New study finds shopping for contraception online is safe and efficient

Today is World Contraception Day, and a new study finds that obtaining birth control online is largely safe. Researchers recruited seven patients to act as shoppers interested in getting birth control from nine different online vendors. Here’s more: 

• Visits: The online clinic “visits” lasted approximately seven minutes per patient, and included filling out a questionnaire. Vendors sometimes followed up via text, or with a phone or video call. 
• Medications: A prescription was sent to a local pharmacy on the same day or the medicines were mailed to the patients’ homes within a week, on average. The total annual cost for a prescription and visit fees for an uninsured patient was around $300. 
• Adherence to guidelines: The vendors adhered to proper prescription guidelines 93% of the time, although none of the companies checked with the patients to see if they could ingest a daily pill.