Access to Contraception

Unintended Pregnancy in the United States and the Case for Contraceptive Access

The College supports women’s right to decide whether to have children, to determine the number and spacing of their children, and to have the information, education, and access to health services to make those choices 4. Women must have access to reproductive health care, including the full range of contraceptive choices, to fulfill these rights.

Unintended pregnancy and abortion rates are higher in the United States than in most other developed countries, and low-income women have disproportionately high rates 5. Currently, 49% of pregnancies are unintended 5. Reducing this high rate is a national priority reflected in the Healthy People 2020 goal to decrease the rate of unintended pregnancies from 49% to 44% 6. The human cost of unintended pregnancy is high: women must either carry an unplanned pregnancy to term and keep the baby or make a decision for adoption, or choose to undergo abortion. Women and their families may struggle with this challenge for medical, ethical, social, legal, and financial reasons. Additionally, U.S. births from unintended pregnancies resulted in approximately $12.5 billion in government expenditures in 2008 7. Facilitating affordable access to contraceptives would not only improve health but also would reduce health care costs, as each dollar spent on publicly funded contraceptive services saves the U.S. health care system nearly $6 8. The most effective way to reduce abortion rates is to prevent unintended pregnancy by improving access to consistent, effective, and affordable contraception.

Knowledge Deficits

Lack of knowledge, misperceptions, and exaggerated concerns about the safety of contraceptive methods are major barriers to contraceptive use. There has been a focus on abstinence-only sexuality education for young people in the United States despite research demonstrating its ineffectiveness in increasing age of sexual debut and decreasing number of partners and other risky behavior 9 10. In contrast, data suggest the effectiveness of comprehensive sexuality education in achieving these outcomes 10. The emphasis on abstinence-only education may have in part led to widespread misperceptions of contraceptive effectiveness, mechanisms of action, and safety that can have an effect on contraceptive use and method selection 11. For example, many individuals have unfounded concerns that oral contraceptives are linked to major health problems or that IUDs carry a high risk of infection 12 13. Many individuals also incorrectly believe certain types of contraception to be abortifacients 14. None of the FDA-approved contraceptive methods are abortifacients because they do not interfere with a pregnancy and are not effective after a fertilized egg has implanted successfully in the uterus 15.

Health care providers also may have knowledge deficits that can hamper their ability to offer appropriate contraceptive methods to their patients. For example, many clinicians are uncertain about the risks and benefits of IUDs and lack knowledge about correct patient selection and contraindications 16 17 18. Improving health care provider and patient knowledge about contraceptive methods would improve access and allow for safer use.

Restrictive Legal and Legislative Climate

Unfavorable legal rulings and restrictive legislative measures can impede access to contraceptives for minors and adults and interfere with the patient–physician relationship by impeding contraceptive counseling, coverage, and provision. With the U.S. Supreme Court’s Burwell v Hobby Lobby ruling that a closely held corporation can exclude contraceptive coverage from workers’ insurance benefits based on the company owner’s religious beliefs, additional employers may now refuse to comply with federal birth control coverage requirements. Some corporations also may use the legal process to challenge laws in states that ensure equitable contraceptive coverage.

Additionally, state lawmakers may be emboldened to further restrict access to contraception. For example, in 2012, Arizona revisited its decade-old law that ensures equitable insurance coverage for birth control and authorized a much broader class of employers to exclude this coverage from employee health insurance plans. In 2013, bills designed to weaken existing contraceptive equity laws or to allow employers—secular and religious—to deny contraceptive coverage to their workers were introduced in more than a dozen states.

Measures that define life as beginning at fertilization and, thereby, conferring the legal status of “personhood” on fertilized eggs also pose a significant risk to contraceptive access. Supporters of “personhood” measures argue erroneously that most methods of contraception act as abortifacients because they may prevent a fertilized egg from implanting; if these “personhood” measures were to be implemented, contraception opponents may assert that hormonal contraceptive methods and IUDs are illegal.

Currently, 20 states restrict some minors’ ability to consent to contraceptive services 19. Although the Title X family planning program and Medicaid require that minors receive confidential health services, state and federal legislation requiring parental notification, parental consent, or both for minors who receive contraceptive care has been increasingly proposed 20. Even though policies should encourage and facilitate communication between a minor and her parent or guardian when appropriate, legal barriers and deference to parental involvement should not stand in the way of needed contraceptive care for adolescents who request confidential services.

