Insurance snafus deter women’s health innovations

Promising advancements in women’s health are running into insurance obstacles. The Milken Institute’s Women Health Network says insurance coverage and reimbursement are major barriers to bringing women’s health innovations to patients, citing gaps in research, inadequate billing codes and physician engagement. The report notes that the three primary pathways toward commercialization are self-pay, commercial payer coverage and public programs such as Medicare and Medicaid. It urges companies to consider reimbursement early rather than treating it as a final hurdle, noting that  “delayed payer engagement results in misaligned evidence generation, gaps in sex-specific evidence that complicate coverage decisions and reimbursement uncertainty that deters investment.”