A commentary in Obstetrics & Gynecology, The Green Journal theorized that current widely used measures of prenatal care may miss critical opportunities to prevent maternal complications.
The commentary also said that upcoming changes to prenatal care billing and quality reporting could help reshape prenatal care and improve its ability to address risks.
Prenatal care reaches over 98% of people who give birth in the U.S., but current measures provide a limited view of its actual quailty. They mostly focus on whether or not a person receives prenatal care at all rather than whether or not they received the care they specifically needed.
Prenatal care offers multiple points to prevent complications, but the way it's measured and benchmarked now makes it difficult to assess whether or not those points were effectively taken. In January 2027, maternity care professionals will be able to bill separately for prenatal evaluation and management services, which could provide greater visibility of what services patients receive.
Clinicians, payers, health systems, and policymakers will need consistent approaches to collecting, standardizing, and sharing prenatal care data, experts say.
