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The Office of the Inspector General (OIG) reported that only 20 percent of
Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA)-funded clinics adhered to
CDC recommendations to provide routine HIV testing for all patients ages 13 to
64. More than half (55 percent) of the clinics followed US Preventive Services
Task Force guidelines and focused HIV testing efforts on high-risk populations.
Another 24 percent of HRSA-funded clinics offered HIV testing only to patients
with HIV symptoms or those who requested HIV testing. One percent of the clinics
tested all adult patients for HIV.
OIG based these estimates on a 2011
survey of 500 randomly selected HRSA-funded health centers. In 2011, these
safety net clinics delivered primary care to more than 17 million patients in
community health, migrant health, homeless health, and public housing settings.
The centers attributed their failure to adhere to CDC recommendations to the
lack of funding for the clinics and patients’ inability to pay for HIV testing.
CDC’s 2006 recommendations were designed to increase the number of
people who know their HIV status and to remove stigma from HIV testing. The
recommendations included: testing all patients ages 13 to 64, unless the person
had already been tested for HIV or the prevalence of undiagnosed HIV was less
than 0.1 percent; offering HIV testing as a standard of practice and obtaining
consent for HIV testing as for other tests; and not offering prevention
counseling to everyone.
HRSA requires clinics to report the number of
persons tested for HIV, but most HRSA-funded clinics do not test enough people
to establish the prevalence of undiagnosed HIV in the community. OIG stated the
HRSA-funded clinics should also report the number of people diagnosed with HIV.
HRSA already requires clinics funded through the Ryan White HIV/AIDS program to
send this information.
The Friends of AIDS Foundation is
dedicated to enhancing the quality of life for HIV positive individuals and
empowering people to make healthy choices to prevent the spread of the HIV
virus. To learn more about The Friends of AIDS Foundation, please visit: http://www.friendsofaids.org.
TOGETHER WE REMAIN STRONG!
