Services
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Visit #1 – Pre-Operative and Physician Consultation
Pre-Operative counseling is available Tuesday through Saturday mornings and some Thursday evenings. The fee is $100.00 and is credited towards the cost of your abortion with us. An appointment is necessary for this visit. You can expect to be in the clinic 2 to 3 hours.
Whether you decide to have a surgical abortion or a medical abortion (you must be less than 6 weeks and 6 days pregnant for this option), the State of Ohio has mandated that all women seeking an abortion must meet with the Physician at least 24 hours prior to that abortion taking place. Since that is the requirement, we use this visit to provide:
All aspects of your pre-operative consultation and signing of informed consent papers, ultrasound to accurately determine weeks of pregnancy, determination of blood Rh factor, completing paperwork, and your meeting with the Physician will be done on that day. You can expect to be in the clinic for 2-3 hours for this visit.
Women who are under the age of 18 must have a parent or guardian cosign the medical consent. Importantly, Ohio has a parental notification law which means that we have to notify your parent or guardian of your intention to have an abortion. For some patients this may present an impossible burden. When appropriate, we will help those patients to apply for a “Court Bypass” to this State of Ohio mandated requirement.
For women who are greater than 19 weeks 6 days pregnant we provide referrals to excellent clinics that provide abortions beyond Ohio statuates.
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Visit #2 – Your Abortion Procedure – Up to 19 weeks and 6 days of pregnancy
We perform abortions Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday mornings and Thursday evenings. You can expect to be in the clinic for 2 – 3 hours for this visit. We make appointments for this procedure at the time of the “Pre-Operative Consultation” visit.
At this appointment, you will make your final payment for the procedure, have the abortion performed, and then spend 15-45 minutes in the recovery room. During the recovery period you will be reminded of your post-operative instructions and be given an opportunity to choose a birth control method. We have samples of oral contraceptives and vaginal rings (NuvaRing™) for you to begin on the first Sunday after your abortion. You will also be given antibiotics to take home to reduce your risk of infection. If you were more than 12 weeks pregnant you will be given pills to help reduce your risk of bleeding. Injectable birth control Depo-Provera™ (DMPA) may be given at this time.
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Medical Abortion
Medical Abortion (Mifeprex™, Mife, or RU-486) – Up to 6 weeks and 6 days
Medication abortion is a safe and effective way to end an early pregnancy (less than 56 days as determined by ultrasound) using a combination of drugs. We use the drug Mifeprex™ (also known as RU-486 or mifepristone) in combination with Misoprostol (also called Cytotec™). Mifeprex™ is a progesterone-receptor antagonist, which is fancy language meaning that it works against one of the hormones that is necessary to maintain pregnancy. Misoprostol causes the uterus to contract and expel the pregnancy. This method of abortion is effective in terminating pregnancies up to 56 days (8 weeks) from the last normal menstrual period.
Women in the clinical trials cited several reasons for choosing medication over surgical abortion, including avoiding surgery or anesthesia, greater privacy, a greater sense of control, and wanting a method that is “more natural, like a miscarriage.” However, medication abortion requires more visits to the clinic and may take several weeks to complete.
We offer medical abortion Tuesday through Saturday on an appointment basis. You will make this appointment at the time of your “Pre-Operative Consultation” visit. You will be at Founder’s for about 1 to 2 hours to make final payment, receive your medication, and receive medical instructions.
You must return to Founder’s Women’s Health Center, or your Doctor, for an examination to determine whether the abortion has been completed. If it has not been completed, we’ll talk to you about your options, which could include a surgical procedure to end your pregnancy.
6 deaths have been reported with the use of Mifeprex™. Most of these have been due to an overwhelming and rare type of infection. It appears that Mifeprex™ can cause a very small percentage of women to be more susceptible to this infection. While there have been over 550,000 abortions performed using Mifeprex™, this makes the fatality rate approximately 1 in 100,000 abortions. This appears to make the choice of Mifeprex™ less safe than a surgical abortion which has less than a 1 in 500,000 chance of fatality.
At Founder’s Women’s Health Center we provide all patients having an abortion antibiotics to reduce the risk of infection. These infections are almost always caused by an organism that is already present in your body, and are not due to an organism introduced at the time of your abortion.
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Anesthesia Options for Abortion
- LOCAL ANESTHESIA — Most of our patients choose to have only local anesthesia and oral pain medication for their procedure. Generally the discomfort is no worse than bad menstrual cramps and only lasts a few minutes.
- N2O — If a patient desires, she can choose to have Nitrous Oxide (“laughing gas”) as many have experienced in their dentist’s office. This provides both pain and anxiety relief.
