Medicaid expansion and provision of prescription contraception to Medicaid beneficiaries

Medicaid expansion increased access to care, but longitudinal patterns of contraception use after the Medicaid expansion have not been described. We evaluated the effects of Medicaid expansion on the amount and type of contraceptive prescriptions using the Medicaid State Utilization Dataset. Overall long-acting reversible contraception (LARC) use increased in both expansion and non-expansion states. In a difference-in-differences analysis, states that expanded Medicaid had no appreciable increase in per-capita prescription rates of LARC (p = 0.26) or short-acting hormonal contraception (p = 0.09) when compared to nonexpansion states. The Medicaid expansion was not associated with a change in per-capita LARC or short-acting hormonal contraception use.