Guest Post Kate Dickerson, National Women’s Law Center

 If you don’t already know, there are some really awesome parts of the health care law, one of the best being that people can get important preventive care services without a co-pay, deductible, or co-insurance(www.nwlc.org/preventiveservices). This is especially great for young people, like myself, who could not only use the money they could be saving on birth control every month, but might be more likely to get tested for STIs, a screening for HIV, or counseling during their annual visits. But as with everything, it can be complicated. You might have already tried to get one of these services and were still charged a co-pay.

If this has happened to you, the National Women’s Law Center has a great new resource to use. It’s a toolkit called “Getting the Coverage You Deserve: What to Do If You Are Charged a Co-pay, Deductible, or Co-Insurance for a Preventive Service.”(www.nwlc.org/preventiveservices)
The toolkit is set-up to provide you with information on coverage of preventive services in the health care law, information on how to find out if your plan is currently covering these services, and detailed instructions on how to appeal to your insurance company if they are not. It even includes draft letters for you to send to your insurance company! Sometimes when time is short or things seem too complicated to bother with, it’s nice to have something to turn to that makes it even just a little bit easier.
For more information on preventive services, please visit www.nwlc.org/preventiveservices. Check out the information and if you have questions or need help dealing with your insurance company, let the National Women’s Law Center know by calling 1(866)Pill4Us or email pill4us@nwlc.org.