For various personal reasons, I can’t breach the subject of birth control with my parents. Once I get to campus, I know that it is available to students at the Student Health Center, but how how much would it cost? How does the insurance work for this situation?
Here is some info: http://shc.ua.edu/womens-health/ and http://shc.ua.edu/faq/
Maybe give them a call for specific costs?
broach
If you are using your parents’ health insurance, they will find out.
As squeamish as many parents are about discussing sex with their kids, I expect most parents would quietly prefer their daughters be on it than not.
Could you claim it’s for a medical issue rather than sex? Plenty of people, myself included, use birth control for reasons other than not wanting children.
^^^ It’s claim common to claim that BCPs are for regulating an irregular period.
Yes, if need be, you can tell them that you’re using it for non-bc purposes. I’ve been on bc since my early teens due to cysts. BCPs for the first several years and the implant for the last 4+ years.
They will see if you’ve made a bc claim through insurance. You can go to places like planned parenthood and get them without the use of insurance but it’s going to cost you (otherwise, birth control is generally free now).
You can go to them and ask extensive questions - they’ve dealt with this many, many times before.
My friend that got an IUD without her parents’ knowledge says that it does show up on insurance, but the procedure itself is not listed. I would 1. ask the school health center and 2. phone your insurance company.
I had to go on birth control because of my migraines and endometriosis. You can tell them you’re cramping to death every month. The local health department sometimes offers the pill for free.
BCPs are also used to control acne for some young women.
^ yes, my D takes the pill for acne.
You’d be surprised. Some parents believe that if they prevent their daughters from having birth control methods their daughters will magically stop having sex. My father believed that for both of his daughters and took objection to us having BC on his insurance. (We both ignored him. His response was to try to kick us off as early as possible. Luckily we both found alternative ways to secure our own before that happened.)
If there’s a Planned Parenthood nearby, that’s another low-cost option.
It’s astonishing how boneheaded some people are about BC. I know a girl whose cramps were routinely so debilitating she couldn’t get out of bed, and still her parents refused to even consider BC as an option.
OP, if your parents aren’t too difficult, you can try talking to them about it as control for an irregular period, etc. If you really can’t discuss it with them at all, check out Planned Parenthood. It will probably cost you money without insurance, but it’s hard to say how much.