People Living with HIV

There are over 126,000 people living and diagnosed with HIV (PLWH) in California and approximately 5,000 new infections each year. Access to quality, affordable health care is critical to improving the health of PLWH and preventing new infections. Medi-Cal, California’s version of the federal Medicaid program, provided health coverage to 45,033 PLWH in 2014. The […]

Shared decision-making (SDM) is considered best practice in health care. Prior studies have explored attitudes and barriers/facilitators to SDM, though few have focused on HIV care. We interviewed 53 patients in HIV primary care clinics in California to understand the factors and situations that may promote or hinder engagement in SDM. This manuscript, published in […]

A bill recently introduced in the California legislature (AB1534) seeks to better integrate HIV treatment with primary care by requiring state-regulated health insurance plans to permit HIV specialists to be primary care providers if the HIV specialist requests primary care provider status and meets the health plan’s eligibility criteria for all specialists seeking primary care […]

This diagram illustrates the pathways that a low-income person living with HIV and in need of behavioral health services might follow through the healthcare system in California. Based on interviews with key informants and service providers in 2015-2016, the figure highlights how services could be provided according to the individual’s insurance coverage and level of […]

This study explored how a sample of California counties previously used the HIV Set-Aside of the SAPT Block Grant, which contributed over $12 million statewide to HIV early intervention services and hepatitis C screening and linkage to care in FY2015. The HIV Set-Aside was discontinued in FY2016 when California’s AIDS cases dropped below the eligibility […]

PrEP is a highly effective medication for preventing HIV. Those interested in PrEP and enrolling in a Covered California health plan should carefully weigh the costs of a Truvada® prescription, copays for regular doctors’ visits and laboratory tests, and monthly premiums. With Gilead’s copay card, PrEP is affordable (less than $400/year) on all Covered California […]

PrEP is a highly effective medication for preventing HIV. Those interested in PrEP and enrolling in a Covered California health plan should carefully weigh the costs of a Truvada® prescription, copays for regular doctors’ visits and laboratory tests, and monthly premiums. With Gilead’s copay card, PrEP is affordable (less than $400/year) on all Covered California […]

Young gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men (YMSM), particularly black and Latino YMSM, are at highest risk for HIV in California and across the United States. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that if current rates persist, half of all black—and a quarter of all Latino—gay and bisexual men […]

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that 156,300 (95% CI 144,100–165,900) Americans living with HIV in 2012 were unaware of their infection. To increase knowledge of HIV status, CDC guidelines seek to make HIV screening a routine part of medical care. This paper examines how routinely California primary care providers test for […]

We sought to identify people living with HIV/AIDS from Medicare and Medicaid claims data to estimate Medicaid costs for treating HIV/AIDS in California. We also examined how alternate methods of identifying the relevant sample affect estimates of per capita costs. We analyzed data on Californians enrolled in Medicaid with an HIV/AIDS diagnosis reported in 2007 […]