Experts, Insurers Sound Off About COVID Test Payment Guidance
The Biden administration on Jan. 10 issued much-anticipated details about its new requirements for private health plans to pay for at-home COVID-19 tests, sparking immediate questions from industry observers and insurer trade groups alike about whether this is the right way to go about expanding testing access.
“We absolutely agree that a comprehensive national testing strategy is desperately needed and overdue,” says Ceci Connolly, president and CEO of the Alliance of Community Health Plans (ACHP). Members of the organization representing nonprofit health plans have been covering physician-ordered, lab-based tests — as required by pandemic relief legislation — throughout the public health emergency, she tells AIS Health, a division of MMIT. “Unfortunately, this approach runs the risk of confusing a lot of people, frustrating people who probably have trouble getting tests and probably not reaching the target audiences. So it misses the mark.”
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