美国国家公共电台 NPR Birth Control Apps Find A Big Market In 'Contraception Deserts'

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

You know, there seems to be a smartphone app for everything. You need a taxi, you use a ride-sharing app. You want food, you have delivery apps that are a dime 1 a dozen. Well, now access to birth control is a few clicks away. Online services allow patients to avoid waiting rooms, pharmacies 2, even political controversy 3. But is it safe to skip the doctor? We have two reports now - one from California, which is providing the service, and another from Texas, where women are using it. First, Lesley McClurg from member station KQED in San Francisco.

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LESLEY MCCLURG, BYLINE 4: It's nearly 8 o'clock at night. Rachel Ralph trudges 5 up the stairs to her apartment.

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RACHEL RALPH: I'm very happy it's the end of the day.

MCCLURG: She works long, erratic 6 hours at an accounting 7 firm in Oakland, just across the bay from San Francisco. The floor of her artsy apartment is covered in mail. She picks up a package.

RALPH: It's just basic birth control pills. I've been on the same kind forever.

MCCLURG: She ordered a three-month supply of pills from an app called Nurx. It's one of several digital ventures, like Maven and Lemonaid, that provide contraception. Ralph heard about the service about six months ago when she was regularly working 12-hour days. She coordinated 8 as much of her life as possible through apps.

RALPH: Food was delivered. Dinner was often delivered. Anything I could get sent to my house with little effort, the better.

MCCLURG: Millennial 9 women like Ralph were some of the first users of Nurx. Hans Gangeskar is one of the founders 10 of the San Francisco startup. He wanted to make it easier for women to access birth control.

HANS GANGESKAR: There's no offering for people who need something quickly from the healthcare system and then sort of just want to go on with their life.

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MCCLURG: Lounge music plays in the background at Nurx headquarters, an upscale brick loft 11. Most of the company's employees are 20-somethings dressed in skinny jeans and T-shirts. Many consider themselves activists 12 trying to prevent unplanned pregnancies 13.

GANGESKAR: We naively 14 thought that if you go to a doctor, even if it's in a really red state and in a really small town, and you, like, suffer through the judgment 15 and the questions, that you would walk out with a prescription 16 to birth control. And the fact that that's not true really surprised us.

MCCLURG: That's why patient interactions take place almost exclusively in online chats. Jessica Horwitz is a nurse practitioner 17 for the company who consults with patients.

JESSICA HORWITZ: Maybe they don't feel comfortable saying to their doctor in front of them, you know that birth control I was on before, like, killed my sex drive.

MCCLURG: The whole process is pretty simple. After users log into the app, they fill out a medical questionnaire.

HORWITZ: They tell us about their medical history. They give us a blood pressure check.

MCCLURG: Then a clinician, like Horwitz, reviews the answers and makes a suggestion for a pill, a ring or a patch. The morning-after pill is also available. If the patient has a question about the product, they can send a chat.

HORWITZ: And it doesn't matter what time of day it is, someone responds.

MCCLURG: Then a prescription is sent to a pharmacy 18, and the drugs are mailed out. Jennifer Conti is a gynecologist at Stanford University. She says that process is safe, but something is lost in virtual medical care.

JENNIFER CONTI: The downside with making it too simplistic is that a lot of times in real life, there's follow-up questions.

MCCLURG: Conti says face-to-face interactions allow for more nuanced care, which she says is especially necessary for patients with medical complications.

CONTI: That's the situation in which you want to be seeing an actual gynecologist and talk in person about what might be the right method for you.

MCCLURG: But seeing a gynecologist is difficult for some women. Nurx sells contraception in 18 states. And some of their customers live in areas with no easy access to women's health services. For them, a smartphone is another way to prevent pregnancy 19. For NPR News, I'm Lesley McClurg in San Francisco.

ASHLEY LOPEZ, BYLINE: And I'm Ashley Lopez in Texas, where many women live in these so-called contraception deserts. Claire Hammons is one of them. She lives in a small community in Central Texas about an hour and a half outside of Austin. It's called Llano.

CLAIRE HAMMONS: It's a very small town. There's a population of 3,000 people. But we have a lot going on. We're a huge art town. We have the Llano River. We're surrounded by state parks.

LOPEZ: Living in a small town like Llano has its drawbacks. There's only one doctor, and there are no clinics nearby. For Hammons, this means getting health care isn't easy. And Hammons says what she needs the most is birth control pills.

HAMMONS: I've been taking birth control since I was 16 because of endometriosis.

LOPEZ: Without birth control pills, Hammons is in a lot of pain every month. And a while ago, she had a particularly hard time getting a prescription. That's because she lost her health insurance.

HAMMONS: I really did not have - literally 20 have the money to go to the doctors, period. And the local doctor - the only doctor, you know - is $140 to get in.

LOPEZ: She would also have to pay out of pocket to pick up the pills every month at a pharmacy. And Hammons says she just couldn't afford it. But about six months ago, Hammons went online and found out about Nurx. The app offers birth control pills at a price she can afford, and she doesn't have to pay to see the doctor. Hammons says finding Nurx has been...

HAMMONS: Really amazing, and awesome 21 and saved me a lot.

LOPEZ: Texas has become a big user base for the app. Dr. Brook 22 Randal is a physician based in Austin working for Nurx. She says patients come from different backgrounds and use the app for different reasons.

BROOK RANDAL: A lot of them are low-income women who may not have a low-cost clinic available to them in the communities where they live.

LOPEZ: In 2013, Texas passed an abortion 23 bill that led half the states' clinics, which performed abortions 24, to close. Clinics that often also provided birth control and other medical services.

RANDAL: And so many of those women will tell us that they would've had to drive a really long distance in order to get to a clinic where they could get birth control economically. And so we provide an important service for those women.

LOPEZ: Advocates say the state has long struggled to serve low-income women seeking contraception. And access also got worse when Texas lawmakers cut funding for the state's family planning program. Stacey Pogue with the Center for Public Policy Priorities in Austin says the cuts came at a time the state's population was growing and more women were seeking services.

STACEY POGUE: The ability of our safety net system to meet those needs and deliver health care, to actually get health care to women who are looking for contraceptives and well-woman exams - that has certainly been diminished.

LOPEZ: Pogue says it's a good thing women are finding ways to get birth control pills through technology. But she says this app doesn't give women access to more effective birth control, like IUDs and implants 25. It also is not a substitute for clinics that provide lifesaving services like pap smears 26, breast exams and cervical cancer screenings. For NPR News, I'm Ashley Lopez in Austin.

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