Finally. We have news about birth control that isn’t gut-turning.
Important delivery
Nurx, a new app service, is making getting a birth control prescription written and delivered to your home a breeze.
The app was created to help women in “contraceptive deserts” get prescriptions without visiting a doctor. A contraceptive desert is defined as “an area without at least 1 clinic to every 1,000 women in need of publicly funded contraception,” TechCrunch reports.
Once a doctor prescribes the pill, a pharmacy near the subscriber mails the prescription to the patient’s door. Price for pills range from $0 to $15 depending on insurance coverage. The app also allows a patient to ask their prescribing doctor questions about their prescription.
In addition to providing birth control, patients also can get Truvada for PrEP, a pill that helps treat the HIV-1 infection.
Right now, the service is only available in California, New York, Washington, DC, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Washington, Florida, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Virginia, and Texas.
Women in Texas, which is a well-known contraceptive desert state, could greatly benefit from this accessible service. Current statistics from Nurx show that 54 percent of women have unplanned pregnancies in Texas. That cost to tax payers comes to $2.9 billion. Gross public savings could come to $2.14 billion if unintended pregnancies are stopped.
But Texas isn’t the only state with contraceptive issues. The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy reports that nearly 20 million women in the U.S. live in contraceptive deserts, Leslie Heyer, global contraception expert and founder of Cycle Technologies, says.
“Even for women who do have reasonable access, seeing a health provider can be cumbersome,” Heyer adds.
“It requires time off work, travel, costs, etc. Having the ability to have safe contraceptive options available on-demand is a huge improvement.”
Access for all women
Access = empowerment. That fact is plain and simple.
Once women can choose from the vast variety of birth control options on the market, they can better find an option they like. And when a woman is happy with her birth control, she’s more likely to take her medication correctly and consistently, Heyer says.
“Mobile technology is giving women access to many contraceptive options and even changing the contraceptive options themselves,” Heyer adds. The Pill Club, PillPack, Pandia Health, and Planned Parenthood Care, are similar to Nurx. Other options include digital fertility apps.
Want to subscribe to Nurx? Click here to find out more.
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