The HIV Medicine Association (HIVMA) and the American Academy of HIV Medicinetogether representing nearly every HIV care provider in the countryhave joined forces to help assemble the Title III Coalition. Leadership of the Coalition includes providers from a wide range of settings, from Oakland, Calif., to the rural South.
"We are squeezing out everything we can from our available resources, but we cant provide all the services our patients need," said Aimee Wilkin, MD, MPH, Ryan White program director at Wake Forest University Health Sciences in Winston-Salem, NC, and member of the AAHIVM Board of Directors. "Many have substance abuse or mental health problems that would keep them from sticking to their treatment, but we dont have the funds or personnel to provide psychiatric or substance abuse treatment. We end up sending fragile patients into a complex and collapsing public mental health system." She says one such patient has seen four different psychiatrists in the last year.
"Congresss neglect of Title III providers is indefensible," said Michael S. Saag, director of the 1917 Clinic at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and member of the HIVMA Board of Directors. "And the burden will be even greater when the Centers for Disease Control and Preventions new routine testing recommendations go into effect. We hope to start making progress identifying the 25 percent of people who dont know they are infected with HIVbut who will care for all those new patients? Thats why the Title III Coalition is forming: to deliver the message to Congress that more funding is urgently needed."
In addition, the Title III Coalition will give providers a seat at the table when the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), the office that oversees CARE Act programs, implements the newly reauthorized Act.
"Its time HRSA heard from those who ar
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Contact: Steve Baragona
sbaragona@idsociety.org
703-299-0412
Infectious Diseases Society of America
24-Jan-2007