Twelve-Month Contraceptive Supply Policies and Medicaid Contraceptive Dispensing

Nineteen states have passed legislation requiring insurers to cover the dispensation of a 12-month supply of short-acting, hormonal contraception.

To determine whether 12-month contraceptive supply policies were associated with an increase in the receipt of 12-month or longer supply of contraception.

This retrospective cohort study included data from all female Medicaid enrollees aged 18 to 44 years who used short-acting hormonal contraception (ie, pill, patch, or ring) from 2016 to 2020.

Eleven treatment states where legislation required insurers to cover a 12-month supply of contraception to continuing users and 25 comparison states without such legislation prior to December 2020.

Proportion of contraception months received via a single 12-month or longer fill.

This study included 48 255 512 months of dispensed oral pill, patch, and ring contraception prescription supply among 4 778 264 female Medicaid enrollees. The majority of months of supplied contraception were for the contraceptive pill rather than the patch or ring. In a staggered difference-in-differences model, the 12-month supply policy was associated with an estimated 4.39-percentage point (pp) increase (95% CI, 4.38 pp-4.40 pp) in the proportion of contraception dispensed as part of a 12-month or longer supply, from a mean of 0.11% in treatment states during the first quarter of the study period. Investigating the heterogeneity in policy association across states, California stood out with a 7.17-pp increase (95% CI, 7.15 pp-7.19 pp) in the proportion of contraception dispensed as a 12-month or longer supply; in the other 10 treatment states, the policy association was less than 1 pp.

In this cohort study of Medicaid recipients using short-acting hormonal contraception, the passage of a 12-month contraceptive supply policy was associated with a minimal increase in the proportion of contraception dispensed through a 12-month or longer supply.