New law makes it easier for Colorado women to get birth control

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo — The Albertsons/Safeway Company is making getting birth control almost as easy as getting your groceries.

Thanks to a new Colorado law called the Collaborative Pharmacy Practice Agreement, pharmacists are allowed to provide some health care services.

“The first service pharmacies were allowed to offer is oral contraceptives to women over the age of 18 without a prescription,” said Nikki Price, Director of Pharmacy Operations at Safeway in Colorado.

Affordability is one of the common concerns among women about birth control.

“You’re just getting to college or you just got out of high school. You don’t have the funds to pay for a huge doctor bill to get birth control,” said Hannah Guillermo, a Colorado Springs mom.

“There’s a number of factors, you got economic factors, you’ve got–they’re not prepared to have a child and we don’t necessarily want women to have abortions either,” said David Jeffery, a local father.

Albertson’s/Safeway pharmacies are the first in Colorado to publicly offer this service to women. Price said women often suffer gaps in healthcare, and she believes this a solution to the problem.

“Being able to offer continual care to all of our patients is important, especially with the large population moving into the state of Colorado,” Price said. “An individual changing insurance, with that they have to change primary care physicians, or maybe they just run out on the weekends. All of those things can cause a gap in women’s healthcare.”

If a customer comes in asking for birth control, she has to fill out a form and screening questionnaire. Some questions include: “Have you had a recent pregnancy?” “Are you currently nursing?” “What other medication are you on?”

Pharmacists then do a blood pressure screening.

“Based on that, our training that our pharmacists took, we would screen to see if they were eligible for us to dispense and write a prescription,” Price said.

That initial screening by the pharmacist is $45. You can use insurance, if you have it, to pay for the actual medication. Price said the company is working with insurance companies to eventually cover the cost of the screening as well.

Price said it will help the large number of women who don’t have a primary health care physician.

She also said it provides easier access to health care in all corners of our state.

“So really what this bill does, it allows pharmacists to use our background and knowledge of medication, where we can provide another access point to patients,” she said. “In many areas of Colorado, especially in our rural areas, pharmacists can help step in and provide some of these solutions, that we can be trained to do.”

Price said the whole process takes 15 to 20 minutes. It’s now available at all Colorado Safeway and Albertson’s pharmacies.