After Iowa lawmakers passed a ban on gender-affirming care for minors in March, managers of an LGBTQ+ health clinic located just across the state line in Moline, Illinois, decided to start offering that care.
The added services would provide care to patients who live in largely rural eastern Iowa, including some of the hundreds previously treated at a University of Iowa clinic, saving them half-day drives to clinics in larger cities like Chicago and Minneapolis.
By June, The Project of the Quad Cities, as the Illinois clinic is called, had hired a provider who specializes in transgender health care. So, Andy Rowe, The Project’s health care operations director, called the clinic’s insurance broker to see about getting the new provider added to the nonprofit’s malpractice policy.
“I didn’t anticipate that it was going to be a big deal,” Rowe said. Then the insurance carriers’ quotes came. The first one specifically excluded gender-affirming care for minors. The next response was the same. And the one after that. By early November, more than a dozen malpractice insurers had declined to offer the clinic a policy.
Andy Rowe, health care operations director for The Project of the Quad Cities in Moline, Illinois, has had trouble securing malpractice insurance coverage to treat minors who seek gender-affirming care.(Wezz De La Rosa)
Rowe didn’t know it at the time, but he wasn’t alone in his frustrating quest.
Nearly half the states have banned medication or surgical treatment for transgender youth. Indepen …
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After Iowa lawmakers passed a ban on gender-affirming care for minors in March, managers of an LGBTQ+ health clinic located just across the state line in Moline, Illinois, decided to start offering that care.
The added services would provide care to patients who live in largely rural eastern Iowa, including some of the hundreds previously treated at a University of Iowa clinic, saving them half-day drives to clinics in larger cities like Chicago and Minneapolis.
By June, The Project of the Quad Cities, as the Illinois clinic is called, had hired a provider who specializes in transgender health care. So, Andy Rowe, The Project’s health care operations director, called the clinic’s insurance broker to see about getting the new provider added to the nonprofit’s malpractice policy.
“I didn’t anticipate that it was going to be a big deal,” Rowe said. Then the insurance carriers’ quotes came. The first one specifically excluded gender-affirming care for minors. The next response was the same. And the one after that. By early November, more than a dozen malpractice insurers had declined to offer the clinic a policy.
Andy Rowe, health care operations director for The Project of the Quad Cities in Moline, Illinois, has had trouble securing malpractice insurance coverage to treat minors who seek gender-affirming care.(Wezz De La Rosa)
Rowe didn’t know it at the time, but he wasn’t alone in his frustrating quest.
Nearly half the states have banned medication or surgical treatment for transgender youth. Indepen …nnDiscussion:nn” ai_name=”RocketNews AI: ” start_sentence=”Can I tell you more about this article?” text_input_placeholder=”Type ‘Yes'”]