ASRM Launches New Center for Leadership and Policy, Releases First Report
Dec 09, 2020
By: ASRM
Origin: ASRM Bulletin
Read the report here.
The report serves as a blueprint for making access to and innovation in reproductive health care a national priority. It offers decision-makers and thought leaders recommendations that ASRM hopes will serve as a blueprint for action for policymakers on both the federal and state levels in 2021 and beyond. Recommendations detailed in the report fall into three primary categories and include, but are not limited to, the following:
Recommendations to Expand Access to Reproductive Medicine
- Pass a national infertility insurance mandate. Specifically, require all health plans offered in group and individual markets to cover infertility treatment
- Establish permanent Infertility benefits for active-duty members of the U.S. military, veterans, and employees of the Veteran’s Administration
- Pass a national mandate to enforce insurance coverage for fertility preservation for those at-risk of iatrogenic infertility
- Increase funding for increased reproductive health education for students in middle and high schools, colleges and universities, medical schools and postgraduate medical training
- Increase funding for research in human reproductive disorders, including at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD)
- Lift the prohibition on human embryo research and allow the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to develop oversight of the ethics of research proposals
Regarding the Center’s launch and the report’s release, ASRM President, Hugh Taylor, MD, says, “I am excited by the potential of this new Center to influence and shape policies that will have a tangible impact for both ASRM’s members and the patients they serve. I can’t wait to see what the Center accomplishes and hope that this new report will gain the national attention it deserves--as reproductive medicine is a national priority that cannot wait.”
Ricardo Azziz, MD, MPH, MBA, ASRM CEO, adds, “This report and the Center serve to cement ASRM’s leadership on policy matters of importance to the reproductive health and medicine community. With experts spanning the field of reproductive medicine, ASRM is uniquely positioned to provide thought leaders and policy makers with the information and resources they need to make informed decisions to advance access to reproductive medicine and investments in medical research.”