WHY WE DO IT

There are 4 key factors that we believe have the biggest impact on preventing endometriosis patients from receiving adequate care:

LACK OF AWARENESS AMONGST THE GENERAL PUBLIC

• Roughly 10% of women globally are affected by Endometriosis.

• Approximately 1 in 10 women and girls in the US are living with the disease. Many are suffering in silence, and many more are undiagnosed.

• Treating Endometriosis costs the nation an estimated $78-$119 billion annually, yet most people have never heard of the disease.

LACK OF EDUCATION AMONGST MEDICAL PROFESSIONALS

• The average time between symptom onset and diagnosis is 10 years.

• Currently, the only way to 100% confirm a diagnosis of endometriosis is via surgery.

• Many practitioners are unfamiliar with common symptoms of endometriosis.

• Hysterectomy is often presented as a cure, despite the fact that recurrence of endometriosis after hysterectomy is common.

• Current conservative treatments of presumed endometriosis are pain management and hormonal suppression. Both of these methods are flawed and can be entirely ineffective.

LACK OF GOVERNMENT FUNDING

• In 2024, The National Institute of Health (NIH) had a budget of $47 billion, yet Endometriosis received only an estimated $28 million. This equates to approximately $4.00 for research per endometriosis patient.

• The amount of funding received for Endometriosis is much smaller when compared to other diseases that affect close to the same number of women in the United States, such as diabetes, which received an estimated $1.1 billion.

LACK OF INSURANCE COVERAGE FOR EXCISION OF ENDOMETRIOSIS

• Despite validating research and favorable outcomes, excision surgery, which is a highly skilled and complex procedure shares the same insurance billing code as ablation surgery, which is far less complex. Because of this, a 6 hour excision surgery would be reimbursed to a surgeon at the same rate as a 1 hour ablation surgery.

• Due to poor insurance reimbursement for excision surgery, little incentive exists for more surgeons to train to learn the complex surgical technique.