One Simple Fix Could Prevent Unwanted Pregnancies and Save Millions of Dollars

A new study finds that providing yearlong oral contraceptive supplies would solve a lot of problems.

Rich Pedroncelli/AP

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

A new study finds that providing women with a yearlong supply of oral contraceptive birth control—rather than the typical three-month supply—could be the key to millions of dollars in health care savings and fewer unintended pregnancies.

Researchers at the Department of Veterans Affairs and the University of Pittsburgh found that supplying women in the VA with a yearlong supply of oral contraceptive pills would prevent an estimated 583 unintended pregnancies annually. The change would also save the government $2 million a year by reducing spending on pregnancy-related care, such as prenatal and newborn care, which would otherwise be covered by the VA health insurance. 

The researchers used mathematical modeling based on existing data from the VA healthcare system, not clinical trials, to come to their conclusions, since the VA does not currently provide yearlong supplies. They found that gaps between oral contraceptives refills caused by shorter supply windows are a major factor in the prevalence of unintended pregnancies.

“Missing only a couple days of pills can lead to an unintended pregnancy,” says Colleen Judge-Golden, a co-author of the study. “When you just give a year’s supply of contraception up front to women, those women actually have a reduction in the amount of gap in their medication coverage.”

Like the VA, most health insurers currently cap the number of pills that women can pick up at one time without being charged, typically at 30, 60, or 90 days of coverage. Ostensibly, this is to prevent potential pill wastage: Insurers are concerned women may switch contraceptives during the year or stop taking them, which would leave the insurers paying for unused medication. However, Judge-Golden believes this particular concern misses the costs of unintended pregnancies.

“This is not a completely irrational thing to be worried about, but what our analysis and other studies have actually found is that those concerns are really overshadowed by the prevention of pregnancy,” she says. “Pregnancies cost a lot more than pills.”

Another concern voiced by insurers is that yearlong contraceptive supplies discourage patients from getting regular check-ups. However, study co-author Dr. Sonya Borrero, the associate director of the VA’s Center for Health Equity Research and Promotion, point outs that most doctors prescribe birth control on a yearly basis.

“Those are unjustified, ungrounded critiques of this,” Borrero says. She notes that doctors typically write prescriptions for a full year, even if patients can only pick them up a few months at a time. She also feels that restricting birth control access in order to force women to receive other types of health care services is problematic. 

“We don’t want to create a situation in which we hold one type of service hostage to sort of force people to come receive care,” Borrero says. “I think we really want to elevate women’s reproductive autonomy here, so it’s really important to uncouple access to birth control from other medical services.”

While this study has implications for oral contraceptive pills more broadly, Borrero believe that as women have become a larger part of the VA health care system, it’s important to pay attention to the unique needs of female veterans.

“I think it’s really important to recognize that women veterans who use the VA for their health care are a particularly medically vulnerable population,” she says. “They really have a high burden of medical and mental illness, a lot of which were incurred during their military service, and they also have a really high prevalence of sexual trauma history. So all of these things can exacerbate the negative impact of an unwanted pregnancy and can make pregnancy more risky for these women.”

In addition, she notes, the VA does not provide coverage for abortion services, even when the mother’s health is at risk. “So I think the high prevalence of chronic medical and mental conditions, coupled with no abortion coverage, really makes it critical that we really support these women’s use of contraception,” she says.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate