Outpatient Induction Abortions Are So Dangerous Insurance Companies Refuse To Cover Them

Elective late-term abortion is dangerous. It's so dangerous that multiple insurance providers refuse to cover it outside of an equipped hospital setting, and some insurance providers won’t cover it at all. Late-term induction abortions, like the ones that happen at Curtis Boyd’s Albuquerque abortion clinic, come with a very serious risk to the woman’s safety and well-being. Providers of late-term abortion even include on their own consent forms that inducing an abortion late in pregnancy is “more dangerous” than inducing a live birth. This is why numerous insurance providers refuse to approve insurance coverage of outpatient late-term abortions. Cigna will not cover an outpatient induction abortion. According to their website, “Induction abortions must be done in a hospital so that you can be monitored during the entire procedure.” The website goes on to state that in the U.S., roughly 1% of abortions are inductions, and “Induction abortions may be used more in other countries around the world where skilled health professionals are not available or trained.”

Blue Cross Blue Shield won’t cover outpatient induction abortions either. Their website echoes Cigna’s sentiment, almost exactly saying induction abortions “must be done in a hospital” so the patient can be monitored throughout the entire abortion procedure. They too mention that the majority of induction abortions take place in other countries where trained medical professionals may not be available. And Presbyterian Salud’s Group Subscriber Agreement simply states, “Elective abortions after the 24th week of pregnancy are not covered.”

For insurance companies to be involved in a transaction, they have to be approving claims of legitimate healthcare procedures. Providing outpatient induction abortion falls below the professionally accepted standard of practice and national guidelines and is too dangerous to the patient for insurance providers to risk covering. That is why we see again and again that insurance providers protect their customers by limiting the coverage of induction abortions to fully-equipped inpatient hospital settings...if that.