21-05-2025
‘Astonishing': HIV screening policy change normalizes getting tested, experts say
AUSTIN (KXAN)– An HIV screening opt-out policy suggested by Central Health, a Travis County Hospital District, helped break the barriers that stemmed from HIV testing– and the numbers were astonishing.
Central Health Senior Director Megan Cermak told KXAN's Tom Miller, that the campaign helps their patients not 'slip through the cracks' because some Illnesses and conditions were not being properly detected until it was too late.
In 2018, the Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS) identified Central Texas as a 'hot spot' for new HIV diagnoses, Cermak said. A policy change in HIV screenings, however, made a difference to save lives.
Back in the day a positive HIV diagnosis felt like it was the end of the world- especially during the AIDS epidemic in 1995. However, a press release from Central Health stated in 2025, that fear has been shifted due to the accessibility and lifesaving treatment options made available for patients.
'Today, a person with HIV can manage the condition properly with the right care,' said the release.
Although the fear over HIV diagnosis has slightly simmered, life-threatening gaps still continue to exist and a big part of the problem is due to screening.
Central Health's implement in policy changes for HIV screening made efforts to raise awareness and increase testing. The health center created a policy that included HIV testing as part of any blood screenings; mandating HIV screening on blood tests unless patients opted out.
For more than 30 years the CommUnity Care's David Powell Health Center has provided HIV treatment and prevention for all Central Texans, including Travis County, the release said.
Cermak shared with KXAN the impacts Central Health leads through its HIV screening policy and how it combated the stigma around it.
'The HIV screening policy, it's exactly what it sounds, so we make HIV screening a routine part of healthcare. So in your annual exam when you get a blood draw and you're screened for diabetes or cholesterol, you're also screened for HIV,' Cermak said.
Cermak added that this helps patients reduce the stigma around HIV screening because it becomes a routine part of healthcare.
'Patients and the providers have responded so positively because it helps reduce stigma, and it makes what could have been an uncomfortable conversation a normal part of healthcare,' Cermak said.
Cermak told KXAN the outcome from this policy change to implement HIV screenings as part of the routine exams was 'astonishing.'
'HIV screening rates for our Medical Access Program (MAP) patients in Travis County were 64 percent higher than the state average and 84 percent greater than the national average,' Cermak said.
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