Oregon pharmacists wrote 10% of all birth control prescriptions since landmark law passed

Oregon’s first-in-the-country law that allows pharmacists to prescribe contraception has reached many people who weren’t already using birth control, an initial study found.

Nearly 74% of all prescriptions written by pharmacists were to people who had not used the pill, patch or ring in the month prior. A majority of those had not been using birth control within six months prior, either.

“What that means is pharmacists are reaching women who are at the highest risk of unintended pregnancy,” said Dr. Maria Rodriguez, lead researcher and associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology in the OHSU School of Medicine.

The Oregon Health & Science University study was the first to assess how effective the 2015 state law is. While seven other states have followed suit, and Wisconsin considers a similar bill this year, Oregon was the first to train and empower pharmacists to prescribe pills, patches or rings.

Now, 75% of Oregonians live in the same zip code as a pharmacy that offers the service.

However, the program has not been heavily promoted by the state. So while researchers see the numbers as promising, they apply to only about 3% of women used a pharmacist for access to birth control.

Still, that resulted in pharmacists writing 10% of all new oral and transdermal contraceptive prescriptions in the state, which indicates that those at risk of pregnancy have largely continued to get that prescription renewed.

Just under half of all pregnancies in Oregon are unplanned, which includes unwanted pregnancies, and about half of those end in abortion. Rodriguez said that women who are uninsured or underinsured make up the majority of those. So, if the health system can reach people in more places, Rodriguez thinks that huge percentage could go down.

The researchers estimated that providing prescriptions to so many women who weren’t using birth control has resulted in averting more than 50 unintended pregnancies, which would have cost the state about $1.6 million.

However, the data shows places the program could be tweaked or invested in, she said.

For instance, the majority of the people who got their birth control from pharmacists went to retail chains in urban areas. That could lead future efforts to boost use of the law to focus more on rural areas, or train more pharmacists at stores like CVS or Walgreens to know how to approach someone about the service.

Often, those conversations happen when a woman comes in for emergency contraception, such as Plan B. Or, it could happen when someone comes in for a flu shot or vaccine.

Oregon’s Medicaid rules allow the state to reimburse pharmacists for birth control prescriptions. Private insurance does not. Rodriguez hopes that early statistics can help state officials and leaders in health care change that.

“I think there’s a move to looking at contraception as a regular part of health care maintenance,” Rodriguez said. “It should just be a regular question that anyone who is capable of getting pregnant is asked.”