WASHINGTON, Aug. 1 (UPI) — New U.S. health insurance plans are required beginning Wednesday to provide new preventive benefits at no cost to covered women as part of healthcare reform.
The new rules require insurers to cover a comprehensive set of preventive services that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services estimates will benefit 47 million women. They include contraceptives, breastfeeding supplies and gestational diabetes screening for pregnant women, prenatal care, routine breast and pelvic exams and pap tests used to detect potentially precancerous and cancerous processes in the cervix.
Other benefits that became effective Wednesday as part of a decade-long rollout of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act signed into law by President Barack Obama March 23, 2010, include testing for the human papillomavirus — which can cause warts and, in a minority of cases, lead to cervical cancers — screening and counseling for HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases and infections, and screening and counseling for domestic and interpersonal violence.
