DPH finds promise in Arizona in HIV care

In an effort to seek innovative ways to assist HIV patients with their treatment costs, the Georgia Department of Public Health recently sent Infectious Disease and Immunization Program members Libby Brown, Tiffany Hudson, Gay Campbell and Linda Thomas to Arizona to investigate a relatively new program, the Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan (PCIP). They met with Steven Bailey, Ryan White Part B, Care and Services Program Manager with the Arizona Department of Health Services.

PCIP was created as part of the nation’s new health insurance law, the Affordable Care Act. The PCIP program was designed to make health insurance available to people who have been denied coverage by private insurance companies because of a pre-existing condition. PCIP provides a health coverage option for people who have been uninsured for at least six months, have a pre-existing condition or have been denied health coverage because of their health condition, and are U.S. citizens or reside in the U.S. legally.

“We are excited about PCIP because we believe that it is the alternate funding source to the AIDS Drugs Assistance Program (ADAP),” says L. William Lyons, Director, Office of HIV/AIDS, Infectious Disease and Immunization Program, Georgia Department of Public Health. “PCIP provides more services than ADAP, including doctor visits, hospitalizations and prescription drugs while ADAP only covers medications.”

For years, Georgia relied on ADAP as a primary tool to provide medications for those living with HIV and AIDS. ADAP is a state-administered program that provides HIV/AIDS medications to low-income individuals living with HIV who have little or no coverage from private or third party insurance.

“The ADAP model is sound and though we have used it for years, new programs such as PCIP appear to offer more in the way of holistic care," says J. Patrick O'Neal, MD, Director of the Division of Health Protection with DPH. “We learned a lot from Arizona and are looking at numbers as we contemplate paying the insurance premiums, co-pays and deductibles for Georgians living with HIV through PCIP.”

Georgia also participates in another model for the HIV/AIDS population, the Pharmaceutical Assistance Program. Most all of those people on ADAP’s wait list are receiving medications through this program.

-Story by Sandra Roberts, DPH Communications

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