There is some interesting news coming regarding the supply of free test kits from the federal government. The Biden administration has come under a lot of criticism for the lack of testing kits in various regions. The federal government has announced that they are launching a website that will allow Americans to request free test kits.
Federal Website To Request Free Test Kits Coming Soon
The government plans to launch it on Wednesday this week as there is a huge demand for test kits across the US. This will make testing easier and affordable for the public.
The authorities said that there are likely to begin the dispatch of these kits by the end of this month. The people who order these test kits can get reimbursed for that later.
As soon as the service gets activated on January 19, 2022, Americans will be able to order them at the federal government website COVID tests.gov. The authorities said that they would begin shipping in about a week after getting the order through USPS, and the shipping may take about 1 to 3 days on average. In this way, the public will be able to get the test kits in about two weeks after placing the request on the government website.
As per the current guidelines of the CDC, people should test themselves at home when they experience common Covid symptoms. They suggest that people wait for at least five days after getting exposed to potential infection to reduce the number of unwanted pests. Apart from that, the at-home test kits can also be used to meet mandatory test requirements at the workplace and educational institutions.
The public can order up to 4 tests from the government website per residential address, which does not consider the number of people in that particular household. In this way, they want to restrict the test kits as the country is currently facing a severe shortage of test kits.
The new guidelines also make it mandatory for insurance companies to cover up to 8 at-home test kits per month for every person. This applies to private insurers also as per the new guidelines. The idea is to make the entire testing process cost-free for the public. However, it is not likely to happen immediately as there are still some hurdles. In this situation, Americans can buy the tests at local pharmacies and retail outlets during an emergency situation. They can later get reimbursement from the insurance companies after providing suitable reports.
This is a good move by the Biden administration as it will help those people without insurance to get access to these test kits. In this way, the testing process can get a boost, which will help control the rapid spread of the Covid virus across the country. There is still some clarity needed with regards to getting reimbursement from insurers. Given this situation, it would be wise to save the receipts of these test kits so that claims can be made properly in the future.
The federal government has a stock of more than 400 million test kits, and they plan to order about a billion test kits in the near future. The FDA authorizes the test kits, and Americans may get different test kits when they place an order at the government website. However, the testing process is almost the same irrespective of the manufacturer. Apart from that, the test kits also come with detailed instructions to make it easy for the general public to test themselves at home.
All these steps will encourage more testing in the future. This is a beneficial thing for Americans as they get access to affordable testing options to mitigate the spread of Covid 19.
