Access to and use of infertility services in the United States: framing the challenges.

Access to and use of infertility services in the United States: framing the challenges.

Fertil Steril. 2016 Jan 27;

Authors: Adashi EY, Dean LA

Abstract
An overview of access to and use of general infertility and assisted reproductive technology (ART) services in the United States shows the ever-use of infertility services features declining trends. Moreover, the use of ART services lags relative to other member nations of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Access to and use of general infertility and ART services is primarily undermined by a severely constrained underwriting universe dominated by self-insured employers and by a finite number of state infertility insurance mandates. The contribution of traditional public and private payers to the underwriting of ART is limited. As compared with OECD member nations wherein the access to and underwriting of general infertility and ART services is universal, the current status quo in the United States can only be characterized as lugubrious. Further, the current state of affairs is socially unjust in that the right to build a family in the face of infertility appears to have become a function of economic prowess. Given the dominance of the self-insured employers as underwriters of general infertility and ART services, advocacy directed at this interest group is likely to prove most productive. Improving the state of underwriting of general infertility and ART services in the United States must be embraced as a central moral imperative and as an unwavering strategic goal of the professional societies entrusted with the reproductive health of women and men.

PMID: 26826275 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]

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