(The Free Press) – The 33-year-old patient who comes to me in tears is the one the gynecologist never properly educated because the insurance codes wouldn’t pay for it.

The annual visit for healthy women in their 20s and 30s is highly flawed. For years, it was essentially just the “three P’s”: the pill, the Pap, and a pat on the back as they walked out the door. But recently, updated cervical cancer screening guidelines correctly extended Pap smear intervals to three to five years. The visit, organized around the Pap for half a century, was never redesigned around what should have replaced it: a structured conversation about a woman’s reproductive plans and the arithmetic of her years. (Read More)