- ORAL NARCOTIC PAIN MEDICATION AND TRANQUILIZER — We also offer an oral narcotic pain pill with a tranquilizer for those patients that do not think that Tylenol or ibuprofen along with the local anesthetic will be enough relief for them. You must have someone drive you to and from the clinic if you choose this option – PLEASE NOTE: NO TAXI CAB.
- INTRAMUSCULAR NARCOTIC PAIN MEDICATION — We also offer an intramuscular narcotic pain injecton for those patients for those patients that do not think that Tylenol or ibuprofen along with the local anesthetic will be enough relief for them. You must have someone drive you to and from the clinic if you choose this option – PLEASE NOTE: NO TAXI CAB.
- INTRAVENOUS SEDATION — For patients with a high degree of apprehension about the procedure and/or pain, we offer intravenous sedation along with nitrous oxide. This is especially valuable for very young patients. You must have someone drive you to and from the clinic if you choose this option – PLEASE NOTE: NO TAXI CAB. For this option you may not have anything to eat or drink after midnight before your abortion. Also, you may not smoke or take medications before your abortion.
- INTRAVENOUS SEDATION AND N2O — For patients with a high degree of apprehension about the procedure and/or pain, we offer intravenous sedation along with nitrous oxide. This is especially valuable for very young patients. You must have someone drive you to and from the clinic if you choose this option – PLEASE NOTE: NO TAXI CAB. For this option you may not have anything to eat or drink after midnight before your abortion. Also, you may not smoke or take medications before your abortion.
Our fees for all aspects of your care can be found on the “Fees and Payments”page.
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Free Pregnancy Testing
We provide free pregnancy testing Monday through Saturday. Just drop off a first morning urine sample in a clean container with a tight lid. You may wait for the results or call before 3:00PM weekdays and 1:00PM on Saturday. Please call to schedule an appointment.
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Emergency Contraceptive or “Morning After Pill” (ECP)
You must receive ECP within 72 hours of having had unprotected intercourse. We do a pregnancy test to make sure that you are not already pregnant. We provide you with full information, instructions, and the pills. We provide appointments for this on weekdays from 9:00AM to 2:00PM and on Saturdays from 9:00AM to 12:00PM.
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Annual Gynecological Exams and Birth Control
We offer complete gynecologic checkups, and birth control prescriptions are offered, at physicians discretion. We provide these visits at as low a cost as possible to assist our patients who do not have health care coverage. Please call for an appointment. Sexually transmitted disease testing (gonorrhea and Chlamydia) is also available during these visits or at the time of abortion.When available, we provide our patients with free samples of birth control pills (various types and brands), or vaginal rings (NuvaRing™). |
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Contraception (IUDs)
If an IUD is right for you, we will help you to obtain an IUD. This device must be inserted by our Doctor during the first 5 days of your menstrual period and are effective contraception for 5-10 years depending on the device chosen. Please speak with the nurse for further information.
Injectable Birth Control (Depo-Provera™ or DMPA)
DMPA is available Monday through Saturday. You must have had a documented negative Pap smear with in the last 12 months and a negative urine pregnancy test to receive this medication. This medication is given every 3 months thereafter. An appointment is necessary for this visit.
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Insurance Considerations
Founder’s Women’s Health Center does not accept insurance as payment for your care. The most important reason for this is that all insurance companies (3rd party) expect a discount in order for us to be a provider. Since we try to keep the cost of our services reasonable for all of our patients, this would mean that we would have to charge our non-insured patients more for their procedure.
The second reason is that most health insurance in Central Ohio does not cover abortion. For example, all governmental insurance programs are prohibited from covering abortion services. That means that if you work for the Federal Government, State of Ohio, are on Medicaid, or on Medicare, your procedure will not be covered. There are a few exceptions for rape, threat to mother’s life, etc., and we will be glad to assist you if this applies to you.
The third reason is that most patients want to keep their decision to have an abortion private. If we have a contract with your insurance company, that contract requires us to submit a claim for all services we provide you, whether or not they cover the service. Once your paperwork is submitted to a 3rd party, we have no control over who knows your private business or how they may use this information. In essence, we can no longer guarantee your privacy.
If you do want to try to recover some or all of your expense from a 3rd party, we will provide you with documentation that you may submit to accomplish this goal. If they mail a check to us for your care, we will notify you and reimburse you within 5 business days for that amount.
Financial Need
Most of the time we have access to funds from organizations that feel a civic and moral responsibility to help women in extreme need. To qualify for this assistance, please make an appointment to come in and discuss your situation.
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