DEPARTMENT: Health
DEPARTMENT HEAD: Jennifer Herriott, MPH
COUNCIL DISTRICTS IMPACTED: Citywide
SUBJECT:
Ratifying an agreement with the Texas Department of State Health Services for the provision of medications for the treatment of TB and STDs at no cost.
SUMMARY:
An ordinance ratifying an agreement with the Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS) to allow the San Antonio Metropolitan Health District (Metro Health) to receive medications for the treatment of Tuberculosis (TB) and Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STD) for a period beginning August 15, 2019 and ending August 31, 2021.
BACKGROUND INFORMATION:
Metro Health's TB and STD programs are both communicable disease prevention and intervention programs that utilize treatment medications supplied by DSHS for uninsured/underinsured patients. This arrangement has been in place for many years with DSHS at no cost to the local programs. The DSHS now requires an agreement for local health departments to receive free TB and STD treatment medications.
Each medication made available from DSHS is provided to patients seen at our STD/HIV and TB clinics at no cost to the patient. The medications are never sold to the patients and any billing associated with the patient visit pertains to the administration of the medication, not the medication itself. Approximately 15,000 patients are seen at the STD/HIV Clinic each year and a large percentage of the patients receive treatment either at the point of their initial visit as a result of being symptomatic, or when they return to the clinic after receiving positive test results.
Likewise, the TB Program handles all TB cases in Bexar County and will treat on average over 120 active and suspected cases of TB on an annual basis. Staff identified and evaluated nearly 900 contacts to smear positive TB cases in 2018 with the majority of those being treated with medications. TB is unlike any other disease and treatment will require multiple ...
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