(Bloomberg) -- Health-care providers in states like Illinois, California and Kansas are scrambling to prepare for an influx of women seeking abortions if the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade this month. 

Illinois stands to become one of the country’s leading destinations for abortion-seekers, given its safe-haven status surrounded by states poised to make abortion illegal if Roe is overturned. Providers in some parts of Illinois are readying for an influx of anywhere from two to five times the number of patients they’d see normally.

“Everyone who is an abortion provider  -- whether clinics or hospital-based providers  -- are all ramping up capacity in anticipation for this decision,” said Michelle Brown, an obstetrician-gynecologist at Northwestern Hospital and Planned Parenthood. “We are uniquely bracing ourselves in our state.”  

The Planned Parenthood affiliate in southern Illinois added a “regional logistics center” staffed by case managers who help patients deal with travel and the financial aspects of abortion. 

“We started our preparations years ago with the understanding that in southern Illinois, we would at some point be the place where upwards of half the country may be looking to go,” said Colleen McNicholas, chief medical officer for Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis region.

Illinois may see the biggest percentage rise in out-of-state abortion seekers, but health-care providers from California to Massachusetts are getting ready, too. Some 22 states are expected to outlaw abortion if Roe is overturned, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive health research group, leaving millions of women with no abortion options in their home states. Women seeking miscarriage treatment are likely to end up with fewer care options as well. 

‘Huge Uptick’

In Kansas, Planned Parenthood could see a quadrupling of abortion patients, though it’s only a projection at this stage. It will open a new clinic on the Kansas side of Kansas City. Abortion in the section of Kansas City that’s within Missouri’s borders is already highly restricted and a statewide ban can be expected if the court overturns Roe.

Meanwhile, California Gov. Gavin Newsom has proposed $125 million for the state’s abortion providers. FPA Women’s Health says it’s adding capacity to its 25 clinics and streamlining processes so patients can “fly into California for care and fly home immediately.”

More than half of abortions nationwide are done using the abortion pill. The Reproductive Health Access Project is seeing a “huge uptick” in demand from primary care doctors who want to learn how to prescribe abortion pills, according to executive director Lisa Maldonado. The non-profit’s online trainings usually draw 25 or 50 people, she said. The latest one a few weeks ago brought in 250.

Primary care doctors who prescribe abortion pills “really could help manage the surge,” Maldonado said. 

FPA Women’s Health in California says it will aim to route more eligible Californians to getting the abortion pill by mail while preparing for out-of-staters who need quicker surgical options.

Some of the restrictive abortion laws already passed in various states have provided a dry run for what’s to come. In Illinois and beyond, some clinics have already seen a “massive ripple effect” from new abortion restrictions in Texas, Missouri and elsewhere, said Planned Parenthood’s McNicholas.

The St. Louis affiliate projects an additional 14,000 out-of-state patients if Roe is overturned. It works with more than 60 abortion funds, which raise money for patients who can’t afford abortions, McNicholas said. Three out of four women seeking an abortion in the US are considered low-income, and McNicholas said their average patient needs between $900 and $1,500 for an abortion. 

Rural Hospitals

Hospital abortion care costs even more, and generally about 4% of abortion patients need inpatient care because they are too medically complex to be treated in clinics.

Chicago-area hospital teams have developed an abortion “cash-pay” package of about $5,000 for uninsured patients, a bargain compared with typical prices of more than $20,000, said Brown, who is also Legislative Chair for the Illinois section of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. Hospitals are fundraising and relying on subsidies from abortion funds to pay for care, she said.

The proportion of abortions requiring hospital care is also likely to rise in Illinois, Brown said, because out-of-state patients will arrive later in pregnancy. “A procedure that would have been safe to do in a clinic setting for someone who was seven weeks pregnant may no longer be safe when they are 18 weeks pregnant,” she said.

The outlook is particularly concerning at rural hospitals, said Brock Slabach, chief operations officer at the National Rural Health Association. 

Many rural hospitals no longer deliver babies and are now bracing for a surge in births because some patients won’t be able to get an abortion, Slabach said. That’s a problem because more than half of rural counties don’t have hospital-based obstetrics services, he added.

His group is working with the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and a nurse midwives group to prepare. “It will be a real problem,” he said. “We were already understaffed and under-resourced anyway.”

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