Moniz, now a clinician and birth control researcher at the University of Michigan Medical School, said she and colleagues have seen many similar instances in which poor pregnant women on Medicaid wanted long-lasting contraception — IUDs or other birth control implants — immediately after delivery, only to be turned away because Medicaid billing procedures didn't accommodate them.
But that is changing. At least 17 states have changed procedures so their Medicaid health care programs for the poor will pay hospitals to insert the implants at the most opportune moment — when women are already at the hospital having a baby. That often is the only opportunity that many of them have for a face-to-face discussion with doctors about the best methods of birth control. It's also the occasion to do something about it.
