—Responsible and frustrated

Dear Responsible and frustrated,

With insurance coverage being as complex as it is these days your frustration is understandable. Hopefully some clarification will assist you and your girlfriend in accessing birth control.

In general, partners and spouses of Columbia students are not able to receive routine health care on campus. The exception is in the case of an urgent medical condition, when a student's partner or spouse may visit Urgent Care on a fee-per-visit basis. You won't be able to obtain prescription contraceptives for your girlfriend from Primary Care because health care providers can generally only give prescriptions to the intended recipient. While your girlfriend may not be able to receive care on campus, if she works in New York and has insurance through her employer, she should be able to access birth control through her insurance. In 2002 New York State began requiring all insurance companies to provide contraceptive coverage. Birth control coverage is not uniform across all states, however over half of women living in the U.S. now live in states that require some kind of contraceptive coverage by insurance companies.

Columbia's on campus health services and student insurance plan are designed primarily for students; however students may add coverage for certain dependents. This won't necessarily solve your problem, because unless you are married, your girlfriend would not technically qualify as your dependent. Currently dependents of Columbia students may include:

• Your spouse
• Your same-sex domestic partner
• Your unmarried children under 19
• Newborn or newly adopted children

As a side note, if your girlfriend did become pregnant, and you wanted to add her to your student health insurance plan as a dependent, you would only be able to do so if you were legally married. But don't elope just yet! There are other options. Read on…

If your girlfriend does not have insurance through her employer, or works in a state that does not mandate contraceptive coverage, she may choose to visit Planned Parenthood or a community health clinic to access birth control and women's health services. Some Planned Parenthood centers and community clinics also participate in certain public insurance programs that provide health care coverage based on income, check with your local health center for more information.

Another effective contraceptive option, particularly if money is tight for you and your partner, is to use condoms (which, of course, have the added bonus of providing protection against sexually transmitted infections). At Columbia free condoms are available in the Alice! Health Promotion office as well as at Primary Care Medical Services. Many Resident Assistants (RAs) also stock condoms on their floor. Condoms are also relatively inexpensive at drug stores if you need to pick some up when you're away from campus.

It's admirable that you would like to take responsibility with your girlfriend for using birth control. While you may not be able to do this through Columbia's insurance plan, you can certainly offer to split the cost of the method you choose and your partner's visits to Planned Parenthood and prescription fees. As you've noted, birth control can be pricey, but the cost of a pregnancy is quite a lot more, and you may decide together that investing in birth control now is money well spent.

Best of luck!

Alice

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