As the leading nonprofit pharmaceutical company addressing women’s most pressing reproductive health needs, Medicines360 welcomes the new Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) rule restoring Title X health care providers’ right to give their patients comprehensive, medically accurate health information.
“At Medicines360, we know all women deserve access to the full range of contraceptive options and family planning care,” said Tina Raine-Bennett, MD, MPH, FACOG, Chief Executive Officer at Medicines360. This new rule will help women across the country access the care they need to take full control of their health and their futures — we thank HHS Secretary Becerra and the entire Biden administration for restoring Title X’s long-standing evidence-based clinical recommendations for providing high-quality family planning care.”
Title X is the nation’s only federal program dedicated to providing essential family planning and preventive health services and information to people with low incomes. The new rule replaces a 2019 rule that gave states the freedom to exclude some safety net providers from access to federal money from the Title X program and restores the important role the Title X program serves in providing low-income and uninsured women with affordable access to sexual and reproductive health services.
Affordable, accessible birth control will always be a public health concern. The 2019 rule was an unethical intrusion into the relationship between patients and their healthcare providers and millions of women across the country were impacted. A recent Guttmacher analysis concluded that the Title X provider network was reduced by half, decreasing the availability, accessibility, and affordability of quality women’s health and family planning services.
The new HHS rule will create an opening for highly qualified providers to return to the Title X program so that people across the country can better access critical care like birth control and cancer screenings.
