Investigators from Columbia University Release New Data on Managed Care (Aging Bodies, Future Technologies: Health Insurance Coverage and Stratified Biomedicalization): Managed Care

2025 OCT 08 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- Data detailed on Managed Care have been presented. According to news reporting out of New York City, New York, by NewsRx editors, the research stated, “How do insurers adjudicate coverage for politically controversial treatments? How do these decisions shape access to care for older women? I address these questions by studying two types of care that have seen wide variation in health insurance coverage over the past two decades: gender-affirming surgery and fertility treatments. Drawing from an analysis of archival materials and insurance coverage decisions, I theorize the temporal aspect of biomedical stratification by analyzing how insurers adjudicate coverage for transgender women seeking facial feminization surgery and non-transgender women seeking invitro fertilization (IVF) and Intrauterine Insemination (IUI) services.”

Our news journalists obtained a quote from the research from Columbia University, “I argue that the delayed process through which health insurers expand coverage for politically controversial treatments stratifies access to care. Advances in technological development have enabled the expansion of both types of treatments and insurance coverage has brought treatment to a wider array of people.”

According to the news editors, the research concluded: “At the same time, because insurers take longer to greenlight politically controversial treatments, older women who may have sought and benefited from these technologies in earlier years are now deemed too old for care.”

This research has been peer-reviewed.

For more information on this research see: Aging Bodies, Future Technologies: Health Insurance Coverage and Stratified Biomedicalization. Social Science & Medicine, 2025;383. Social Science & Medicine can be contacted at: Pergamon-elsevier Science Ltd, The Boulevard, Langford Lane, Kidlington, Oxford OX5 1GB, England. (Elsevier - www.elsevier.com; Social Science & Medicine - http://www.journals.elsevier.com/social-science-and-medicine/)

Our news journalists report that additional information may be obtained by contacting Tara Gonsalves, Columbia University, Knox Hall, 606 122ND St, New York, NY 10027, United States.

The direct object identifier (DOI) for that additional information is: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2025.118348. This DOI is a link to an online electronic document that is either free or for purchase, and can be your direct source for a journal article and its citation.

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