Affordable Care Act Gives Women Greater Access To Prevention Services

Chronic health prevention is a challenge for American health care system, but due to the fact that chronic diseases - which constitute about 75 percent of their healthcare spending, and that cause 70 percent of deaths each year - is often preventable, much care has been pushed into the spotlight.

Affordability is a serious problem on the services of prevention. Currently, most of these therapies, even those with insurance coverage, subject to cost sharing as coinsurance, deductibles and copayments. They reduce the probability that a patient is to use preventive services. Studies have shown that this is especially common among women who avoid preventive services such as Pap smears and mammograms when co-payments (albeit modest) are involved.

The new legislation, the Affordable Care Act now to help the availability and accessibility of these services by making it a requirement that all Americans get health insurance that covers these services without cost sharing. In this way, the health benefits that are preventive in women's health such as screening for cervical cancer, mammography, and others will be covered without having to pay anything out of pocket.

Also, for people on Medicare, the Affordable Care Act recommended additional preventive services for free. However, it understands and acknowledges that women have special health needs throughout their lives.

Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has announced it is taking additional measures of prevention services for women who are breast-feeding support devices, well-woman visits, prevention and screening for domestic violence. From August 2012 to cover all of these cost-sharing.

In addition, others seek another way to fight against pocket expenses and provide an incentive for early detection of complementary health insurance such as insurance against cancer. This, in many states, giving women money for preventative wellness tests, like mammograms, Pap smears and other tests good.