Cost and Insurance Coverage

More than one half of the 37 million U.S. women who needed contraceptive services in 2010 were in need of publicly funded services, either because they had an income below 250% of the federal poverty level or because they were younger than 20 years 8. One in four women in the United States who obtain contraceptive services seek these services at publicly funded family planning clinics 21. The number of women in need of publicly funded contraceptive services increased by 17%, or nearly three million women, from 2000 to 2010 8. Expanding access to publicly funded family planning services produces cost savings by reducing unintended pregnancy. In 2010, federal and state governments saved an estimated $7.6 billion because of contraceptive services provided at publicly funded centers 8. As the ACA goes into effect, obstetrician–gynecologists can be strong advocates for continued expansion of affordable contraceptive access, which has been shown to be cost neutral at worst and cost saving at best 22 23.

High out-of-pocket costs, deductibles, and copayments for contraception also limit contraceptive access even for those with private health insurance. Most private health plans cover prescription contraception, but cost sharing and formularies vary 24. In 2000, the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission concluded that a company’s failure to cover contraception is sex discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act as amended by the 1978 Pregnancy Discrimination Act 25. However, even when contraception is covered, women pay approximately 60% of the cost out of pocket compared with the typical out-of-pocket cost of only 33% for noncontraceptive drugs 26.

Under the ACA, all FDA-approved contraceptive methods, sterilization procedures, and patient contraceptive education and counseling are covered for women without cost sharing by all new and revised health plans and issuers as of the first full plan year beginning on or after August 1, 2012. This requirement also applies to those enrolled in Medicaid expansion programs. However, many employers are now exempt from these requirements because of regulatory and court decisions. Women covered through exempted employers, as well as women such as unauthorized immigrants who remain uninsured in spite of the ACA, will not benefit from coverage introduced by the ACA. For these women, cost barriers will persist and the most effective methods, such as IUDs and the contraceptive implant, likely will remain out of reach.

Other insurance barriers include limits on the number of contraceptive products dispensed. Data show that provision of a year’s supply of contraceptives is cost effective and improves adherence and continuation rates 27. Insurance plan restrictions prevent 73% of women from receiving more than a single month’s supply of contraception at a time, yet most women are unable to obtain contraceptive refills on a timely basis 26 28 29.

Some insurers, clinic systems, or pharmacy and therapeutics committees also require women to “fail” certain contraceptive methods before a more expensive method, such as an IUD or implant, will be covered. All FDA-approved contraceptive methods should be available to all insured women without cost sharing and without the need to “fail” certain methods first. In the absence of contraindications, patient choice and efficacy should be the principal factors in choosing one method of contraception over another.

Another strategy for improving access to contraception is to allow over-the-counter access to oral contraceptive pills 30. However, over-the-counter provision may improve access only if over-the-counter products also are covered by insurance or other cost supports in order to make them financially accessible to low-income women.

Objection to Contraception

Efforts to frame access as an issue of conscience or religious belief rather than as essential health care have grave consequences for women and can create major obstacles to obtaining insurance coverage, receiving prescriptions from health care providers, obtaining medications from pharmacists, and receiving care at hospitals. Ten of the 25 largest health systems in the country are Catholic-sponsored facilities 31. Mergers between religious (predominantly Catholic) health care facilities and other hospitals are common and often result in decreased access to reproductive health services, including contraception 31. Advocacy by clinicians and community leaders has been effective in preserving access in some communities 32 33.

Pharmacist refusals to fill contraceptive prescriptions or provide emergency contraception, as well as pharmacies that refuse to stock contraceptives, are considerable barriers. Although some women have access to an alternative pharmacy, women in areas where pharmacies and pharmacists are limited, such as rural areas, may find insurmountable obstacles to obtaining prescribed contraception. In eight states, laws specifically prohibit pharmacy or pharmacist refusal; seven states allow refusal but prohibit pharmacist obstruction of patients’ receipt of medications; and six states specifically allow pharmacists to refuse to dispense legally prescribed medications without protections for patients, such as a referral requirement 34. The American Pharmacists Association supports the establishment of systems to ensure patient access to contraception when individual pharmacists refuse provision 35. The College supports unhindered access to contraception for all women and opposes health care provider and institutional refusals that create obstacles to contraceptive access.

