Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2016 May;105(5):1113-1118.
doi: 10.1016/j.fertnstert.2016.01.017. Epub 2016 Jan 27.

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

Eli Y Adashi  1 , Laura A Dean  2
Affiliations
Free article
Review

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

Eli Y Adashi et al. Fertil Steril. 2016 May.
Free article

Abstract

An overview of access to and use of general infertility and assisted reproductive technology (ART) services in the United States (U.S.) shows a declining trend for the ever-use of infertility services. 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 U.S. can only be characterized as dismal. 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 U.S. 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.

Keywords: ART; Access to care; barriers; infertility; underwriting.

PubMed Disclaimer

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

MeSH terms

LinkOut - more resources