Feb. 22, 2024, News Staff — AAFP members now have two new sources to information conversations with sufferers about emergency contraception: a summary of the standing and use of emergency contraception, and a list of answers to widespread affected person questions.
The brand new sources complement a growing list of tools being added to the AAFP’s Center for Women’s Health to make sure members at all times have the most recent details about reproductive well being and different scientific subjects they should take care of sufferers and handle practices.
“Household physicians are sometimes a affected person’s first level of contact for any medical questions or issues, together with questions on reproductive well being,” mentioned Danielle Carter, M.D., FAAFP, a member of the Academy’s Fee on Well being of the Public and Science who helped AAFP employees create the brand new sources. “Given the confusion surrounding the perform and availability of emergency contraception, the time-sensitive nature of its use and the time constraints related to a busy day within the workplace, having a fast reference like this shall be useful to sufferers and physicians alike.”
The abstract features a desk describing the strategies of emergency contraception at the moment obtainable in america and clarifies that emergency contraception shouldn’t be confused with abortifacients. It additionally gives scientific steerage on follow-up care.
The FAQ addresses greater than a dozen widespread affected person questions on emergency contraception, protecting the way it works, when and the way quickly to make use of it, and what unintended effects it might trigger. The FAQ contains tables with solutions about particular strategies of emergency contraception.
Each sources draw from an award-winning AFP review article on evidence-based contraception, with supplemental info from different companies, such because the World Well being Group and the American Faculty of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.
Carter mentioned household physicians can simply combine components of the FAQ into present affected person handouts or in-office academic supplies.
“Physicians can use these as a fast reference throughout affected person care, and even to confidently develop protocols for recommendation and/or prescriptions to be given by triage or workplace nursing employees,” she mentioned.
Carter added that emergency contraception must be mentioned as a part of a complete reproductive care plan, particularly for many who don’t want being pregnant and don’t use one other type of contraception.
“Whereas most sufferers do request emergency contraception episodically, sufferers must be endorsed at preventive care visits about easy methods to acquire it and the timing of its use,” Carter mentioned. “It’s equally essential that sufferers really feel empowered to have these discussions with their physicians.”
The AAFP created the brand new abstract and FAQ because the Biden administration issued new steerage to guard clinicians’ rights of conscience and sufferers’ entry to emergency and contraception care, which aligns with Academy advocacy.
A remaining rule titled Safeguarding the Rights of Conscience as Protected by Federal Statutes, which takes impact on March 11, partly rescinds a 2019 coverage that may have eliminated federal funding from well being care services that required clinicians to carry out companies or make referrals for companies that went in opposition to the clinicians’ ethical or spiritual beliefs. The rule doesn’t alter present conscience protections; as an alternative, it prices HHS’ Workplace for Civil Rights with fielding complaints, specifies which conscience legal guidelines the OCR will implement and the way, and encourages doctor practices and different coated entities to voluntarily put up discover of conscience rights.
The rule strengthens protections for clinicians who decline to take part in care that violates their private ethics. The AAFP Congress of Delegates known as on the Academy to advocate for such protections in a 2021 resolution. Final 12 months the AAFP told HHS in a letter that the rule as proposed struck an acceptable steadiness between upholding clinicians’ proper to not take part in non-emergency care they really feel violates their private morals and making certain acceptable entry to take care of all sufferers, particularly traditionally marginalized populations.
“The AAFP makes a transparent distinction between declining to take part in a process based mostly on ethical grounds versus denying entry to care to a person affected person,” the letter mentioned. “Declining to take part in a process based mostly on ethical grounds is a protected proper; declining to take care of particular teams of individuals or people with out enough discover or an acceptable referral is an unacceptable shirking of well being care professionals’ duty to take care of sufferers and is opposite to the important thing underpinnings of the Code of Medical Ethics.”
An updated FAQ in regards to the rule highlights a number of different factors which will have an effect on household physicians, together with:
The AAFP’s Center for Women’s Health is a hub that can proceed to develop with scientific steerage, journal articles, information tales, advocacy updates and different sources from the AAFP and exterior organizations. Bookmark the web page for the most recent sources because the Academy expands its choices on girls’s well being subjects all year long.
Members can be taught extra about household medication being pregnant care in mild of the U.S. Supreme Court docket’s choice in Dobbs v. Jackson Ladies’s Well being Group case in an online CME course. A brand new on-demand CME exercise on reproductive well being is scheduled to launch in March on the Academy’s On Demand CME page.
Copyright © 2024 American Academy of Household Physicians. All Rights Reserved.