Unnecessary Medical Practices

Common medical practices prevent easy initiation of contraception. There is no medical or safety benefit to requiring routine pelvic examination or cervical cytology before initiating hormonal contraception. The prospect of such an examination may deter a woman, especially an adolescent, from having a clinical visit that could facilitate her use of a more effective contraceptive method than those available over the counter 36.

Another common practice is requiring one medical appointment to discuss initiation of a LARC method and a second for placement of the device or requiring two visits to perform and obtain results from sexually transmitted infection testing. Clinicians are encouraged to initiate and place LARC in a single visit as long as pregnancy may be reasonably excluded. Sexually transmitted infection testing can occur on the same day as LARC placement, and women do not require cervical preparation for insertion 37 38. Insurer payment policies should support same-day provision by providing appropriate payment and reimbursement for multiple services performed during a single visit. Similarly, health care providers should encourage patients initiating combined hormonal contraceptives to start on the day of the medical visit 38.

Institutional and Payment Barriers

Appropriate compensation for contraceptive services enables health care providers to provide the full range of contraceptive options, which improves quality of care and optimizes health outcomes. Public and private payers can contribute to efforts to improve contraceptive access by working with health care providers to ensure appropriate payment for clinician services and to provide reimbursement for contraceptive devices at acquisition cost levels.

Twenty-seven percent of reproductive-aged women choose to undergo permanent sterilization once they have completed childbearing 39. Institutional and payment barriers often prevent women from receiving this desired procedure. Many sterilization procedures are planned immediately postpartum, which is an advantageous time because the woman is not pregnant, is within a medical facility, and often has insurance coverage. However, many women do not obtain their planned postpartum sterilization because of limited operating room availability, lack of motivation or coordination on the part of the health care team (obstetricians, nurses, and anesthesiologists), perceived increased risk because of the postpartum state, or misplaced or incomplete sterilization consent forms. In one study, almost 50% of women who did not receive a requested postpartum sterilization were pregnant again within 1 year 40. Federal regulations require a specific sterilization consent form to be signed 30 days before sterilization for women enrolled in Medicaid or covered by other government insurance 41. This requirement eliminates immediate postpartum sterilization as an option if the paperwork is not completed in advance and available at the time of delivery. This regulation, created to protect women from coerced sterilization, also can pose a barrier to a desired sterilization. Women with commercial or private insurance who desire sterilization are not mandated to follow the same consent rules. Revision of the federal consent mandate in order to create fair and equitable access to sterilization services for women enrolled in Medicaid or covered by other government insurance would improve access. These revisions can be balanced by educating patients and obtaining informed consent to address concerns of coercion 41.

Highly effective LARC methods are underutilized, and promoting affordable access to LARC methods for current low-use populations, including adolescents and nulliparous women, may help reduce unintended pregnancy 37. In addition to the high up-front costs associated with these methods, another common barrier is inadequate reimbursement for LARC devices in certain settings. Providing effective contraception postpartum and postabortion can be ideal because the patient is often highly motivated to avoid pregnancy, is within the health care system, and is not pregnant. Appropriate reimbursement for LARC methods immediately postpartum or postabortion can be difficult to obtain.

Health Care Inequities

Rates of adverse reproductive health outcomes are higher among low-income and minority women. Unintended pregnancy rates are highest among those least able to afford contraception and have increased substantially over the past decade 5. The unintended pregnancy rate for poor women is more than five times the rate for women in the highest income bracket 5. Low-income minority women have higher rates of nonuse of contraceptives and are more likely to use less effective reversible methods such as condoms 42. Additionally, low-income women face health system barriers to contraceptive access because they are more likely to be uninsured, a major risk factor for nonuse of prescription contraceptives 42. Publicly funded programs that support family planning services, including Title X and Medicaid, are increasingly underfunded and cannot bridge the gap in access for vulnerable women. To address these barriers, the ACA has encouraged states to expand Medicaid eligibility for family planning services to greater numbers of low-income women. Also, in states that choose to expand Medicaid under the ACA, fewer poor women will lose Medicaid eligibility postpartum.