Low-Income Women's Access to Family Planning

Iowa provides increased access to reproductive health care services through a Section 1115 family planning waiver.  The waiver allows the state to cover family planning services for women enrolled in Medicaid who would otherwise lose coverage postpartum and for women over the age of 12 and under the age of 45 with incomes at or below 200% of the federal poverty level.

Beneficiaries of family planning coverage available through the waiver are not required to pay premiums or co-payments for covered services.  Covered services include: medically necessary services and supplies related to birth control; pregnancy prevention and preventive services, including contraceptive management with a variety of methods, patient education, counseling, and referral as needed to other social services and health care providers; contraceptive counseling and information; contraceptive supplies, devices, implants and prescriptions; office visits, consultations, examination and medical treatment; laboratory examinations and tests; voluntary sterilization; HIV blood screenings/STI testing in conjunction with a family planning encounter.    

The waiver will expire on Jan. 31, 2011.  

Iowa Family Planning Fact Sheet, Ctrs. for Medicare and Medicaid Servs., Jan. 25, 2006 at http://www.cms.hhs.gov/MedicaidStWaivProgDemoPGI/MWDL/itemdetail.asp?filterType=none&filterByDID=-99&sortByDID=2&sortOrder=ascending&itemID=CMS028636&intNumPerPage=2000 (last visited Dec. 5, 2008); Iowa Family Planning Approval Letter, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Jan. 10, 2006 at http://www.cms.hhs.gov/MedicaidStWaivProgDemoPGI/MWDL/itemdetail.asp?filterType=none&filterByDID=-99&sortByDID=2&sortOrder=ascending&itemID=CMS028636&intNumPerPage=2000 (last visited Dec. 5, 2008), NARAL Pro-Choice America Survey of State Medicaid Offices