What is Options Counseling?
05 Aug, 2019
At Your Options Medical, all of our services are offered at no cost, and no insurance is required. We want to ensure there are no barriers to receiving our services for any woman or couple facing an unexpected pregnancy. You can learn more about why our services are free by reading our blog.
In addition to the medical services of pregnancy testing and ultrasound, each patient is offered a free service called options counseling.
What is options counseling?
Options counseling is a time when the patient advocate meets with the patient and reviews information on all three of her legal pregnancy options. Additionally, the patient is offered a simple brochure on each option available to her. Here is what an average visit for a patient looks like:
- After filling out paperwork, a patient advocate will ask the patient a few general questions to get to know her and her situation better.
- Next is the first part of the options counseling. The advocate will briefly review the information in the aforementioned brochures and answer questions the patient may have.
- After the pregnancy test has been administered, the nurse will review abortion risks and procedures with the patient. The patient may ask questions during this time as well.
- After the test result is provided, the patient may be offered an ultrasound according to the result of the test.
- If an ultrasound is given, after this exam the patient will meet again with the advocate to discuss the findings of the ultrasound and review options more in depth.
What is presented in the options brochures?
The brochure on abortion reviews the types of procedures available in the state of Massachusetts and the risks that are involved with each procedure (if you are wondering why we discuss abortion with our patients, check out our blog to learn more). The adoption brochure reviews some of the Massachusetts state laws surrounding adoption and discusses the difference between open adoption, semi-open adoption, and closed adoption.
Finally, the parenting brochure offers a list of resources in the area for parents so they know where to find help financially, mentally, physically or just educationally so they can learn how to be the best parent they can be.
In addition to the options brochures, Your Options has a plethora of other resources to offer our patients. However, for their first visit we keep it simple as to not overwhelm patients. It is important to note that while Your Options offers additional resources such as referrals to adoptions agencies, information on new parent support groups, HI-SET programs, and more, Your Options Medical does not provide referrals for abortion. Patients are informed of this on the phone and during visits.
For questions about our services or to learn more, please contact us today!