, offers client-facing amenities like fertility nutritional consultation and a juice bar — all in addition to its cornerstone egg-freezing services. Operating under the umbrella of IntegraMed, the largest fertility network in North America, allows Trellis to offer top-tier fertility doctors and proven cryostorage while keeping treatment highly consumer-focused. We caught up with Chief Marketing Officer Jennifer Huang, who, like many women working at Trellis, has had personal experience in the field.
There are often individual stories behind the founding of startups. Is there one with Trellis?
There certainly is! I’ll start with my own experience. I had frozen my own eggs when I was 36. I had recently broken up with another in a long string of boyfriends, and egg freezing had not long before been officially declared no longer experimental. I remember not being scared of not getting married, but feeling worried about having children on my terms. I could easily have been dating for another 15 years. My experience six years ago at a traditional fertility clinic, was that I could never access my doctor — typically, at that time, you would see your doctor once during the 10–14 day process. During one of my cycles, I experienced overstimulation, and they cancelled my cycle without discussing the decision first with me. I was standing outside of work on 5th avenue when I received a voicemail from the nurse that the protocol wasn’t going as expected. To receive that type of treatment for a $15,000 procedure I was covering out of pocket was a bit much. Plus the message was “don’t call back, because it’s Friday.” I remember thinking in that moment, whoever gets this right is going to be very successful. I ended up being Trellis’ very first hire.
Wow. Thanks for sharing that. Tell us about Trellis’ backstory that dovetailed with your path.
Trellis is a division of IntegraMed Fertility, which is a nationwide network of fertility clinics providing services to over 100 locations all over the U.S. and Canada. A couple of years ago, IntegraMed was seeing a huge growth in demand for egg freezing, and noticed that the women coming in for that service were demographically a bit different from women seeking IVF from the same office. Candidates for IVF tended to be married, generally a little older, and ready for a baby now. Those seeking egg freezing skewed younger, single, were often paying out of pocket and generally did not want a baby right this minute. So there were two types of clients in the same clinic. It became clear pretty quickly that millennials weren’t interested in a waiting room full of pictures of babies on the wall.
IntegraMed knew firsthand that 1 in 8 couples experience infertility, and started to think “why are we addressing fertility when it’s too late.” They came up with a business plan for egg freezing.
I was their first hire last January to help to build out their consumer brand. IVF clinics tend to be very regional; they gain regional traction and don’t have to build a consumer brand. We’re attracting a new breed of customers for whom this is an elective decision, though it also really is an investment in their personal fertility. We’re also trying to bring the age down for when women consider getting their eggs frozen. Historically, the market for egg freezing is between ages 35 to 37, which are typically your waning years of fertility. If you can bring that age down by just one year that would be huge. Every mom I see out there is 40 and older. Women today have to plan for not just Baby #1, but also Baby #2 and #3, which could easily be in your 40s.
It is the reality that women are going through multiple rounds of IVF, and that could be avoided by thinking ahead ideally in your peak fertility years before you turn 32.
What does Trellis offer that you might not get in another fertility clinic?
One of the things that makes us really different is that we are a fertility studio, rather than a clinic. Our focus is on fertile health and wellness, and we integrate that actively into egg freezing.
You’re not a patient; you’re a client. You’re not a sick person; you’re taking care of yourself and your future.
Our team develops those insights because we are founded by women who’ve gone through their own fertility challenges.
Also, the fact that we’re part of IntegraMed is an exceptional bonus. We can partner with top-tier reproductive endocrinology and infertility specialists, and we already have alliances with all of the major insurance companies through IntegraMed, as well as access to proven cryostorage. We also possess all of the systems characteristic of a major health company, like the ability to book online and access to client records across different locations. Because of IntegraMed’s relationships, we’re able to get the best prices on the market (usually at 20% discount) for medication and pass them on to the clients. We order the medication for you, and then the client pays and it’s directly shipped from the pharmacy. We’ve harnessed tech to make the client experience as seamless as possible. A nurse will still call you, but everything from bloodwork to test results are loaded onto a patient portal that you can access from your phone.
Walk us through the patient experience.
The first step in the client experience is partnering one-on-one with our fertility coach, who is also a nutritionist trained in fertility. She walks you through the process, including financing and pricing options. Then a medical assistant takes your blood work in that same visit, to avoid you having to come back separately just for that step. The second visit constitutes the fertility assessment with our fertility specialist who performs an ultrasound and looks at your follicle count to see how it meshes with women of your age, and you look together at the bloodwork taken in the first visit.
In that second meeting, you devise a fertility plan together that considers the necessary number of cycles to achieve the egg count you’d like. And then for clients who decide to freeze their eggs, there is a third visit with a nurse to practice injections and a nutritionist for complimentary meal planning. Then a client is ready to begin the process!
One of the things that really defines us is that not only do we make it really clear what the steps are, but we also have a coach to help you through all of the different steps. We order your medications. We call to see how the injections are going, and if you need some help talking through those.
Vital Signs
How do you de-stress during the week? Well, since I’m pregnant currently, it’s all about prenatal massages! Spa Nalai and Soho Sanctuary are two favorites!
Favorite place for a bite during the workday? We just moved to our studio and its close to City Bakery — I’ve been holding off on that hot chocolate, trying to make myself walk further away for a snack, but it’s hard!
Patient amenity of which you are the most proud? There are so many, but the one that we all love is that, since so many women are worried about injections, we can coordinate to meet with a concierge nurse if someone is having difficulty. It’s so much better than looking at a YouTube video.
Reading anything good? Well, I actually really loved The Handmaid’s Tale, which is the worst world compared to what happens at work! And I eat up Vanity Fair — it’s both factual and fantastic entertainment.
Learn more about Trellis here!
Know an innovative practice in NYC? We’d love to hear, introduce us here!
