Current Guidelines for HIV Screening

The USPSTF currently recommends routine screening for HIV infection for all adults between the ages of 15 and 64, all pregnant women, and persons of any age who are "at risk". The current recommendations were last updated in 2013; before that, the USPSTF did not recommend routine screening for HIV.

The Centers for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC) has been recommending routine screening for HIV since 2006, so the fact that the USPSTF ultimately came to the same conclusion (albeit seven years later) shouldn't have been a big surprise. However, the USPSTF's recommendations carry more weight than the CDC's, because under the Affordable Care Act private insurance companies are required to pay for preventive services that the USPSTF recommends with grades of "A" or "B". These recommendations were given a grade "A" level of approval.

For more on this subject, see a previous blog post titled "A Home Test for HIV".