Insurance For Home Covid Tests – Covid Updates!

The turnout of the major population to celebrate the holiday season in the US has created a shortage of test kits for the at-home rapid test. The highly transmissible Omicron variant has further made the matter worse. President Joe Biden and his team are working to launch a website that will make at-home tests available through mail for 500 million Americans very easily and at a cheaper rate. The Federal government is also initiating the development of rapid test sites to cover the area where Covid cases are high. 

Insurance For Home Covid Tests – Covid Updates!

Viewing the current mutation of the variants and soaring Coronavirus spread with Omicron variant President Joe Biden took the initiative to provide free tests to save his people. Moreover, to increase the availability of home tests in the country, the US administration is encouraging insurers and health plans to provide people with home tests through pharmacies, retailers, or any other sources where they can avoid paying from their own pockets.

This move by the US administration has become cost-effective for millions of Americans by removing their financial constraints to get the Covid test at home very easily. 

In December, the Pentagon made a contract with Milliporesigma to build a manufacturing unit in Wisconsin for producing nitrocellulose membranes that are required for display at-home test kits results.  

The announcement by the Joe Biden administration on Monday relieved Americans from either getting reimbursement of the Covid-19 test from their insurance companies or getting a free Covid test done. 

As per the new policy declared by the White House, the person covered under an insurance plan has to purchase a counter Covid-19 diagnostic test that has been approved or authorized by the Food & Drug Administration only, so as to get the coverage of the test under their insurance plan. FDA has till now authorized 13 rapid at-home test kits and 63 at-home collection tests. As per FDA, at-home test kits deliver results in 10 to 15 minutes, whereas tests require a competent lab technician with a time frame of 12 hours to 5 days. 

The policy from the White House entitles it to cover 8 free over-the-counter at-home tests for each insurer in a month. Hence a family of four under the same insurance plan will get 32 tests covered in a particular month by their insurance company. The motive behind this policy is to make available easy to use, at-home tests free for millions of Americans, as quoted by Health & Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra. The reimbursement of the rapid covid-19 tests is eligible for any purchases made after January 15. 

The list of tests that are covered under the health plan is Abbott BinaxNOW at-home tests, iHealth COVID-19 Antigen Rapid Test, Siemens Healthineers’ rapid COVID-19 antigen self-test, and the Flowflex COVID-19 antigen home tests to name a few. 

Health and Human Services department release state that any individual need not take any prior authorization or rely on copayments and coinsurance for claiming the amount. The insurer has to log on to the website for a claim from their insurance company. 

The US Administration has also emphasized that there will be no limit of Covid-19 tests and at-home tests for an individual if the test is ordered by any health care providers. 

Jeff Zients, who is Coronavirus Response Coordinator from White House, declared that the deliveries of test kits will begin mid-January to the US government for free to the citizens of America.

In order to deliver the free test kits to the American homes of millions, both the White House and US Postal Service are working together to finalize a plan which requires increasing its workforce of US Postal Service.