One offer, a contribution dial
There aren't three different products to choose between. There's one offer — Averyn Keystone, a Record Vault plus 90 days of dedicated coordination — and a single decision: how much of each launch you fund. You set your contribution anywhere from funding most of it to making Keystone available at preferred rates. We generally recommend keeping a family share unless the employer funds 100%. The positions below are common places to land on that dial.
A Lifestyle Spending Account (LSA) is a payment method, not a separate program: a post-tax LSA can fund any position on the dial.
1. Co-fund a share
How it works: Employer and family share the cost of each launch bundle — a Record Vault + 90 days of dedicated coordination. You fund a pool of activations (3, 10, 20 employees) at the contribution percentage you choose; the family pays the rest as a co-pay that keeps them invested in the activation work. Aggregate utilization reporting only — no individual case details, no PHI, no family specifics.
What you get: Measurable data inside 90 days — activation rate, time-to-first-deliverable, continuation rate after the funded window, employee satisfaction (if surveyed). Starting with a small pool lets you see whether the benefit moves your retention math before widening it.
Best fit when: You want defensible utilization data; you're evaluating whether to add caregiving as a standing benefit-stack category; you have a small cohort you can prioritize (recent acute event, high-attrition risk, executive bench).
Where it doesn't fit: If you need a benefit that reaches the entire workforce immediately; if you can't justify any line-item cost without prior utilization data — in which case start at the preferred-rate availability end below.
2. Make Keystone available at preferred rates (no employer cost)
How it works: The low end of the dial. You list Averyn Keystone in the benefits portal or partner-amenity materials; employees who opt in pay directly, at the preferred employer-channel rate. Zero cost to the organization. Your role is to make the resource visible, vetted, and easy to opt into privately.
What you get: Access for the entire employee base. Aggregate uptake reporting if desired. No utilization-related cost exposure. The reputation of an employer that takes the unspoken stuff seriously.
Best fit when: You want to add the category without a co-funding decision; you're a partnership / professional-services firm where retention math at the senior level dominates; participation needs to stay discreet at the partner table.
Where it doesn't fit: If most of your employee base can't afford the personal portion at any tier — in which case dialing up your contribution addresses the equity question.
3. Fund it through an LSA
How it works: If you already operate a Lifestyle Spending Account, you can add caregiving coordination to the eligible-services list so employees apply post-tax LSA dollars toward Keystone. This is a funding mechanism, not a fourth structure — it can sit underneath any position on the dial.
What you get: Reaches your entire LSA-eligible population without standing up a new line item. Caregiving coordination becomes one item among many on the employee's LSA menu.
Best fit when: You already run an LSA; you want to expand its eligible-services list with a caregiving option; you want employees to make their own allocation decisions across the menu.
Where it doesn't fit: If your LSA dollars are already committed elsewhere and employees won't realistically have budget left for this; if you don't currently operate an LSA (standing one up just for this is overkill — simply making Keystone available at preferred rates is cleaner).
The HCE / no-employer-funding play: why this is the sharpest math
The single highest-ROI move most benefits leaders are missing is the low end of the dial: make caregiving coordination available at preferred rates, specifically positioned for executives, partners, and other highly-compensated employees (HCEs). Here's why.
Caregiving prevalence is roughly uniform across income bands — if anything, HCEs are slightly more likely to be in caregiving years because they tend to be mid-to-senior career, which correlates with parents in their 70s and 80s.1 What changes at the top of the org chart is the cost of the consequences.
Replacement cost: Replacing a partner, director, VP, or top professional costs 200%+ of annual salary per SHRM benchmarks.2 A single caregiver-driven attrition at the partner level can cost more than many years of making Keystone visible at preferred rates.
Silent absorption: SHRM Working Caregivers research finds HCEs are statistically more likely than rank-and-file employees to silently absorb caregiving without flagging it to their employer — partly because of the cultural expectation that "I can handle it," partly because they have the income to absorb the OOP cost, partly because they don't want to signal that they're distracted or might leave.3 The cost shows up later as declined advancement, quiet hours-reduction, early retirement, or a quiet move to a more accommodating firm.
The no-employer-funding end of the dial fits this cohort naturally. HCEs can often afford the personal portion at the preferred rate. They don't need the employer to subsidize cost — they need the resource to be visible, vetted, and easy to opt into without a public conversation. Making Keystone available in the benefits portal accomplishes both: the resource is visible and trusted, and accessing it is a private decision.
The retention upside accrues to you anyway. Even though you're not subsidizing the benefit, an HCE who quietly stops absorbing caregiving chaos is an HCE who quietly stops moving toward the exit. The retention math works regardless of who pays the line item.
It also works as an explicit executive-benefit-package addition. For partnerships and professional-services firms, including Averyn in the partner-track benefits package is increasingly common — particularly for firms where the partner attrition story has visible caregiving threads.
The bottom line: if you offer nothing else, offer this. It costs zero, it reaches the cohort that's most expensive to lose, and it gets used by the people who would otherwise quietly leave for the firm that does offer it.
Side-by-side comparison
| Dimension | Co-fund a share | Make available | Fund via LSA |
|---|---|---|---|
| Employer cost | Your contribution % of the pool | $0 | Existing LSA budget |
| Employee cost | Co-pay (the remainder) | Preferred rate, paid by employee | LSA dollars |
| Reach | Funded pool | Entire workforce | LSA-eligible employees |
| Utilization data | Aggregate, rich | Aggregate uptake | Per LSA reporting |
| Best for | Starting pool & 90-day data | HCE retention play | Existing LSA expansion |
Where to set your contribution
Most decisions come down to two questions:
- Do you want utilization data inside 90 days? If yes, co-fund a starting pool — that's usually the right entry point.
- Is your dominant retention risk concentrated at the senior level? If yes, the no-employer-funding end is the sharpest tool — especially as an executive-benefit-package addition.
You can also do both at once: co-fund a pool for a specific high-risk cohort and make Keystone available at preferred rates for everyone else. It's the same offer at two points on the dial. Size a starting pool and set the dial →