Why Do Few Medicaid-Participating Physicians Provide Long-Term Contraception Care?

Medicare beneficiaries face challenges when accessing contraceptive or birth control care, especially long-acting birth control methods.

1 in 10 Medicaid patients receive long-acting birth control methods such as IUDs and implants from their primary care physicians, revealed study published in JAMA Health Forum.

“This study is first of its kind and uses a national dataset of all Medicaid claims filed in the U.S,” Mandar Bodas, a research scientist at the GW Milken Institute School of Public Health and lead author of the study, said. “In our analysis, we found that a physician’s characteristics - including their clinical specialty, age, gender and the Medicaid expansion status of their state – were associated with both providing any contraceptive care and with the number of beneficiaries provided contraceptive care,” Bodas said.

Contraception in Medicaid

This study suggests that ensuring access to contraceptive services among Medicaid beneficiaries may require policy and program approaches tailored to different physician specialties. For example, Bodas says that primary care doctors from certain specialties would need more training to provide the full scope of contraceptive care to their patients.

Condoms and Contraception-Types-Proper Use-Storage-Advantages-Disadvantages-FAQ
Condoms are an effective form of contraception. Condoms have been used for the past 400 years. They have been one of the most popular methods of contraception since the 19th century.

‘48% of physicians who treat Medicaid patients offered prescription contraception like the birth control pills, while only 10% of them provided longer-acting methods to their patients.’

“Previous research tells us that Medicaid beneficiaries face a number of barriers to accessing primary care, and our study finds that one of those barriers is lack of access to the full range of contraceptive methods,” Julia Strasser, one of the Primary Investigators of the research project and Director of the Jacobs Institute of Women’s Health at the GW Milken Institute School of Public Health, said.

“If a patient goes to a physician who is the only provider in the area that accepts Medicaid, and that physician only provides the birth control pill but not other methods, then it’s hard to say that the patient has reasonable access to all forms of contraception,” Strasser said.

By studying the primary care workforce that provides contraceptive care to this population, the research helps shed light on important factors that predict access to these critical health services, the authors said.

Test Your Knowledge on Birth Control Pills
Birth control pills are daily pills that contain hormones to control and change the body’s functions to prevent pregnancy. Its main function is to prevent the release of an egg during the monthly menstrual cycle. It also works on the mucus lining around the cervix by thickening it and making it difficult for sperm to enter the uterus and reach out to the eggs. The birth control pills also make the lining of the uterus thinner so that egg does not attach to the wall of the uterus. The best birth control pill can vary according to the age, needs of the user and other factors. Most women consider the contraceptive pills to be the best birth control method.

Source-Eurekalert

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Medicaid / Medicare are different governmental programs that provide medical and health-related services to specific groups of people in U.S. and managed by Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

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