Conclusions
As outpatient care for people living with
HIV/AIDS continues to increase and HIV
screening tests become a routine part of medical
care, as recommended by the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention,26 it becomes
increasingly important to be able to identify
people living with HIV/AIDS in health insurance
claims data to assess the cost and quality
of HIV care rendered by different providers.
This is particularly true for public insurance
programs. Medicare and Medicaid account for
more than three quarters of domestic federal
spending on HIV/AIDS treatment27 and in
California these 2 programs covered almost
half of people living with HIV/AIDS in 2007.23
As publicly funded insurance, these programs
are of particular importance to policymakers
as they seek to monitor the cost and