After receiving letters announcing an end to primary care services, some Boise residents were worried about the state of Planned Parenthood in Idaho. It turns out that the change does not impact any of the group’s reproductive health services.
It’s true that Planned Parenthood is ending some primary care services in Boise, but its main services, things like women’s health and reproductive care, are safe and going strong.
Broader primary care services at the Boise clinic—treating things like high blood pressure, high cholesterol and more acute colds and flus—were part of a pilot program that started in 2016. Those particular services are the ones that are no longer being offered.
Kara Cadwallader, Vice President of Medical Affairs and Senior Medical Director for Planned Parenthood of the Great Northwest and Hawaiian Islands, had this to say about the program:
“It was successful. Our patients had great reports in terms of the quality and their happiness with the service, our staff could access the care and they loved it."
But the problem was that they just didn’t have many patients. Cadwallader pointed out that most of the people they were trying serve had access to those services elsewhere.
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