Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, digital visits for contraception care shot up in states that mandated telehealth be reimbursed on the identical fee as in-person visits, based on new analysis printed in JAMA.
Researchers discovered that telehealth accounted for 30.5% of contraceptive visits in parity states and 21.6% of visits in nonparity states throughout the pandemic. Thatup from telemedicine accounting for 1.5% of all contraceptive visits pre-pandemic.
“Findings demonstrated a rise in telecontraceptive visits in states that mandated reimbursement parity vs states that didn’t. This improve didn’t correspond to a rise in complete contraceptive encounters, suggesting that, though reimbursement parity might have expanded entry to telehealth choices, it didn’t enhance entry to contraception total.”
The cross-sectional research checked out outpatient claims of ladies ages 14 to 49, for 10 months earlier than the pandemic after which throughout the pandemic. The research included 9,279,294 contraceptive claims amongst 34,109,287 enrollees.
WHY IT MATTERS
Based on the American School of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, 49% of pregnancies are unintended. Telehealth has typically been pitched as a solution to develop entry to contraceptive care companies.
“Will increase in use of telehealth for contraception (telecontraception) throughout the pandemic current a chance to develop entry to contraception by way of telehealth,” authors of the analysis wrote. “Reimbursement parity mandates carried out by some states in response to COVID-19 required insurers to reimburse for telehealth on the identical fee as for in-person companies, doubtlessly growing entry to telecontraception.”
THE LARGER TREND
At the moment there are a lot of digital well being corporations working within the contraceptive care area. Nurx, which received its begin providing contraception and PrEP prescriptions, has now raised $113 million after finishing a Collection C funding spherical, and entered into settlement to merge with Thirty Madison earlier this yr.
Easy Well being, which makes use of telehealth to offer clients with contraception, lately bought reproductive care firm Emme for an undisclosed quantity.
One other participant within the area is the Tablet Membership, which scored $41.9 million in enterprise funding in 2021.
