Washington's HIV prevention program just ran out of money
There's a big problem with Washington state's HIV prevention program for uninsured people. It's called PrEP DAP and it just ran through a whole year's worth of funding in only three months.
On top of that, it will stop supporting clients on Dec. 1.
Elizabeth Crutsinger-Perry, who directs the infectious disease program at the Washington state Department of Health, says a sudden rise in prices for generic medications surprised her and her staff.
"Typically, we can monitor these programs on a quarterly basis and feel fairly confident that that no significant edits or changes would need to be made in three months," she said. "That clearly was not the case in this three months."
Crutsinger-Perry says the monthly cost per patient rose from around $50 to more than $1,300. And insurance plans did not pick up the extra costs.
She says her program is also short staffed, and got a surge of patients from other programs.
A national program called Ready, Set, PrEP may be an option for people kicked off PrEP DAP.
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John O'Brien
Producer
John O’Brien is KUOW's All Things Considered Senior Producer. He spends his days setting up interviews with newsmakers on subjects from politics and public health to arts and culture. John learned to make radio starting in 2006 as an intern on KUOW’s The Conversation with Ross Reynolds.
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