As part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Capacity Building Assistance (CBA) cooperative agreement, NASTAD released a Billing Coding Guide for HIV Prevention: PrEP, Screening, and Linkage Services. The guide, developed in collaboration with a coding consultant and the HIV Medicine Association, was updated in 2018. It assists health departments and other providers (such as health centers!) to navigate billing and reimbursement for HIV prevention services. 

To support Primary Care HIV Prevention funded health centers, HITEQ has prepared a crosswalk that maps PCHP tri-annual reporting metrics to UDS measures and/ or fields. This assists health centers in leveraging UDS reporting functionality in their EHRs to inform completion of the tri-annual progress report to HRSA.

HIV testing is one of the many ways we can End the HIV Epidemic. HITEQ's latest blogs offers strategies for leveraging your EHR to make HIV screening a breeze at your health center. 

In the 2020 UDS, United States health centers reported 4,984,733 of their 15,485,847 eligible medical patients (32.2%) were tested for HIV at least once after their 15th birthday and before their 66th birthday..

Community health centers have an important role in ending the HIV epidemic. In alignment with that important role, several UDS measures related to HIV screening, treatment, and prevention have been added for CY2020 UDS reporting.
 

These interactive infographics include HIV Indicators as well as information about underserved populations and patients who may be at increased risk of acquiring HIV, at the state level. Select your state in the upper right to get started. 

According to the Rural health Information Hub, the risk of contracting HIV can be greatly reduced through Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP), but the medication must be taken every day and patients need follow-up appointments every 3 months. Some patients often don't have access to it due to stigma, distance from the nearest specialist, and a shortage of primary care providers willing to prescribe and monitor PrEP.

This brief presents an overview of how health centers can utilize telehealth for PrEP access, or TelePrEP, for comprehensive care, and includes innovations and resources that health centers can utilize to extend these services to their patient populations.

Identifying candidates for PrEP can be challenging but not impossible. The first step to finding the right candidates involves understanding the criteria for PrEP. Not everyone is a great candidate for PrEP or can adhere to the frequent testing and monitoring required of PrEP patients. Some patients are comfortable using condoms and other HIV prevention methods, and providers should respect and affirm their decision.