A birth control pill (Photo : Reuters/Eric Gaillard)
For women, getting access to birth control methods has been often expensive, time-consuming and surrounded by a number of barriers. It is disheartening to know that doctor visits, co-pays and the cost of the birth control discourage women from using contraceptives at all.
However, this problem might be a thing of the past soon. A new health app called "Lemonaid" could potentially help eliminate the financial barriers and make birth control access easier for women, especially those with low-income.
The ultimate vision of the Lemonaid app, according to the Los Angeles Times, is to simplify the access to birth control and lower the costs associated with it. The app provides online access to women ages as low as 14 years and provides them a facility to request a prescription from the doctor in just $15.
In addition, women with no health insurance coverage can opt from the available birth control options in just $9. In a way, the Lemonaid Health app streamlines the otherwise lengthy and costly procedure to procure guidance through in-person doctor visits. Typically, the uninsured patients will have to pay anything between $20 and $50 to get access to birth control.
The Lemonaid has a turnaround time on their birth control between 2 hours and 24 hours, which depends on the time of filing a request. The $15 visit schedules by the patient enables the doctor to write a prescription that lasts for three months.
Depending on the need of the woman in question, the doctor may decide to fill the old prescription or write a new one altogether. After writing the prescription, the doctor then sends it to a pharmacy of the client's choice.
The launch of the Lemonaid Health app marks a breakthrough in terms of access to birth control, especially for low-income women. Financial barriers often limit low-income women from having a control over their own fertility because of restricted access to the expensive birth control measures and in-person doctor appointments.
This, in turn, leads to an increase in the number of unplanned pregnancies and the resulting poverty, reduced family stability and reduced measures for a child's success. An inequality in the society is thus created.
The Lemonaid Health app is currently available in seven states in the US - New York, Michigan, Florida, California, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Washington. This limits the ability of the women in other states to access the app, however, Lemonaide is soon planning to upgrade its access to all states in the US.
The following video talks about the new Lemonaid Health app:
