Nurx wants you to get birth control from an app

Many doctors believe birth control should be sold over the counter. One company believes it should be sold over an app.

Currently, birth control can be a hassle. Women in need of oral contraception have to get a prescription and keep up with doctors' visits to maintain it.

One startup is trying to solve that inconvenience, while staying within the rules of prescription medicine. The telehealth startup Nurx will prescribe birth control through an app and deliver it on demand.

The startup — an alum of the accelerator Y Combinator — just raised $5.3 million for this plan in a Series A round. The round was led by Union Square Ventures with participation from six Y Combinator partners and other investors.

"We figured this was a low-hanging fruit we could do something about," Nurx CEO Hans Gangeskar told Mashable. "Doctors are prescribing birth control to friends of friends, but that's something only privileged women have access to. We saw that as a real opportunity for telemedicine since birth control is so safe."

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists supports over-the-counter access to oral contraceptives. In other countries, oral contraception is available without a prescription.

A customer who wants birth control through Nurx can download the app or go to the company's website and select the brand of contraceptive she prefers. The customer has to answer some questions about her health, and a doctor employed by Nurx will review the answers before sending a prescription to a partner pharmacy.

The app can also provide emergency contraceptives like Plan B and non-oral contraception like the NuvaRing.

Nurx accepts insurance, verifying it through photos of insurance cards. Customers without insurance (or who prefer not to use it for contraception) can also pay cash, which averages around $15 a month. For customers using insurance, out-of-pocket costs are generally $0 as mandated by the Affordable Care Act.

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

Nurx launched in December 2015. The company won't disclose how many people use its service now, but Gangeskar says they do fall into some distinct categories. Many customers are minors, uncomfortable going to their parents' doctors to be prescribed contraception. Others are in rural areas, where getting to the gynecologist every six months is difficult. Many use Medicaid.

One thing most Nurx customers have in common is that contraception is often their only healthcare need. They're not on other medications, so they're more likely to let doctors' visits slide, threatening the likelihood they'll keep taking an oral contraceptive.

Right now, Nurx is operating in California, New York and Washington state. Next are Pennsylvania, Illinois, Ohio and Washington, D.C., Gangeskar said. Regulations surrounding telemedicine differ by state.

In addition to birth control, Nurx also supplies Truvada for PrEP, the drug that reduces that chance of HIV transmission by more than 90 percent. People taking PrEP often fall in a similar category, unlikely to visit the doctor for other reasons.

The process to be prescribed PrEP by Nurx is slightly more complex, requiring regular lab work and a negative HIV test (as is required to take the drug). Everyone using Nurx for PrEP uses insurance, Gangeskar said, since PrEP costs around $1,800 a month out of pocket.

The telemedicine model being used by Nurx and some other startups is attracting the attention of investors. Union Square Ventures said in a blog post announcing its funding round that Nurx would operate nationwide by 2017.

“Lack of affordable access to medical care is an issue that many people face today,” Union Square Ventures partner Andy Weissman said in a statement. “Nurx is building transformative technology that changes the way people interact with health care, leveraging messaging platforms, mobile apps, bot and embedded systems to lower costs and simplify the patient experience through telemedicine.”