Costs and consequences of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's recommendations for opt-out HIV testing.

ABSTRACT:

Background

The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently recommended opt-out HIV testing (testing without the need for risk assessment and counseling) in all health care encounters in the US for persons 13-64 years old. However, the overall costs and consequences of these recommendations have not been estimated before. In this paper, I estimate the costs and public health impact of opt-out HIV testing relative to testing accompanied by client-centered counseling, and relative to a more targeted counseling and testing strategy.

Methods and findings

Basic methods of scenario and cost-effectiveness analysis were used, from a payer's perspective over a one-year time horizon. I found that for the same programmatic cost of US$864,207,288, targeted cou

SUBMITTER: Holtgrave DR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1891318 | biostudies-literature | 2007 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature