What To Ask Your Gynecologist (Or Urologist), Molly Ginty, Ms.
One in four Americans will become infected with an STD in his or her lifetime. Even so, most doctors are not screening their patients for potential infection. Why? “Experts point to a lack of public awareness. People fail to grasp the fact that STDs are a real threat: transmitted through oral sex as well as intercourse, lurking in the systems of the mutually monogamous, and often asymptomatic or unnoticeable….” Molly Ginty in Ms. magazine points out that we don’t have any famous people volunteering to be the poster child of herpes or chlamydia. Another complication is that many insurance companies won’t pay for any tests they don’t deem “medically necessary.” Patients then have to cover the $20 to $60 proceedures. “… Doctors are left to their own devices to assess which patients are at risk.”
